Deputy Director, Product Design App & Agentic Services

The Government Digital Service (GDS) is the digital centre of government. We are responsible for setting, leading and delivering the vision for a modern digital government.

Our priorities are to drive a modern digital government, by:

• joining up public sector services
• harnessing the power of AI for the public good
• strengthening and extending our digital and data public infrastructure
• elevating leadership and investing in talent
• funding for outcomes and procuring for growth and innovation
• committing to transparency and driving accountability

We are home to the Incubator for Artificial Intelligence (I.AI), the world-leading GOV.UK and at the forefront of coordinating the UK’s geospatial strategy and activity. We lead the Government Digital and Data function and champion the work of digital teams across government.

We’re part of the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT) and employ more than 1,000 people all over the UK, with hubs in Manchester, London and Bristol.

The Government Digital Service is where talent translates into impact. From your first day, you’ll be working with some of the world’s most highly-skilled digital professionals, all contributing their knowledge to make change on a national scale.

Join us for rewarding work that makes a difference across the UK. You'll solve some of the nation’s highest-priority digital challenges, helping millions of people access services they need

As Deputy Director Product Design for the Products & Services directorate within GDS Digital Products, your mission will be to lead a team in designing and developing the strategic products that shape the experience between citizen and government across our App and AI experiences. This is a hands-on design role at the centre of digital government, and the teams responsible for delivering next generation digital services.

You will use your significant design experience, digital expertise and innovation leadership to influence, shape, and deliver frontier experiences across the GOV.UK App, while leveraging established products in their next lifecycle phase to meet these new channels.

You will drive new user experiences for app and AI chat interfaces and agentic experiences, as part of multi-channel services and personalised experiences. You will think about the design experience of a range of cohorts, including the next generation of users. You will be working with new design roles within government and ways of working that encompass these new paradigms.

You will be a great collaborator who can rapidly understand and meet user needs, context, and constraints, breaking down perceived barriers to design-led progress.

Critically, this role harnesses two significant design challenges - designing new experiences and developing patterns that do not currently exist for eg, agents for government, alongside developing and delivering user experiences that amplify the next stage of established products like the GOV.UK App. The immediate outcomes include designing the high volume nation scale driving experiences across app, the next phase of GOV.UK Chat including testing of agentic tech with the significant challenge of trust as brand new patterns, alongside designing user experiences in data sharing spaces that are, again, new in government.

This job is broadly open to the following groups:

• UK nationals
• nationals of the Republic of Ireland
• nationals of Commonwealth countries who have the right to work in the UK
• nationals of the EU, Switzerland, Norway, Iceland or Liechtenstein and family members of those nationalities with settled or pre-settled status under the European Union Settlement Scheme (EUSS) (opens in a new window)
• nationals of the EU, Switzerland, Norway, Iceland or Liechtenstein and family members of those nationalities who have made a valid application for settled or pre-settled status under the European Union Settlement Scheme (EUSS)
• individuals with limited leave to remain or indefinite leave to remain who were eligible to apply for EUSS on or before 31 December 2020
• Turkish nationals, and certain family members of Turkish nationals, who have accrued the right to work in the Civil Service

Further information on nationality requirements (opens in a new window)

The standard selection process for roles at GDS consists of:

• a simple application screening process - We only ask for a CV and cover letter of up to 750 words and a URL to your portfolio . Important tip - please ensure that your cover letter includes how you meet the skills and experience listed in the “person specification” section above
• a 105 minute video interview, which will include a task as part of the interview process

Depending on how many applications we get, there might also be an extra stage before the video interview, for example a phone interview or a technical exercise.

In the event we receive a high volume of applications, we will conduct the initial sift against the lead criteria which is:

• demonstrable experience of developing scaled, citizen facing products leveraging AI and/or Agentic technology

In the Civil Service, we use Success Profiles to evaluate your skills and ability. This gives us the best possible chance of finding the right person for the job, increases performance and improves diversity and inclusivity. We’ll be assessing your technical abilities, skills, experience and behaviours that are relevant to this role.

For this role we’ll be assessing you against the following Civil Service Behaviours:

• leadership
• making effective decisions
• communicating and influencing
• delivering at pace

Recruitment Timeline

Sift completion: week commencing Monday 16th November 2026

Panel interviews: starting week commencing Monday 20th November 2026

Candidates that do not pass the interview but have demonstrated an acceptable standard may be considered for similar roles at a lower grade.

A reserve list will be held for a period of 12 months, from which further appointments can be made.

The Civil Service is committed to attract, retain and invest in talent wherever it is found. To learn more please see the Civil Service People Plan and the Civil Service D&I Strategy.

Please note that this role requires SC clearance, which would normally need 5 years’ UK residency in the past 5 years. This is not an absolute requirement, but supplementary checks may be needed where individuals have not lived in the UK for that period. This may mean your security clearance (and therefore your appointment) will take longer or, in some cases, not be possible.

For meaningful checks to be carried out, you will need to have lived in the UK for a sufficient period of time, to enable appropriate checks to be carried out and produce a result which provides the required level of assurance. Whilst a lack of UK residency in itself is not necessarily a bar to a security clearance, and expectation of UK residency may range from 3 to 5 years. Failure to meet the residency requirements needed for the role may result in the withdrawal of provisional jobs offers.

Sponsorship

DSIT cannot offer Visa sponsorship to candidates through this campaign. DSIT holds a Visa sponsorship licence but this can only be used for certain roles and this campaign does not qualify.

Feedback will only be provided if you attend an interview or assessment.