SEO Accessibility Consultants

Job description
The first duty of the government is to keep citizens safe and the country secure. The Home Office has been at the front line of this effort since 1782. As such, we play a fundamental role in maintaining the security and economic prosperity of the UK.

The Home Office leads on immigration and passports, refugee protection, counter-terrorism, policing, fire services, and crime and drugs policy.

Digital Data and Technology (DDaT) enables the Home Office to keep the UK safe and secure. We design and build the services that help people apply for visas or passports; support policing and counter-terrorism operations; and protect the UK’s borders.

DDaT has a central team that’s responsible for defining standards and assuring quality. As a member, you’ll be providing delivery teams across the department with the tools, guidance and support they need to meet these standards. Your priority is to make sure users always come first and that everything we do meets their needs.

This is an exciting time to be at the Home Office. You’ll have a chance to shape the future and support our mission to deliver exceptional public services that work for everyone.

Our work is guided by these principles:

• we put user needs first
• we value delivery and outcomes over process
• we work in the open

Our flexible working policy ensures a healthy work-life balance. We also nurture talent and offer a broad range of learning and development opportunities that will help you flourish in your role.

We work hard to maintain a positive working culture and are committed to helping you fulfil your potential. We value diversity and provide an open, inclusive and supportive environment to help you do your best work.

You can keep up-to-date with our work on the Home Office DDaT blog.


The role
This important role requires an experienced individual to help teams, portfolios and programmes to meet Level AA of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1, the Equality Act 2010 and Public Sector Bodies Accessibility Requirements 2018.
You will be passionate about accessibility and experienced in testing using assistive technologies.
You’ll help to ensure that public services and internal systems cater for the needs of all users, by carrying out accessibility reviews at all stages of development, before services are released to the public.
You’ll be very comfortable explaining and demonstrating accessibility issues and you’ll be eager to transfer your expertise appropriately across the range of digital professionals.


Responsibilities
Day to day, you will:
• contribute to and disseminate accessibility standards and guidance for the various DDaT roles and within the accessibility team
• deliver training on designing and testing service for accessibility
• support delivery teams to incorporate accessibility in acceptance criteria and to perform manual and automated testing themselves, typically in an agile environment
• conduct in-house holistic reviews, WCAG audits and assistive technology testing of all elements of services, throughout the design and development lifecycle or procurement and set-up
• communicate prioritised issues discovered during testing, along with pragmatic solutions and improvement recommendations, to delivery teams. Input to status reports to those assessing conformance with the Government Service Standard
• participate in mechanisms to ensure quality, consistency, effectiveness and efficiency of consultants’ reviews
• contribute to, support and share the work of the accessibility community across government


Skills and experience
Essential skills
You’ll have a demonstrable passion for user-centred design, with proven experience of:
• understanding and explain the ways people with access requirements, need to use services and things that help/hinder them
• applying a thorough knowledge of assistive hardware/software and activities related to accessibility testing
• interpreting the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0/1
• creating and executing plans for testing services for compliance with accessibility standards, plus consideration of wider equality requirements
• making recommendations to avoid or resolve accessibility issues and eliminate disadvantage due to processes or policies
• writing and communicating in a clear and simple way


Desirable skills

Ideally, you will also have:
• experience liaising with suppliers and managers as well as designers and developers, to understand their circumstances, then advise on appropriate steps to take
• experience of testing in a digital environment
• a degree related to web design/development or relevant industry experience


Success profiles
In the Civil Service, we use Success Profiles as part of our wider assessment during the selection process.

For this role, the following are the most relevant:

Experience
We’ll use your application form, CV and interview to assess your experience. Candidates will be shortlisted based on whether this meets the essential criteria outlined above.

Technical
We’ll assess your technical skills during the interview. We may also ask you to complete a practical exercise.