Service Designer / UX Designer (Public Sector)

Company Description

Version 1 has celebrated 30 years in business and continues to be trusted by global brands to deliver technology and transformation solutions that drive customer success. Our deep expertise enables our customers to navigate the rapidly evolving technology landscape. We foster strong partnerships with global technology leaders including Microsoft, AWS, Oracle, Red Hat, OutSystems, Snowflake, ensuring that our customers are provided with the highest quality solutions and services.

We’re an award-winning employer reflecting how our employees are at the very heart of what we do:

• UK & Ireland's premier AWS, Microsoft & Oracle partner

• 3300+ strong, €350/£300m revenue business

• 10+ years as a Great Place to Work in Ireland & UK

• Best Workplace for Women in the UK & Ireland by GPTW

• Best Workplace for Wellbeing in the UK by GPTW

We’re a core values driven company, we hire people who share our values, and we reward those who display and foster them, it’s deeply embedded within our DNA. Invest in us and we’ll invest in you!

Job Description

We are seeking an experienced Service Designer to support the design, transformation, and continuous improvement of user-centred services within a complex public sector environment.

This role focuses on understanding user needs, generating actionable insights through research, facilitating stakeholder engagement, and designing end-to-end services that improve outcomes for citizens, customers, and internal users.

This is a Service Designer first, UX Designer second role, with a strong emphasis on service redesign, user research, accessibility, stakeholder engagement, and organisational transformation rather than purely visual UI design.

The successful candidate will work across discovery, design, testing, implementation, and optimisation activities, ensuring services are user-centred, accessible, evidence-based, and aligned with organisational objectives.

Key Responsibilities

Service Design & Transformation

• Deliver end-to-end service design projects from problem definition through to implementation and continuous improvement.
• Apply service design methodologies to understand current and future-state service experiences.
• Create service blueprints, customer journey maps, ecosystem maps, service models, and service improvement recommendations.
• Design and improve services using user-centred and evidence-based approaches.
• Support service transformation initiatives within complex organisational environments.
• Translate user, business, operational, and technical requirements into practical service design solutions.
• Develop and test service concepts, prototypes, and future-state experiences.

User Research & Customer Insight

• Plan and conduct qualitative and quantitative user research activities.
• Conduct user interviews, stakeholder interviews, field research, observation studies, workshops, and surveys.
• Design and facilitate usability testing activities.
• Analyse and synthesise research findings into actionable insights and recommendations.
• Produce research reports, findings, and presentations for stakeholders.
• Develop personas, user stories, customer journeys, and requirements.
• Support decision-making through evidence-led design recommendations.

Service Design & UX Design

• Create:

  • Service blueprints
  • Customer journey maps
  • Personas
  • Storyboards
  • User flows
  • Information architecture artefacts

• Produce low-fidelity and high-fidelity wireframes and prototypes.

• Design user-centred services and experiences aligned with user, business, and operational needs.

• Contribute to design systems, standards, and style guides.

• Ensure consistency across products, services, and channels.

• Utilise tools such as Figma, Miro, and Canva to ideate, collaborate, and communicate design solutions.

Stakeholder Engagement & Facilitation

• Facilitate workshops, design sprints, discovery sessions, and co-creation activities.
• Collaborate with senior stakeholders, subject matter experts, business representatives, delivery teams, and technical teams.
• Present research findings, concepts, and recommendations to both technical and non-technical audiences.
• Build consensus across multidisciplinary teams and support stakeholder alignment.
• Promote user-centred design practices throughout project delivery.

Accessibility & Inclusive Design

• Apply Universal Design principles throughout the design process.
• Ensure services meet accessibility requirements and inclusive design standards.
• Incorporate accessibility testing and validation into project delivery.
• Promote accessible service design practices across projects and teams.
• Support compliance with accessibility legislation, standards, and best practices.

UX Strategy & Continuous Improvement

• Contribute to UX and Service Design strategies.
• Promote user-centred design practices and ways of working.
• Support the development of service performance measures and monitoring approaches.
• Use user feedback, analytics, and research findings to inform service improvements.
• Demonstrate measurable outcomes and service improvements through design interventions.

Knowledge Transfer & Capability Building

• Produce user guides, training materials, and research documentation.
• Support capability building within teams and organisations.
• Coach and mentor junior designers where appropriate.
• Facilitate structured knowledge transfer and skills development activities.
• Contribute to the development of service design and UX practices.

