Lead Service Designer

We’re looking for a Lead Service Designer to help us make a difference to our planet.

This job may be suitable for hybrid working, which is where an employee works part of the week in the office and part of the week from home. This is a voluntary, non-contractual arrangement and the location advertised will be your contractual place of work.

Our opportunity is full time, 37 hours per week, but we would also consider applicants wishing to work a minimum of 30 hours per week and we will also try our best to consider those intending to work a job share. Our people are at the heart of what we do and we'll do our best to agree a working pattern that works for everyone.

World changing work

From science to technology, from meteorology to management, and from planning to communication, our expertise helps us stand out as the authority on weather accuracy and climate prediction. We help individuals, industries and government to make better decisions to stay safe and thrive. This is the Met Office. This is who we are.

• We’re a force for good - focusing on our environmental and social impact
• We’re experts by nature - always learning and developing to do things better
• We live and breathe it - putting our purpose at the heart of decision-making
• We’re better together - understanding partnerships and inclusivity make us greater
• We keep evolving - pushing boundaries to make tomorrow better for our customers

Your world of expertise

As a Lead Service Designer, you’ll play a pivotal role in transforming how the Met Office designs and delivers services, ensuring user needs are at the heart of every decision. Working within a multidisciplinary team alongside a Service Owner, you’ll lead our transition from a complex product portfolio to best-in-class end-to-end services. You will influence senior stakeholders and help embed a user-centred, evidence-based culture that delivers meaningful outcomes for government, industry and the public.

Your key duties:

• Lead the transition, design and continuous improvement of complex service lines, ensuring services are user-centred, evidence-based and aligned to our customer-centric Met Office strategy.
• Provide strategic direction, quality assurance and leadership across multidisciplinary teams, embedding best practice service design approaches and standards.
• Influence and challenge senior stakeholders, using user insight and evidence to guide decision-making and ensure services meet genuine user needs.
• Develop service strategies, service blueprints, user journeys and other service design artefacts that shape the delivery of effective end-to-end services.
• Champion and grow user-centred design across the organisation by mentoring colleagues, improving service design capability, and promoting inclusive, accessible and sustainable design practices

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)

How to apply

If you share our values, we’d love to hear from you! Click apply to begin your application. Please complete your career history and provide evidence against each of the essential criteria in the supporting statement questionnaire. We recommend candidates use the CARL method (Context, Action, Result and Learning) for presenting evidence of experience and skills.

Closing date 31 August 2026 at 23:59 with first stage interviews commencing from 14 September 2026. You will hear from us once the closing date has passed.

Using AI in your application

We welcome applications that use AI tools for support in drafting or refining, as long as they accurately reflect your own skills and experience. All hiring decisions at the Met Office are made by people, not AI. For more details, visit our approach to recruitment.

How we can help

If you have any questions or would like to discuss this opportunity further, please contact us at careers@metoffice.gov.uk.

If you’re considering applying and need support to do so, please get in touch. You can request adjustments either within your application or by contacting us. Should you be offered an interview, please be aware there may be a selection exercise which could include a presentation, written test or a scenario-based activity. You can select in your application to be considered under the Disability Confident Scheme. To be invited to interview/assessment under this scheme, your application must meet the essential criteria for the role.

We understand that great minds don’t always think alike and as an equal opportunities employer we welcome applications from those with all protected characteristics. We recruit on merit, fairness, and open competition in line with the Civil Service Code.

We can only accept applications from those eligible to live and work in the UK - please refer to GOV.UK for information. We require Security clearance, for which you need to have resided in the UK for at least 3 of the last 5 years to be eligible, 2 of these years must be immediately preceding the point of your application. You will need to achieve full security clearance prior to starting with us.

You will need full Security Check Clearance for this role. Although its not an essential requirement for this post, we may require Service Designers to have or be able to attain a successful Developed Vetting clearance in the future. You can find out more about the clearance process at United Kingdom Security Vetting - GOV.UK

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