Graduate Trainee (Service Design and Digital Adoption) 2026

Are you passionate about understanding people’s needs and designing services that work for everyone?

Do you enjoy solving problems, improving user experiences and helping organisations deliver simpler, more effective services?

Would you like to develop your skills in user research, accessibility and service design whilst helping shape the future of public services in North Yorkshire?

If the answer is yes, then we want to hear from you!

About the role

As a Graduate Trainee, you’ll join our Service Design and Digital Adoption (SDDA) team within Transformation Services.

Transformation Services is an innovative and fast-paced service focused on helping North Yorkshire Council continually improve the way it delivers services. We work with teams across the organisation to understand customer needs, improve user and customer experiences and support the successful delivery of change.

Our work helps ensure services are effective, efficient and designed around the people who use them.

You’ll work as part of the team’s User Experience (UX) practice, supporting user research, user-centred design and accessibility activities across council services and digital products.

Working alongside experienced UX professionals, you’ll contribute to user research, accessibility, usability and service improvement activities that help ensure services are accessible, easy to use and designed around genuine user needs.

You’ll be involved in a range of activities including:

• user research and insight gathering
• accessibility reviews and inclusive design
• wireframing, prototyping and interaction design
• usability testing and evaluation
• analysing service performance and identifying opportunities for improvement
• supporting the design and continuous improvement of digital products and services
• exploring opportunities for digital innovation, automation and service improvement

This role offers an excellent foundation for a career in user experience (UX), digital products, automation or service improvement. You’ll receive mentoring and support from experienced practitioners whilst gaining hands-on experience of researching user needs, evaluating designs and improving services that have a real impact on local communities across North Yorkshire.

Alongside your role, you’ll take part in our Graduate Development Programme, with a structured package of learning and development opportunities. This includes leadership and management training, mentoring and peer support, online learning and access to our Graduate Network. You’ll have opportunities to develop your skills, build your professional network and support your career development within local government.

About you

We’re looking for someone with a passion for improving services through user-centred design, digital solutions and innovation.

You’ll be curious, empathetic and motivated to understand people’s needs, using evidence and insight to help improve services and experiences.

You’ll enjoy problem solving, working collaboratively and balancing user needs with organisational objectives.

You will be educated to degree level. Your studies should have included user experience, service design, interaction design, human-computer interaction, digital product design, psychology, research methods or other user-centred design approaches.

Through your studies, placement year or employment, you’ll have gained some experience of user-centred design approaches.

This may include:

• user research
• usability testing
• accessibility and inclusive design
• interaction design
• wireframing or prototyping
• customer experience improvement
• design thinking or human-centred design methods
• process improvement, automation or digital innovation activities

We don’t expect you to be an experienced UX professional, but you should be able to demonstrate your understanding of UX principles and explain how they can be used to improve services and experiences.

Key responsibilities

As part of the graduate programme, you will:

• Support user research activities to understand the needs, behaviours and experiences of service users, including those with accessibility requirements.
• Assist in the design and improvement of council services and digital products using user-centred design principles.
• Support accessibility reviews, usability testing and service evaluations.
• Create and contribute to wireframes, prototypes, user flows and other design artefacts.
• Help monitor service performance and identify opportunities for continuous improvement.
• Communicate insights, findings and recommendations to colleagues and stakeholders.
• Work collaboratively with service teams, business analysts, product managers, developers and other specialists.
• Support the promotion of user-centred design, accessibility and service design good practice across the organisation.