Lead Accessibility Specialist - Government Digital Service - G6

Location

Bristol, Manchester

About the job

Job summary

The Government Digital Service (GDS) is the digital centre of government. We are responsible for setting, leading and delivering the vision for a modern digital government. 

Our priorities are to drive a modern digital government, by: 

1. joining up public sector services
2. harnessing the power of AI for the public good
3. strengthening and extending our digital and data public infrastructure
4. elevating leadership and investing in talent
5. funding for outcomes andprocuringfor growth and innovation 
6. committing to transparency and driving accountability

We are home to the Incubator for Artificial Intelligence (I.AI), the world-leading GOV.UK and at the forefront of coordinating the UK’s geospatial strategy and activity. We lead the Government Digital and Data function and champion the work of digital teams across government. 

We’re part of the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT) and employ more than 1,000 people all over the UK, with hubs in Manchester, London and Bristol. 

The Government Digital Service is where talent translates into impact. From your first day, you’ll be working with some of the world’s most highly-skilled digital professionals, all contributing their knowledge to make change on a national scale. 

Join us for rewarding work that makes a difference across the UK. You'll solve some of the nation’s highest-priority digital challenges, helping millions of people access services they need.

Job description

We’re looking for someone who lives and breathes accessibility, inclusion and equitable design. The successful candidate will be someone who is a highly skilled expert in their field, with a passion for building public services that include everyone by design. 

As an accessibility expert at GDS you’ll work in multidisciplinary teams, to deliver world-class, user centred public services. 

You’ll help identify and fix some of the toughest problems in public infrastructure and you will be focussing on design of services at scale. You’ll help the government transform the way it delivers services, so that they’re more efficient, simpler, faster and easier to use. 

As a Lead Accessibility Specialist you’ll: 

• work with the Head of Design for GOV.UK to define and implement an ambitious and expansive Accessibility and Inclusion strategy, and lead on the objectives for this area 
• be a subject matter expert and escalation point, leveraging your expert knowledge in accessibility and inclusion to provide practical support to teams and strategic advice to senior leaders across the programme where necessary 
• support the GOV.UK programme and delivery teams to create multi-channel accessible and inclusive services that meet the WCAG standard, with effective assisted digital support models where they make sense 
• champion co-design and ongoing research with disabled users and those facing barriers or broader inclusion needs, ensuring their lived experience directly shapes how GOV.UK services are designed and improved 
• develop rigorous ways of tracking, measuring, assuring and documenting accessibility across the GOV.UK estate, introducing processes to ensure it is built into all project, programme and change activity, and managing a backlog of this work across the programme 
• responsible for leading on how we meet our legal accessibility obligations for GOV.UK, translating requirements, standards and legislation for our project teams to understand and address issues 
• manage accessibility specialists and designers, developing and coaching them to pass on your skills and experience to support their learning and development goals 
• be an active and engaged leader in the GDS and cross government accessibility community, encouraging contribution and collaboration across organisational boundaries 

Person specification

We’re interested in people who:  

• have a track record of turning accessibility and inclusion strategy into tangible outcomes, ideally within large and complex organisations such as those in the public sector or government 
• are skilled at setting direction - making decisions, evaluating impact and contributing to strategic discussions at a senior level 
• understand and explain the ways people who are digitally excluded or have access requirements need to use services, and the things that help or hinder them 
• can demonstrate establishing, promoting and applying accessibility standards and other good practice guidance to products and services 
• have a proven track record of helping delivery teams to build services that meet the needs of users who are digitally excluded or have access needs 
• can apply a thorough technical knowledge of assistive hardware / software and activities related to accessibility testing