Principal Service Designer - 18 Month FTC

Genomics England partners with the NHS to provide whole genome sequencing diagnostics. We also equip researchers to find the causes of disease and develop new treatments – with patients and participants at the heart of it all.

Our mission is to continue refining, scaling, and evolving our ability to enable others to deliver genomic healthcare and conduct genomic research.

We are accelerating our impact and working with patients, doctors, scientists, government and industry to improve genomic testing, and help researchers access the health data and technology they need to make new medical discoveries and create more effective, targeted medicines for everybody.

We are seeking a Principal Service Designer to join us on an 18-month fixed-term contract.

At Genomics England, Principal Service Designers play a pivotal role in shaping and leading the design of our most impactful services and programmes.

Everyday responsibilities include:

• Lead the design of our Healthcare Genomics Service, from design strategy + programme to execution. 
• Identify opportunity areas to explore for service improvements and solutions, based on deep understanding & contextual knowledge of the service and its users, including establishing service governance methods where appropriate. 
• Raise awareness and visibility of design and research work and help upskill colleagues when necessary. 
• Recommend, advocate for and participate in design research. 
• Scope own work and help scope other service designers' work effectively across the service area.  
• Actively coach and mentor fellow designers, helping them grow their skills and confidently tackle complex service challenges. 
• Co-create the service vision and strategy with the Service owners, help the team imagine futures, employing user-centred and data-driven practices. 
• Collaborate efficiently with product and service delivery teams to ensure connectedness and cohesion of the service experience along key touch points, and to ensure experiences can be implemented as intended. 
• Facilitate decision making and co-creation across multiple teams, including internal and external stakeholders, through appropriate methods, innovating on methods where necessary. 
• Understand and mitigate risk through design, aware of the regulatory frameworks and standards that may govern their service, including medical device regulations and Government digital standards. 
• Lead the creation and maintenance of service patterns, standards and tools for new and existing services, ensure they are utilised, maintained and updated to ensure cohesive end to end services. 
• Lead by example by sharing their work, seeking and sharing feedback from colleagues in Design Studio and other relevant team forums. 
• Know and understand the meaning behind our virtues and leadership behaviours and embody them in all aspects of their role. 

Skills and Experience for success:

• You will bring a varied skill set rooted in human-centred design, with strengths in facilitation, systems thinking, prioritization, communication, and stakeholder management. 
• You are well-versed in bringing a user-centred focus to the team’s work, whilst being able to speak the language of various stakeholders in the business from technology to operations to other subject matter experts. 
• You have an innate curiosity to learn more about the domain we are working in, Genomic healthcare and service delivery. 
• You have experience in designing for complex and/or regulated services such as healthcare, logistics, energy, government or finance.  
• You have worked within GDS/NHS standards and understand service design and delivery in public sector context. 
• You have experience in working under quality management and medical device regulations, and are familiar with standards including ISO 13485, 14971 and 62366 (highly preferable).

While qualifications are valuable, we place equal importance on your hands-on experience as a Principal Service Designer.

When applying we ask that you share your portfolio of work, this can be sent as a link or a PDF.

We are also kindly asking candidates to include a cover lettter highlighting how your skills and experience align with the Principal Service Designer role.

Salary from: £92,000

Being an integral part of such a meaningful mission is extremely rewarding in itself, but in order to support our people, we’re continually improving our benefits package. We pride ourselves on investing in our people and supporting them to achieve their career goals, as well as offering a benefits package including: 

• Generous Leave: 30 days’ holiday plus bank holidays, additional leave for long service, and the option to apply for up to 30 days of remote working abroad annually (approval required).
• Family-Friendly: Blended working arrangements, flexible working, enhanced maternity, paternity and shared parental leave benefits.
• Pension & Financial: Defined contribution pension (Genomics England double-matches up to 10%, however you can contribute more if you wish), Life Assurance (3x salary), and a Give As You Earn scheme.
• Learning & Development: Individual learning budgets, support for training and certifications, and reimbursement for one annual professional subscription (approval required).
• Recognition & Rewards: Employee recognition programme and referral scheme.
• Health & Wellbeing: Subsidised gym membership, a free Headspace account, and access to an Employee Assistance Programme, eye tests, flu jabs.

Equal opportunities and our commitment to a diverse and inclusive workplace 

Genomics England is actively committed to providing and supporting an inclusive environment that promotes equity, diversity and inclusion best practice both within our community and in any other area where we have influence. We are proud of our diverse community where everyone can come to work and feel welcomed and treated with respect regardless of any disability, ethnicity, gender, gender identity, religion, sexual orientation, or social background. 

Genomics England’s policies of non-discrimination and equity and will be applied fairly to all people, regardless of age, disability, gender identity or reassignment, marital or civil partnership status, being pregnant or recently becoming a parent, race, religion or beliefs, sex or sexual orientation, length of service, whether full or part-time or employed under a permanent or a fixed-term contract or any other relevant factor.  

Genomics England does not tolerate any form of discrimination, harassment, victimisation or bullying at work. Such behaviour is contrary to our virtues, undermines our mission and core values and diminishes the dignity, respect and integrity of all parties.  Our People policies outline our commitment to inclusivity. 

We aim to remove barriers in our recruitment processes and to be flexible with our interview processes. Should you require any adjustments that may help you to fully participate in the recruitment process, we encourage you to discuss this with us. 

Blended working model

Genomics England operates a blended working model as we know our people appreciate the flexibility that hybrid working can bring. We expect most people to come into the office a minimum of 2 times each month. However, this will vary according to role and will be agreed with your team leader. There is no expectation that people will return to the office full time unless they want to, however, some of our roles require full time on site attendance e.g., lab teams, reception team. 

Our teams and squads have, and will continue to reflect on what works best for them to work together successfully and have the freedom to design working patterns to suit, beyond the minimum. Our office locations are: Canary Wharf, Cambridge and Leeds.

Onboarding background checks

As part of our recruitment process, all successful candidates are subject to a Standard Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) check.  We therefore require applicants to disclose any previous offences at point of application, as some unspent convictions may mean we are unable to proceed with your application due to the nature of our work in healthcare.