Lead Content Designer

Permanent, Full Time

Up to £65,000 per annum

Location: Chelmsford*

Closing Date: 31st May 2021

Essex County Council is one of the county's largest employers, with over 7,500 staff who are responsible for services across adults and children's social care, environment and waste, transport, education, planning and benefits. This role will support the front line of local service delivery across a diverse range of public services. You will help to understand and articulate the needs of real people and will see the impact that your work has on people's lives

If you are a talented Content Design leader, we want to hear from you.

The role:

advocate for inclusive and accessible services and help others to understand the benefits of good content design

provide strategic direction to the team and work collaboratively with the Service Transformation leadership

lead the Content Design team and manage hiring, development, pay and performance

shape the profession and build a community of practice for content design across ECC

align all content with wider strategic aims

On a day-to-day basis

You will:

collaborate with the Service Transformation leadership and a range of senior stakeholders to establish multi-disciplinary teams, resolve problems and develop future projects

help colleagues and stakeholders from other disciplines understand what content design is, why it's important and how to work with content designers

help stakeholders monitor the performance of content and identify areas for improvement and potential projects

plan and manage the different phases of content design, iterating over time to ensure end-to end journeys are based on evidence from user research and analytics

train and mentor teams to develop and implement best practice

make sure content meets Government Service Standards and accessibility regulations and appropriate policy and legal checks are carried out

You'll do great here if you

advocate for the user and create understanding of how good content design can help stakeholders

have experience of balancing the needs of users with organisation priorities to make the right decisions and helping teams to act upon them

know how to manage stakeholder expectations and can build consensus between services or stakeholders

know how to build and nurture teams and can identify problems or issues in the team dynamic and rectify them

have experience of creating and managing content in a large and complex organisation

have experience of the best practice standards and application of inclusive and accessible design

know how to use analytics and user insight to define and improve content and guide decision making

have experience of creating content that works across multiple channels, devices, browsers and platforms

It's not for you if

• you're a visual designer. We're looking for someone who designs in words and concepts
• your experience is predominantly in marketing

Benefits of working for us

This is a great role in a vibrant and growing team. You'll find an inclusive culture and a place where your opinion is valued. You can find out more about us and the work we do on our Service Transformation blog https://servicetransformation.blog.essex.gov.uk/

The Council has developed a package of benefits that we hope resonates with you. You can find out more about our pay and reward offer on our Working for Essex website .







What you should do next

If you are interested in finding out more about this role, we would love to hear from you.

Please apply via the Working for Essex website. We'd also like to hear about you so please include a cover letter when prompted.

Your cover letter should present demonstrable experience of all the competencies listed under "You'll do great here if you". Please try to use real examples and tell us what the situation was, what you did and what the result was.

*This position will initially, in line with current government guidance be based from home, with an expectation of being home based for the foreseeable future. However, if / when government guidelines change the role may then revert to being office based, whilst retaining some flexible working options.

Essex County Council is committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children and vulnerable adults and expects all employees and volunteers to share this commitment.

We seek the best talent from the widest pool of people as diversity is key to our success.