Accessibility Specialist

Company Description
Snook are on a mission to design a world that works better for people.
We work with organisations to design more effective services which help people thrive. We do this by engaging with users, building digital products, training our clients, and much more.
Snook started as a service design company in 2009. In the past five years, we have become a multidisciplinary team and scaled to more than double our original size, when we started up in Scotland. We are now based in Glasgow and London and our team is approaching 100 people. And we’ve worked with brilliant clients — from Cancer Research UK and Tesco to Hackney City Council and the Scottish Government.

About the role
Our accessibility specialists champion inclusive design and accessibility across everything Snook does from the products we build to the services we offer.
The role focuses on ensuring what we are designing and building is inclusive and accessible to people who will use it.
At Snook we talk about inclusive design overall, that making things accessible isn’t just about websites, but overall is the service that is designed accessible to everyone who might use it.
You’ll relish working closely with our clients and partners and in co-designing services and products with users.
One of Snook’s core missions is ‘Next Era Government’. We strive to ensure that human needs are at the centre of government services’ design and delivery. We are the User-Centred Design partner for multiple government agencies, including Home Office, Department for Education, NHS Digital and NHSX. Working in these sectors will give you valuable experience of applying GDS standards and preparing for GDS Service assessments. We also work with local government and third and private sector organisations.
This role provides the opportunity to work across these sectors while receiving knowledge and support from other Snooks. We rotate people from one sector to another after 3 to 12 months (depending on the project), enabling people to develop in-depth knowledge of a variety of sectors.
We acknowledge that our team has a wealth of knowledge and experience, which is why we actively encourage Snooks to help devise and develop new business opportunities and champion internal passion projects.

Location: London - (This is a London home based role, although you may be required to attend client offices and Snook or NEC sites for meetings, from time to time)

Job Type: Permanent (Part-time or Full-time roles available)

Salary: £45000 - £52,000 pa (dependent on experience)

Start Date: Immediately preferably

Right to work in the UK
This role requires Security Clearance. In order to qualify for this applicants will need to have been a continuous resident in the UK for the past 5 years. If you already have SC please alert us to this in your cover letter.
Job Description
Requirements
We’re keen to hear from a range of applicants, not just those who have worked in the design or creative industries.
You should be able to demonstrate that you are able to meet some, or all, of the following requirements:

Champion accessibility and inclusive design in all our work and across the company

Support our clients by ensuring what we are building is compliant in accessibility standards

Provide clarity and clear communication on accessibility and inclusive design standards

Deliver basic training to teams on accessibility regulations, building accessible digital products and wider inclusive design principles

Audit commercial and public sector websites for conformance with accessibility standards using both automated and manual testing

Help setup processes for accessibility, monitoring based on data, feedback and user research

Produce audit reports and accessibility statements for our clients to support them in meeting accessibility standards

Stay up-to-date on technology and experience patterns in order to constantly be capable of communicating changes and updates to our approach to accessibility

Working with multidisciplinary teams from discovery to live

Understanding all new assistive technologies in common use and ensuring this knowledge is trained across Snook and our partner company

Compare accessibility statements with findings from accessibility testing

Setting up research sessions and user testing sessions to explore our prototypes and live design from an inclusive design perspective
Qualifications
Your skills and experience
We’re keen to hear from a range of applicants who can demonstrate some, or all, of the following skills and experience:

Ability to conduct accessibility audits against WCAG 2.1 guidelines

Experience with digital accessibility tech, design solutions, and policy

Experience working on multidisciplinary teams using agile methodologies

Understanding of WCAG 2.1 AAA guidelines and ARIA techniques

Experience (and appetite to learn) using and testing with assistive technologies (incl VoiceOver, Browser extensions, JAWS and NVDA)

Experience of creating technical and business documentation relating to accessibility and digital inclusion

Experience of working at a code level and/or with developers to address issues in CSS/HTML

Experience in supporting teams to develop roadmaps to address accessibility issues

Demonstrable experience of recruiting and working with people with disabilities

A portfolio of inclusive research and design practice, covering different platforms and services

Self motivated and enthusiastic

Most importantly, you’re looking to join a lovely team and support us in delivering great design work. Definite bonus points include an appreciation for gifs and bad puns.
Additional Information

A competitive salary

25.5 holidays per year, 4 public holidays, plus a discretionary 6 days annual Christmas closure

A supportive maternity package

We respect that people have commitments, providing flexible working hours through discussion

A bike to work scheme
Every Monday morning, we have a virtual team breakfast checkin where we eat together, share updates, learnings and our ambitions for the week ahead

Membership to the Headspace, the mental health app

We have an annual team-away day and quarterly show+tells; where we come together as a company, taking time out to learn, reflect, and eat snacks

We provide an annual training budget, which can be used for external opportunities from talks and conferences to more bespoke hands-on training. We have weekly learning sessions for all our team members, with a vast topic range

Access to Snook social clubs, and opportunity to run your own

Snook group pension plan

We support you with a Snook buddy when you join to get you started
How to apply
This is a rolling recruitment campaign so please don’t wait to submit your application. We are sifting and interviewing candidates on a weekly basis. We have the right to close this vacancy at any time.
Please submit a CV, cover letter and your notice period.
In your covering letter, please tell us a little bit about yourself, why you want to work at Snook and what sort of design problems you’d be interested in tackling with us.
We strive for diversity in our team. If we’re going to design services for the public we need to ensure our team is inclusive. Snook encourages applications from all backgrounds, abilities or impairments, communities and industries, and are committed to having a team that is made up of diverse skills, experiences and abilities. If you have any questions please get in touch at curious@wearesnook.com
Due to the current Covid-19 pandemic, we anticipate that all interviews will be conducted remotely. We will offer interviews at times that suit you, so if you have children, caring duties, or other circumstances affecting your availability for an interview, we’re happy to offer convenient times outside of work hours