Overview

The Home Office works to build a safe, fair, and prosperous UK. We achieve this through our work on counter-terrorism, policing, crime, drugs policy, immigration, and passports.

The Migration and Borders Group (MBG) is responsible for policy, legislation and reform of the immigration systems and acts as a centre for excellence to deliver international interventions and engagement. This work touches many of the most high-profile policy areas for the Home Office, including asylum, migration, nationality, extradition, citizens’ rights, borders and international criminality.

System Design sits at the heart of MBG and supports ministers, the Executive Committee, Policy and Operational Leads. It owns and develops the MBG end-to-end Strategic Design and Business Architecture and facilitates a cross-cutting system approach to services, capabilities and interventions. If you join us, you will find a passionate and encouraging team, committed to the work and to supporting each other.

We are recruiting for a Design Lead to work closely with the business to lead and shape the design for large scale and complex business transformation initiatives as well as smaller scale change to help us improve the services we offer.

You will unite talented teams to drive design innovation, translate business strategy into action, and shape future-ready operating models that power MBG’s strategic transformation.

You will help connect current and future business models, support business architecture, and work closely with stakeholders to ensure designs meet user needs.

As a Design Lead, you’ll be at the heart of strategic transformation—collaborating across operations, strategy, policy, and IT to turn big ideas into practical, impactful designs. You’ll translate strategic goals into clear business architecture, becoming a trusted voice in delivery teams and a key driver of meaningful change. Working alongside experts in business analysis, service design, data, and technology, you will help shape solutions that deliver real results.

If successful, you will initially be assigned to one of our major transformation programmes or services or products. However, over time you may be deployed across a range of transformation or service or capability development activities in support of the Department’s priorities.

Key responsibilities

• Establishing and leading a cross functional design team made up of civil servants, consultants and/or contractors whose purpose will be to deliver design outcomes to the relevant programme or service.
• Developing and maintaining a sequenced design plan to ensure all design effort across the domain is effectively managed, prioritised with clear accountability to the appropriate delivery vehicles whether it be for programmes, projects or services.
• Acting as a mentor and coach to members of the profession, or wider design team as appropriate.
• Applying design to various scenarios across programme and services.
• Supporting colleagues in identifying optimal courses of action, potential impacts and areas of investment identified through business architecture.
• Leading on the development of design workstreams and artefacts that effectively use business architecture and design collateral to translate business strategy into business/solution designs. Integration with other design disciplines to provide a holistic view.
• Shaping and prioritising design activities in the delivery space.
• Identifying pain points in achieving business value, developing designs to address.

Working Pattern

This role is available on a full-time basis with the option of compressed hours working. This role is also suitable for part-time working hours, with a minimum requirement to work four or five days / 30 hours per week due to business requirements. Applications from job share candidates are welcome, but any job offer is conditional upon a viable job-sharing arrangement being available.

Travel

The successful candidate may be required to attend external meetings within the UK based on business need which may include overnight stays. All related costs will be reimbursed in line with Home Office policy.

Recruitment and Retention Allowance

Candidates with exceptional skills and experience may receive a recruitment and retention allowance (RRA) or a Pay Framework Allowance (PFA). This allowance is subject to initial review within six months of taking up the post and thereafter an annual review in-line with departmental priorities and could be reduced or withdrawn at any time. Applications for RRA or PFA will require technical specialism in either Business Architecture, Business Analysis or Service Design.

MBG locations

MBG is currently prioritising recruitment to our Places for Growth locations. However, MBG operates a ‘right to remain’ policy for existing MBG staff currently working at a location outside those listed above. While ‘right to remain’ requests are contingent upon reasonable business need and existing terms and conditions, we will aim to ensure there is no need to move office while supporting your career and development within MBG.

Technical skills

Successful candidates will have a design professional background that can be applied to lead cross functional design teams of Business Architects, Business Analysts and Service Design. You will be assessed against the technical skills listed below during the selection process which is against the SFIA 8 Framework.

Qualifications

Whilst design leads need to have the capability to work across design professions to deliver rounded design outcomes, you will have a background in either Business Architecture, Business Analysis or Service Design. As such the post holder must hold or be actively working towards obtaining either a:-

• Certified Business Architect (CBA) qualification by the Business Architecture Guild, or
• BCS International Diploma in Business Analysis or other equivalent qualification.

This can be obtained whilst the candidate is in post.