AI in Service Design

• Use AI tools to support:

  • User research
  • Insight generation
  • Service design activities
  • Content synthesis
  • Design exploration and ideation

• Ensure AI usage aligns with organisational policies, governance requirements, and responsible design practices.

Qualifications

Essential Requirements

• Minimum 4+ years' experience in Service Design or a related discipline including:

  • UX Design
  • Interaction Design
  • Human-Computer Interaction (HCI)
  • Organisation Design
  • Product Design
  • User-Centred Design

• Design-related qualification at NFQ Level 7 or above (or equivalent).

• Experience delivering end-to-end service design projects from discovery through implementation and optimisation.

• Experience working within structured project and delivery environments.

• Experience conducting:

  • User interviews
  • Field research
  • Survey design and analysis
  • Qualitative and quantitative usability testing
  • Research synthesis and reporting

• Experience creating:

  • Customer journey maps
  • Service blueprints
  • Personas
  • Storyboards
  • User stories
  • Wireframes
  • Prototypes

• Experience gathering and documenting requirements.

• Experience facilitating:

  • Workshops
  • Co-creation sessions
  • Discovery sessions
  • Design sprints

• Experience working with:

  • Figma
  • Miro
  • Canva

• Experience contributing to design systems and style guides.

• Strong written, verbal, and visual communication skills.

• Experience working with multidisciplinary teams and engaging effectively with senior stakeholders.

• Knowledge of:

  • Universal Design Principles
  • Web Accessibility Directive
  • Accessible service design practices

Desirable Requirements

• Experience working within the public sector or other large, complex, public-facing organisations.
• Experience delivering service transformation or digital transformation programmes.
• Experience contributing to service design or UX strategy development.
• Experience developing service metrics, KPIs, or monitoring approaches.
• Experience using AI-enabled tools within the design process.
• Experience creating and maintaining design systems and style guides.
• Experience coaching, mentoring, or supporting junior team members.
• Familiarity with Agile, Design Thinking, Double Diamond, Service Design, or Lean UX methodologies.

What Will Strengthen an Application

Applications will be particularly strong where candidates can demonstrate:

• Public sector experience.
• Complex transformation programme experience.
• Strong user research credentials.
• Service blueprinting and customer journey mapping expertise.
• Workshop facilitation with senior stakeholders.
• Strong Figma and Miro capabilities.
• Accessibility and inclusive design experience.
• Evidence of measurable service improvements and outcomes.
• Experience promoting user-centred design practices.
• Knowledge transfer, coaching, and capability-building experience.

Additional Information

At Version 1, we believe in providing our employees with a comprehensive benefits package that prioritises their wellbeing, professional growth, and financial stability.

• Salary Range: €45,000-€55,000

• Share in our success with our Quarterly Performance-Related Profit Share Scheme, where employees collectively benefit from a share of our company's profits

• Strong Career Progression & mentorship coaching through our Strength in Balance & Leadership schemes with a dedicated quarterly Pathways Career Development programme

• Flexible/remote working, Version 1 is tremendously understanding of life events and people’s individual circumstances and offer flexibility to help achieve a healthy work life balance

• Financial Wellbeing initiatives including; Version 1 Pension with a 5% employee-matched contribution, Private Healthcare Cover, Life Assurance, Financial advice and an Employee Discount scheme

• Employee Wellbeing schemes including Gym Discounts, Bike to Work, Fitness classes, Mindfulness Workshops, Employee Assistance Programme and much more.

• 24 days holiday allowance plus Public Holidays, enhanced maternity/paternity leave, marriage/civil partnership leave and special leave policies

• Educational assistance, incentivised certifications, and accreditations, including AWS, Microsoft, Oracle, and Red Hat

• Reward schemes including Version 1’s Annual Excellence Awards & quarterly Star Awards.

• Environment, Social and Community First initiatives allow you to get involved in local fundraising and development opportunities as part of fostering our diversity, inclusion and belonging schemes.

And many more exciting benefits… drop us a note to find out more.

Version 1 is an equal opportunities employer

We are committed to building a diverse, inclusive and respectful workplace where everyone feels valued and able to thrive. We welcome applications from people of all backgrounds, identities and lived experiences, and we value the different perspectives people bring including those shaped by disability and neurodiversity.

We want every candidate to have a positive and accessible recruitment experience. If you need reasonable adjustments at any stage of the process, please contact your recruiter at Version 1. We will consider all requests carefully, respectfully and confidentially.

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