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.
Benefits of joining us at Historic Environment Scotland
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
Standards & Practice
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
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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
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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.
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
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.
