Lead Content Designer (Milton Keynes, ENG, GB, MK7 6AA)
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About the Role
The role of Lead Content Designer sits within Digital Services which is aligned with the Digital, Data and Design Profession which provides for communities of practice which supports professional development. The focus of this role will be to lead the content strategy, and the creation and management of user centred content across services and products to ensure the best possible outcomes for our users.
The role sits within the Design Profession in Digital Services and reports into the Head of UX, Interaction and Content Design.
Your main accountability will be the vision, strategy and design of content across services that are especially complex, high risk or sensitive. You will also be responsible for the development of the Open Universitys wider content design strategy. They will line manage Senior content designers and support their professional development.
Key Responsibilities
As a Lead Content Designer at The Open University, you will:
- Lead content design, strategy and information architecture across a service area containing multiple agile teams, working in collaboration with senior leadership and teams to ensure the service meets user needs, and aligns with and feeds into the organisational content strategy.
- Lead on the development and application of content and format strategies that work across the OUs content and service landscape, in line with industry best practice, collaborating with other disciplines as required to implement these strategies.
- Lead and coach more junior content designers to design and improve content within a service, and design and improve content across more complex services or service areas with a strategic and holistic mindset.
- Champion usability, accessibility, accuracy and consistency in content design.
- Create space and right conditions for good content design within teams, and across a service area.
- Lead teams and other content designers to identify the needs of users and how well content is performing using analytics, user feedback, user research and other sources of information, to inform content design decisions.
- Enable content designers to identify and collaborate effectively with stakeholders and subject matter experts in the content design process.
- Line manage other content designers, supporting their professional development, providing pastoral care and supporting them to do their best work within their teams.
- Establish, maintain and improve team processes, templates and guidance to ensure content design consistency and best practice across style, accessibility, and usability.
- Lead in the development and sharing of knowledge and best practice in content design, and support internal stakeholders across the OU on content design, including content management standards and content style guide.
- Be a leader and ambassador of the Open Universitys User Centred Design Communities of Practice, contributing to our collective knowledge and skills, and joining up to make the design of our content and services more consistent.
- Work with leadership to develop the role of content design in holistically improving the OUs products and services, and the organisations approach to being service led and focused on user needs.
- Enable content designers to negotiate, plan, allocate, manage and deliver content design work across your service area, collaborating where needed, while also managing BAU or unplanned content support work.
- Identify capacity and capability gaps in your teams, working closely with senior leadership to fill those gaps, and identify opportunities for specialist learning and development for yourself and others.
- Support other content designers to on board and upskill in content management tools, systems, processes and principles, and manage content management system (CMS) and content tools including permissions.
- Keep up to date in developments in user centred design, content design, trends and technologies, and share with the wider content design team to build a deep understanding and appreciation of best practice in this field.
About You
- Extensive experience designing, improving and publishing user-centred digital content.
- Strong understanding of how the web works and how to design effective online content.
- Expert knowledge of user-centred design principles and applying accessibility & usability requirements to the design & delivery of service content.
- Proficient in using analytics, user research and user feedback to inform content decisions and improvements.
- Experienced in developing content strategies, improving content processes and using content management systems.
- Proven ability to lead content design work in agile, complex and ambiguous environments.
- Skilled at prioritising, planning and delivering content design projects independently and collaboratively.
- Experienced in coaching, mentoring and establishing content design best practice within and across teams.
- Strong collaborator, able to engage multidisciplinary teams throughout the content design process.
- Experienced in working with stakeholders to understand their issues while maintaining content quality, representing content design both internally and externally.
- Excellent written and verbal communication skills, with the ability to influence, negotiate and advocate for user needs.
- Demonstrates curiosity, initiative, continuous improvement and openness to constructive feedback.
- Committed to professional development with theability to carry out the role in a way that is consistent with equality legislation and the Universitys values and relevant policies.
Support with your application
If you have any questions, or need support or adjustments relating to your application, the recruitment process, or the role, please contact us on 01908 541111 or email careers@open.ac.uk quoting the advert reference number.
What's in it for you?
At The Open University, we offer a range of benefits to recognise and reward great work, alongside policies and flexible working that contribute towards a great work life balance. Get all the details of what benefits we offer by visiting our Staff Benefits page (clicking this link will open a new window).
Flexible working
We are open to discussions about flexible working. Whether its a job share, part time, compressed hours or another working arrangement. Please reach out to us to discuss what works best for you.
It is anticipated that a hybrid working pattern can be adopted for this role, where the successful candidate can work from home and the office. However, as this role is contractually aligned to our Milton Keynes office it is expected that some attendance in the office will be required when necessary and in response to business needs. Wed expect this to be approximately once per month.
Next steps in the Recruitment process
We anticipate that interviews for this role will be taking place online via Microsoft Teams during the week commencing 24 August 2026.
Early closing date notification
While most roles will remain open until the advertised closing date, applications may be reviewed on an ongoing basis. In some cases, vacancies may close earlier if a sufficient number of suitable applications have been received and equality impacts have been appropriately considered. All roles will remain advertised for a minimum of one week before any early closure is implemented.
If you have started an application or were in the process of applying when the advert closed, we encourage you to get in touch. We are committed to understanding individual circumstances and can offer further support where needed, including reasonable adjustments for applicants with protected characteristics.
How to apply
To apply for this role please submit the following documents:
- CV
- A supporting statement of up to 1000 words. You should set out in your statement why you are interested in the role and provide examples of where your skills and experience meet the essential requirments for this role as detailed in the job description.
You can view your progress and application communications when you are logged into our recruitment system. Please check your spam/junk folders if you do not receive associated email updates.
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