Integrated Design Lead

at  National Audit Office

JOB DESCRIPTION

Area: Communications - Design & Publishing
Contract type: Permanent
Location: London
Salary: Circa £50k (more maybe available for exceptional candidates) plus civil service employer pension contribution of 27.1%
Hours- Full time
Overview
The National Audit Office (NAO) supports parliament to hold government to account and to improve public services. We focus on driving long-term sustainable improvement in public service delivery, and work with government and our stakeholders to deliver better performance. In a nutshell, we help the nation spend wisely.
Design and Publishing (D&P) sits within the NAO’s Communications Department and is a forward-thinking team committed to delivering high-quality outputs through innovative design and modern publishing solutions. Our team is at the heart of our creative endeavours; driving our brand’s evolution, and ensuring our content is impactful, user-centric, and visually compelling.
Role and responsibilities:
The Integrated Design Lead reports to the Senior Design Manager and plays a critical role in evolving the design and creative production of all our externally and internally published outputs. This role also manages the daily workload of our talented Creative Artworkers & Typesetters (CA&Ts), and is both an operational role as well as a managing role, i.e. actually designing the work, as well as directing the design of the team’s work; ing the two C&AT’s in maintaining the highest standards of design quality, leading by example.
Key responsibilities:

Operational (50%)

• Assign daily tasks to the CA&Ts, collaborating with this role’s counterpart, the Publishing Lead to help balance daily workload across the wider D&P team.
• Interpret client’s creative briefs to determine optimal design formats and approaches.
• Create, enhance, and quality-assure, a variety of digital- and print-based publications, diagrams, infographics, videos, animations, and social media assets, ensuring they are on-brand, effective, and impactful.
• Build and maintain strong client relationships, ensuring design solutions meet client objectives, managing expectations throughout the project’s lifecycle.
• Effectively communicate job progress, ensuring adherence to SLAs and schedules.
• Support the continuous evolution of design outputs with a focus on user experience, digital innovation, and brand consistency.
• Provide creative direction and post-production support for videography and photography, supporting the development of a media assets library.

Management (30%)

• Performance-coach and co-assignment manage the two CA&Ts, fostering their technical and soft skills development.
• Assist the Senior Design Manager in training the Design team on brand standards, operational best practices, and creative innovation.
• Deputise for the Senior Design Manager when necessary, overseeing the wider scheduling and management of creative work and publications, liaising with our Publishing team.
• Promote a supportive and inclusive culture within the Design team, working collaboratively to build a cohesive community across the Communications team.

Innovation (20%)

• Co-drive creative innovation within the design team, presenting ideas to the Senior Design Manager and Head of D&P; showing consideration of the organisation’s strategic and operational plans.
• Ensure compliance with accessibility as well as DE&I best practices in design, setting an example for excellence in these areas.
• Act as an ambassador for knowledge-sharing within the team; continuously developing your skills while nurturing a collaborative mindset in the wider team.
• Contribute to improving our design services, client offerings, and team operations, supporting change initiatives where necessary and thinking ‘beyond the page’.

Skills required:

• Extensive experience in design, design for publishing, and creative production, with a strong portfolio demonstrating a multidisciplinary creative approach.
• Proven ability to manage and mentor small design teams.
• Experience of creative project management beyond a single task.
• Outstanding communication skills, with the ability to build and maintain client relationships effectively.
• Expertise in both digital and print design, including strong expertise in publication layout (including interactive), typography, social media, infographics, video and general branding.
• Experience of working with complex data – transforming data-heavy info into engaging diagrams or infographics, questioning the brief to achieve best outcomes.
• A strong focus on creative, yet pragmatic innovation, with a desire to drive continuous improvement within the design team.
• Familiarity with tools such as Microsoft Teams, SharePoint, and Kanban-based workflows.

Qualifications:

• Advanced knowledge of Adobe InDesign; Illustrator; Photoshop, and Acrobat
• Intermediate to advanced knowledge of After Effects and Premier Pro – including sound general knowledge of motion graphics and visual effects best-practice
• A good working knowledge of Microsoft Office based software, particularly PowerPoint, Excel, and Word.

Additional skills

• Intermediate to advanced level in one of the following.

o Digital publishing.
o Self-service creative templating tools (Canva, Adobe Express)
o Augmented reality knowledge / skills
o Knowledge of WordPress, CSS, Dreamweaver, xml/html.