Lead Accessibility Specialist

Overview

The Government Digital Service (GDS) is the digital centre of government, responsible for setting, leading and delivering a vision for a modern digital government across the UK. As part of the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT), GDS brings together a multidisciplinary team of digital professionals to solve the nation’s highest‑priority challenges and build inclusive public services.

Responsibilities

• Work with the Head of Design for GOV.UK to define and implement an ambitious Accessibility and Inclusion strategy for the GOV.UK estate.
• Act as a subject‑matter expert and escalation point, providing practical support and strategic advice to teams and senior leaders.
• Support GOV.UK programme and delivery teams in creating multi‑channel, accessible and inclusive services that meet WCAG 2.2 standards and include effective assisted‑digital support models where needed.
• Champion co‑design and ongoing research with disabled users and those with broader inclusion needs, ensuring their lived experience directly shapes service design and delivery.
• Develop rigorous methods for tracking, measuring, assuring and documenting accessibility across the GOV.UK estate, and introduce processes to embed accessibility into all project, programme and change activities.
• Lead on meeting legal accessibility obligations for GOV.UK, translating requirements, standards and legislation into actionable guidance for project teams.
• Manage, coach and develop a team of accessibility specialists and designers, ensuring continuous learning and skill transfer.
• Act as an active and engaged leader within GDS and the wider government accessibility community, encouraging cross‑organisation collaboration and contribution.
• Help identify and fix complex accessibility problems within public infrastructure and focus on large‑scale service design improvements that increase efficiency, simplicity and speed of service delivery.

Qualifications

• Track record of turning accessibility and inclusion strategy into tangible outcomes within large, complex organisations, preferably in the public sector.
• Experience setting direction, making decisions, evaluating impact and contributing to strategic discussions at senior levels.
• Deep understanding of the needs of digitally excluded users and a clear explanation of how to remove barriers for them.
• Demonstrated experience establishing, promoting and applying accessibility standards and best‑practice guidance to products and services.
• Proven track record of helping delivery teams build services that meet the needs of users who are digitally excluded or have access requirements.
• Thorough technical knowledge of assistive hardware, software and accessibility testing methods.

Additional information

DSIT holds a Visa sponsorship licence but this campaign does not qualify for sponsorship. Potential candidates must be eligible to work in the UK.

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