DfE Digital and Technology is part of the Department for Education (DfE). We are a community of specialists who work across the department to meet our users’ needs. We aim to deliver world class services. We want to improve the outcomes of children and learners in education and care. Learn more in our DfE Digital and Technology blog.

Our open sessions are for anyone to find out more about design in the DfE and tips on applying for a design role. Particularly if you are interested in interaction and service design.

Why come along

We will give you tips and support to get your application ready. We will also help you identify what to include in your portfolio or case study. So that when it comes to your interview you have the best chance of success.

You might be wondering what the design culture is like, or if working in the public sector is for you. You might have concerns about the application process. You might be wondering if you have the right skills and experience to apply.

Our open sessions will offer you the chance to meet us and for us to answer any questions you may have.

Our sessions are open to everyone – all genders, people of all ages, sexual orientations, nationalities, religions, and beliefs.

Dates

We are offering multiple sessions so that you can find one that’s a good time for you. Please choose your preferred date when you register for a free ticket.

On the day

• online meet and greet with our designers in our community, so we can show you our work
• informal group session, when you can ask us anything, find out if we are right for you

• tell us if there’s anything in our job advert process which does not work for you
• share your portfolio or case study, and get some helpful feedback

How to join

The event will be online via Teams. We will email you a link to join before the event.

You don’t have to speak, and you don’t have to have your camera turned on if you don’t want to.

We would like to make sure that you can access this event. Please email dandt.recruitment@education.gov.uk if there is anything we can do to enable your participation.

How we work

We value and trust our multidisciplinary teams to solve problems. You’ll work with:

• user researchers
• designers
• business analysts
• performance analysts
• product managers
• delivery managers
• developers

We work in the open. We share and get feedback from our design community and wider professions. We’re always looking to improve our standards in quality to help us deliver services that work for users.

Designers use tools and techniques taken from design thinking methodologies to facilitate workshops. They work within different phases of delivery such as discovery, alpha, beta or live.

Teams use Figma, Lucidspark, GOV.UK Prototype Kit and Slack to design and collaborate. They self-organise using a range of tools for planning, delivery and operations. These include GitHub, Trello, Jira, Google Workspace, Teams, and Confluence.

Join our design community

Now more than ever, this is a great opportunity to make a difference by helping us grow and shape our design community of practice.

You might be studying, currently working or looking for work.

Find our vacancies, values and benefits in our we're hiring blog post.

In DfE, we're particularly committed to:

• encouraging our designers to grow a strong culture and community. With an emphasis on coaching, mentoring and career development
• supporting the community to own and shape standards, guidance and good practice

You’ll be part of the community of practice within the Department for Education and across government. It’s important to us that everyone is able to bring their whole self to work. Where honesty, challenge and innovation are encouraged and valued.

Your work will make a difference

The work we do makes an impact and a difference to society, schools, education and children. From further education to social care we work across a wide range of products and services including:

• those which allow users to find teacher training courses and apply for them
• the find a job in teaching service for people who are already qualified
• an initiative that will give new teachers online course materials to use in classrooms
• tools to help schools to make better buying decisions when converting to an academy

Privacy Notice

You can read about what data we collect from you, why we need your data, what we do with your data, and your rights on the privacy notice.

Contact us

You can give us feedback and ask questions by emailing dandt.recruitment@education.gov.uk