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Chief design officer

Find out what a chief design officer in the Senior Civil Service does and the skills you need to do the role.

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What a chief design officer does

A chief design officer ensures the organisation is designing government policy and public services around the needs of users.

They enable the organisation to effectively deliver outcomes for users and government through learning, experimentation, and iteration.

In this role, you will:

  • ensure that design is a core part of the organisational strategy and informs its development
  • ensure that processes for creating government policy and delivering services involve effective research and design practices
  • support other senior leaders to adopt user-centred and systems design approaches as ways to reduce risk early, increase efficiency and achieve their objectives
  • ensure that the outcomes the organisation is responsible for delivering are measurable and centred around users
  • work with other senior leaders to identify opportunities for, and implement, sharing and reuse of common components, patterns and architecture
  • enable a culture of using evidence-based problem definition, innovation and experimentation to make decisions and solve problems throughout the organisation
  • ensure the organisation invests in the skills and tools that design leaders need to build and lead their teams effectively

A specific chief design officer job can vary depending on the context and challenges in your organisation.

This role is often performed at the Civil Service job grade of:

  • SCS 1 (Senior Civil Service 1)
  • SCS 2 (Senior Civil Service 2)

Skills for chief design officer

Skill Description, including examples of leadership

Design for organisation strategy

You can:

  • enable research and design practices to be used in the development of the organisational strategy
  • ensure that evidence about people’s lived experience is informing your organisation’s priorities and those of wider government
  • create a vision for how design will enable everyone in the organisation to improve outcomes for users and government

Examples of leadership using this skill:

  • working with other leaders in public and private sector organisations to understand which problem areas may need holistic solutions
  • leading other senior leaders in using design practice to develop the organisational strategy together

Governance and evaluation design

You can:

  • adapt the governance and assurance model of your organisation so that it can effectively design and deliver user-centred policy and services
  • incorporate existing cross-government governance frameworks into the organisation
  • ensure design quality across the organisation is assessed against defined outcomes and cross-government standards
  • iterate design governance and ways of working based on learning from evaluating policy and services

Examples of leadership using this skill:

  • demonstrating to other senior leaders how better governance and evaluation results in higher quality outcomes and cost savings
  • building trust in governance processes so that people close to the work are empowered to make critical design decisions
  • working with senior stakeholders in other business areas on how to improve their own governance processes

Making strategic performance-led change

You can:

  • partner with other business areas to set the metrics needed to measure progress towards organisational objectives
  • monitor performance, recognising when to change the direction of the organisation
  • work with your partners to decide people, process and technology changes based on performance data

Examples of leadership using this skill:

  • sharing performance indicators that are important for digital, data and technology with senior leaders in a way that influences metrics across the organisation
  • translating performance insights into required change, negotiating with senior leaders to see this change through
  • communicating performance-led insights and recommendations to the board that identify opportunities, highlight risks and show progress

Embedding design in different disciplines and contexts

You can:

  • identify areas of the organisation that would most benefit from increasing user-centred practices in ways of working
  • work with other senior leaders to embed user-centred practices in the operating model of the organisation
  • optimise the extent that you can meet user needs using the organisation’s resources

Examples of leadership using this skill:

  • making the case at all levels that established design practices can reduce the risk that the wrong things are delivered or procured
  • persuading leaders across parts of the organisation to try new approaches and learn from them
  • providing guidance to leaders in different functional areas on how to best incorporate design practices into their teams

Innovation in digital, data and technology

You can:

  • seek opportunities for innovation in a continually changing landscape
  • detect and analyse early trends in society, technology, data or cyber security that could be important for your organisation
  • advise the organisation on the implications of societal changes, new technologies and uses of data, such as ethical, security or legal implications
  • support teams to identify opportunities for innovation
  • introduce technologies and methods that address shared problems

Examples of leadership using this skill:

  • building trust and credibility with stakeholders by demonstrating the relevance of new technologies or methods to address organisational challenges
  • helping people at all levels of your organisation understand the potential benefits and risks of changes
  • persuading other leaders to support and invest in innovation

Capability building in digital, data and technology

You can:

  • guide the organisation to ensure it has the specialist digital, data and technology skills it needs
  • develop organisational processes and ways of working so that digital and data roles you support can thrive
  • continuously improve and optimise the organisational environment

Examples of leadership using this skill:

  • prioritising capability needs that will have the most impact
  • negotiating for longer-term investment in people by articulating the risks and benefits of different staffing strategies
  • advocating for good practice in ways of working and supporting people to adopt this practice
  • growing digital and data communities

Roles that share chief design officer skills

Role Shared skills
Chief data officer

Innovation in digital, data and technology

Capability building in digital, data and technology
Chief information security officer

Innovation in digital, data and technology

Capability building in digital, data and technology
Chief technology officer

Innovation in digital, data and technology

Capability building in digital, data and technology

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