Overview
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Salary and Location
Salary: £46,062 (National) or £50,182 (Croydon) plus up to £11,338 skills allowance, pending assessment
Location: Croydon, Manchester or Sheffield (hybrid with 60% office attendance)
Close Date: 11:55pm Tuesday 20th January 2026
Please note: This role requires Security Check (SC) clearance, which would normally need 5 years’ UK residency in the past 5 years.
About CoLab
The Home Office Policy and Innovation Lab (CoLab) is a creative team of service designers, user researchers, content designers and behavioural scientists that work closely with policy and operations teams from across the Home Office to bring user-centred and explorative approaches to policy making.
CoLab works in policy spaces that require a deeper understanding of service users. Projects you could work on could include:
- Improving the Windrush Compensation Scheme application process, to make it more user-friendly, accessible and trauma-informed
- Refreshing the Life in the UK test to better support people as they prepare to get settled status or become citizens
- Working in passports to speed up the processing of people’s applications
- Identifying ways to support criminal justice system actors to tackle organised crime groups involved in organised immigration crime.
Essential skills
You will be assessed against the following skills and experience during the selection process:
- Prototyping and concept creation: able to independently develop prototypes and sketches for more complex projects. Able to use design software or physical mock-ups or code to visualise and test concepts.
- Service design: independently contributes to the design and implementation of services or policies, ensuring they meet user needs and target outcomes. Participates in managing the design process for smaller projects
- Accessibility and inclusion: able to regularly apply accessibility standards to their work and begins to understand the broader aspects of inclusive design
- Service analysis: independently maps and analyses service processes from a user perspective. Identifies opportunities for improvement and frames problems in terms of user needs
- Collaboration: actively facilitates group activities and seeks feedback for continuous improvement
- Communicate, persuade and advocate: comfortable advocating for UCD principles to peers and immediate stakeholders through well-prepared presentations. Plans and facilitates engaging workshops to engage different stakeholders.
The essential skills listed above are reflective of the Home Office Government Digital and Data Profession Career Framework.
Benefits
- A civil service pension with employer contribution rates of at least 28.97%.
- In-year reward scheme for one-off or sustained exceptional personal or team achievements.
- The ability to potentially adopt flexible working options that suit your work/life balance, plus the opportunity in future to take a career break.
- 25 days annual leave on appointment, rising with service.
- Eight days public holidays, plus one additional privilege day.
- 26 weeks maternity, adoption or shared parental leave at full pay, followed by 13 weeks statutory pay and a further 13 weeks unpaid, after qualifying service.
- Maternity and adoption support leave (also known as paternity leave) of two weeks full pay, after qualifying service.
- Paid leave for fostering approval processes, support when a child is substantively placed with you plus a foster to adopt policy.
- Support for guardians and kinship carers.
- Corporate membership of ‘Employers for Carers’ providing additional information and advice for carers, plus a ‘Carer’s Passport’ to discuss workplace needs and underpin supportive conversations.
- Time off to deal with emergencies and certain other unplanned special circumstances.
Application
Please click on the apply now to be redirected to the full job advert and our application portal.
Seniority level
Employment type
Job function
- Information Technology, Design, and Business Development
Industries
- Government Administration, Design Services, and IT System Design Services
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