Lead Designer

Salary: £55,832 - £65,350 (depending on skills and experience)

Contract Type: Permanent

Apply by: 10:00am on Wednesday 4th October

Interviews to be held: Likely mid-October and early November

Alternative flexible working options available and open to discussion

To view the full role profile, click here

At Camden, we value and celebrate difference and encourage diversity in all respects. Our diverse workforce ensures we represent our communities to the best of our ability and enables us to make better decisions. Because of this, we want our recruitment process to be as inclusive and as accessible as possible and we recognise that requires us to be as flexible as we can whilst also preserving the integrity of a fair and transparent process.

Similarly, we appreciate that people’s individual skills and experience may not neatly map to a particular role profile and encourage applications from other professions

So if you have questions about the role, Camden as a whole, or would like to discuss alternative ways to showcase your interest and expertise, then please attend one of our open events or get in touch with Alejandra Diaz alejandra.diaz@camden.gov.uk.  

About Camden:

Camden is building somewhere everyone can thrive by making our borough the best place to live, work, study, and visit. We’re not just home to the UK's fastest-growing economy - we’re focused on creating a borough in which everyone can live a good life and nobody gets left behind.

We have a clear vision - to organise the right people and skills around challenges (like our missions) to deliver the best outcomes for Camden residents and renewal after the pandemic. 

Camden has a proud, rebellious spirit that throughout its history has seen communities come together to tackle problems and bring about real social change. We’re willing to be bold and try new things in the process.

But don’t just take our word for it - you can read about some of the different people working in the Council. 

About the Lead Designer role:

The role of the Lead Designer is to shape the practice of how we do design and support the team to deliver high-quality, impactful work.

As Lead Designer at Camden, you will take a lead role in the design community across Camden, setting standards and leading the design of new policies and services.  You’ll directly lead on our most complex and collaborative priority areas, working with a multidisciplinary team from our wider design community and service areas, acting as the bridge between transformational goals and the practicalities of delivery.

You will lead by example by being the senior practitioner of the team, working through early scoping, problem definition and framing, and policy development through to practical delivery on the ground. You’ll work with residents, partners and council colleagues with a relentless focus on what citizens need from local public services.  

The new Lead Designer will work as part of the Strategy & Design Team. Collectively, the work of this team spans the whole breadth of Council’s work with a current focus on preventative health and social care, creating thriving communities for our social housing tenants, and proactively supporting those experiencing financial hardship.

We champion new and different ways of solving problems, promote inclusive and equitable approaches within delivery, and create a culture of continuous improvement to ensure that we achieve the outcomes that meet the needs and expectations of both our residents and staff in a sustainable way.

To view the full role profile, click here

The application process:

1. Optional: Book a chat and/or attend our open house event - to get a better sense if this role would be right for you and to find out more about the work we do, we hope you’ll take us up on the offer to book a place on one our virtual open house events or book in a short, friendly chat with Alejandra Diaz alejandra.diaz@camden.gov.uk. 
2. Complete a short application via the “Apply” link at the bottom of this page - we anonymise all applications to reduce bias in the hiring process by placing greater emphasis on candidates’ relevant skills and experience.

We want to give everyone the same chance to showcase their relevant skills and experience so we ask you to follow a set formula and answer in the section ‘ application questions’. It should clearly answer these four prompts, in order:

• Tell us about a time where you have led teams to design a policy, service or strategy: what was your approach to enable others to deliver high quality work and ensure that it led to impactful change? 
• Tell us about a time where you've helped shape a team's approach to design. How did you help build capability in others, or make it easier for others to do good design work? 
• Tell us about a time where you have ensured equity and inclusion in the design of policies, services or standards. This might relate the process in how things were designed, or the outcomes and outputs from that process. 
• Reflecting on the Lead Designer role and the job profile, what question do you think we should have asked as part of this application and how would you have answered it?

Please ignore the ‘why me’ statement field. 

1. 1-hour interview with 3 Camden staff - we’ll send you the 4-5 questions and short presentation task in advance, and ensure that there’s plenty of time at the interview for you to ask any questions you have at this stage in the process
2. Offer and feedback - if you’re successful at the interview stage, we’ll contact you with the details of your job offer, along with some feedback on your performance throughout the process
3. Onboarding - once your offer is accepted and the start date agreed, we’ll make sure there’s a plan in place for your first few weeks to make sure you have the information and support needed to ease into your career at Camden.

We know that applying for roles is a time-consuming process and we want to make sure that we respect and appreciate the time and energy you put into applying for this role at the Council. Therefore, no matter what stage of the process you get to and no matter whether your application is successful or not, we will always take the time to provide you with specific, personal feedback on your performance in the application process.