Head of User-Centred Design, Business Analysis & Quality Assurance

Starting salary: £62,428 pro rata, per year
Contract type: Permanent
Grade: 6
Location: Longmore House, Edinburgh, EH9 1SH
Working Hours: Monday - Friday, 35 hours per week
Interviews: To be held in person at Longmore House on Tuesday 15th September 2026

This is a unique opportunity to shape a senior leadership role at Historic Environment. Head of User-Centred Design, Business Analysis & Quality Assurance. Reporting into the Head of Digital Transformation, you'll champion inclusive, user-first design across HES's services, embed rigorous business analysis into how the organisation plans and delivers change, and ensure quality is built in from the star. Define what integrated digital practice looks like at a national organisation with a rich and varied public mission — building capability, setting standards, and directly shaping how HES serves heritage professionals and the public alike.

For more information about the post and information about the team, please access the full job description for this post: 20260821_Head of UCD Job Description.docx. Please note that if you don't have Office 365 installed on your device, this can be opened using your browser.

Benefits of joining us at Historic Environment Scotland

• Enrolment onto a Civil Service Pension scheme – 28% employer contribution
• 25 days annual leave, pro-rata (increasing to 30 days after 3 years) + 11.5 public holidays
• Reimbursement for relevant professional subscriptions
• Support for further education and personal development
• Study leave for work related courses
• Flexible working hours (where appropriate)
• Free entry to all of our properties (with up to three guests)

• Free entry to English Heritage, Manx and Cadw properties

   

Key Responsibilities of this role

Leadership & Team Management

• Provide strategic and operational leadership across the UCD, Business Analysis, and Quality Assurance disciplines, ensuring each functions to a high professional standard
• Lead recruitment, performance management, and professional development, building capability and career pathways within each discipline
• Act as a senior peer within the digital/transformation leadership team, representing the combined interests and capacity needs 
• Work collaboratively and in the open, educating colleagues in user-centred design and service design when necessary
• Guide, support and mentor other designers, setting clear objectives for UCD teams to ensure alignment with key Historic Scotland strategies, policies and goals

Capacity & Resource Planning

• Own demand and capacity planning ensuring resource is allocated effectively against organisational priorities

• Build and maintain the evidence base (data, benchmarks, tracking) needed to demonstrate capacity gaps and justify resourcing decisions to senior leadership

   

Standards & Practice

• Set overall design direction within the Directorate and wider organisation; shaping the service propositions and roadmaps, ensuring they contribute to the wider organisational objectives and strategic priorities

• work with the other Digital colleagues to create robust UCD structures and processes that support teams to deliver great services and develop a culture that enables user-centred design to flourish in HES
• Set and maintain consistent standards, methodologies, and ways of working across UCD, BA, and QA, ensuring quality and consistency of outputs across all projects
• Champion inclusive, user-first design principles across the organisation, embedding accessibility and equity into service design from the outset
• Ensure QA and testing practice is embedded early and consistently across the project lifecycle

Stakeholder Engagement 

• Build strong working relationships with other Heads of Service, Directors, and senior stakeholders 
• Represent in governance forums, programme boards, and senior leadership discussions
• Act as an escalation point for risks, issues, or resourcing conflicts 

Governance & Reporting

• Report to the Head of Digital Transformation on team performance, capacity, risks, and progress against objectives and project milestones
• Ensure appropriate tracking and reporting mechanisms are in place to monitor demand, delivery, and quality across all three functions
• Embed inclusive, user-first design and consistent quality assurance practice across all HES digital and service delivery work
• Strengthen HES's overall digital delivery maturity by ensuring design, analysis, and quality assurance are integrated from the start of every project, not retrofitted
• Use evidence from research and data to inform product, service and management decisions, and use evidence to engage with senior stakeholders
• Provide evaluation and quality assurance of services, strategies and policies to ensure business requirements and user needs are being met, identify root causes for failure and find opportunities for reducing complexity and reducing cost

Key requirements of the role:

In order for you to be successful in this post, we will be looking for you to submit a cover letter which addresses how you can meet each of the essential and desirable criteria (in up to 1,200 words), using examples of where you have demonstrated these criteria previously. Please ensure that you provide real life examples for each of the criteria to be considered for this post. You can use examples of how you have met this criteria from your work life, home life, education or volunteer experience. Please read our CV and Cover Letter Guidance first before completing, as you will only be eligible for selection if you use examples of how you meet the essential and desirable criteria.

Essential:

• Extensive experience operating at a senior/Head of Service level (or equivalent), with accountability for multiple professional disciplines within a large, complex organisation

• Proven track record of building, leading, and developing multi-disciplinary teams

• Experience representing professional disciplines to Director-level and senior leadership, including building business cases for capacity, investment, or organisational change

• Demonstrable experience embedding UCD, BA, or QA practice and maturity across a large or multi-directorate organisation, ideally within the public sector or a similarly governed environment

• Experience of budget management, resource planning, and prioritisation across competing organisational demands spanning multiple teams

• Experience working as a peer within a senior leadership team, collaborating with other Heads of Service (or equivalent) to deliver joined-up outcomes

• Demonstrable experience of successfully communicating the value of user-centre design to a wide variety of audiences, including senior leaders.

• An expert level understanding of the strengths and limitations of user research and   other user-centred design methods, tools and practices. Especially understanding the data

• Demonstrated ability to lead and motivate professional teams across multiple disciplines through change, ambiguity, or resourcing constraints

• Demonstrable experience of promoting inclusive, user-first ways of working, embedding accessibility and equity into service design as standard practice

Find out more about desirable skills and experience in our full job description: 20260821_Head of UCD Job Description.docx

We are dedicated to building a workforce which is reflective of diversity within Scotland. We warmly welcome applications from candidates of all backgrounds, regardless of age, race, gender or gender identity, religious beliefs, marital status, sexual orientation, disability, or neurodiversity. In support of our Gaelic Language Plan, we welcome applications from Gaelic speakers.

We want every candidate to have the best chance to succeed during the recruitment process. If you require your application in an alternative format, please reach out to us via email at [email protected] or call our Head Office at 0131 668 8600 and speak to a member of our People Team.

Please note that, at this time, we are unfortunately unable to provide sponsorship as part of the recruitment process, therefore you must have current right to work in the UK to be considered for a post.

To submit your application online, please read our ‘How to Apply’ followed by ‘Apply Now’ button to begin your application.