Learning Design Specialist

College of Policing

Scotland

Remote

Expires: Expiring in less than 2 weeks

Education

Flexible

£36,520 per year

Job summary

This post is open to applicants who can meet the College’s nationality, UK residency and vetting requirements. We are specifically looking for police officers and police staff with recent relevant experience of working in child abuse investigations.

About us:

Our mission is: Leadership, Standards, Performance. This guides our work with individuals, forces, and policing partners towards our vision. We exist to support police officers, police staff and volunteers to deliver the best service to the public. Only through high quality leadership, consistent standards and continual performance improvement can everyone in policing reach their full potential. Our mission guides our work with individual, forces and partners towards our vision.

Although we are a relatively small organisation, our work has a big reach. We are uniquely placed to work both with national policing organisations and local forces to support frontline officers, staff and volunteers in their day-to-day roles.

We offer a supportive and inclusive environment for people to thrive. Our extensive flexible-working policy, employee wellbeing support, family friendly policies, employers’ network for equality and inclusion membership (ENEI silver award winners), and status as a disability confident leader means everyone can bring their whole self to work.

Additional Information:

We recruit by merit on the basis of fair and open competition, as outlined in the Civil Service Commission's recruitment principles.

Due to our status as Public Servants, we are not eligible to participate in the Civil Service transfer process. Therefore, while successful candidates can transfer in on their existing terms and conditions, any subsequent transfer out of the College to the Civil Service cannot be guaranteed on existing terms and conditions, and new starter/modernised terms may apply.

The College embraces diversity and promotes equal opportunities. As such, we comply with the Disability Confident Scheme (DCS) and apply the minimum selection criteria at sift stage of the recruitment process.

Job description

Are you interested in becoming part of a talented and dedicated team of learning design specialists? We have a fixed term role for a secondee who has experience of conducting child abuse investigations to help us design a new specialist child abuse investigator programme.

The team are based across the UK and are predominately home-based workers however design specialists will be expected to travel for projects and departmental meetings as required.

Vetting

The role requires vetting level NPPV3 and SC and you may need to complete further vetting forms if you do not already have this level.

As a Learning Design Specialist, you will be involved in every stage of the design process from researching, designing, planning, evaluating, and handing over final products to trainers for delivery.

Our work is high profile and can sometimes be pressured, working to tight timelines in a fast-paced environment.

The successful applicant must ensure all design content is accurate, relevant, and impactful and is aligned and appropriate for specialist child abuse investigators’ learning needs.

You will also apply project management principles to track progress, manage risks, and deliver high-quality outcomes.

To succeed in this role, you will bring excellent communication and engagement skills, experience in creating learning materials, and a commitment to supporting the policing profession. You will be confident in building strong working relationships, analysing learning needs, and applying your knowledge of adult learning to design creative, high-quality solutions that deliver measurable impact.

Person specification

Some of your responsibilities will include:

Design, develop and maintain high quality learning products applying innovative design solutions for face to face and online delivery.

Confidently engage and collaborate with colleagues and stakeholders to share information, resources and support

Attention to detail to provide analysis, evidence and information to support recommendations for improvements

To be successful in this role you’ll need:

Skills in research, consultation and analysis of information from multiple sources to identify clear, appropriate learning .

Proficiency in MS Office suite, Microsoft 365, learning design software and knowledge of remote learning platforms such as MS Teams

Excellent verbal and written communications skills with the ability to translate technical and academic language into an appropriate format and style for all stakeholders

Behaviours

We'll assess you against these behaviours during the selection process:

Delivering at Pace

Technical skills

We'll assess you against these technical skills during the selection process:

Excellent verbal and written communications skills with the ability to translate technical and academic language into an appropriate format and style for all stakeholders
Attention to detail to provide analysis, evidence and information to support recommendations for improvements

Benefits

Alongside your salary of £36,520, College of Policing contributes £10,579 towards you being a member of the Civil Service Defined Benefit Pension scheme. Find out what benefits a Civil Service Pension provides (opens in a new window).

College staff have Public Servant status. As a Public Servant, you are eligible to join the Civil Service Defined Benefit Pension Scheme

The College is a great place to work. We're passionate about our people and offer a wide range of benefits. The benefits we can offer include:

Defined benefit pension scheme with an employer contribution of 28.97%
Up to 30 days holiday (this is in addition to 8 public holidays and 2.5 privilege days)
Educational funding and study leave
Enhanced maternity, paternity and adoption leave
Flexi-time (for certain grades)
Flexible working hours
Childcare vouchers
Benenden Healthcare
National Dental Plan
Discount scheme which provides cut-price on-line shopping
Free employee support line
Interest free loans for travel.
Staff networks: You will have the opportunity to join our employee-run networks to provide advice and support and to enable the views of employees from minority groups to be heard. There are currently 6 staff networks; Diversity Champions, LGBT, Carer’s, Women’s, Parenting and our Diverse Ethnic Action network. Each network has access to an executive level sponsor.

Things you need to know

Artificial intelligence

Artificial intelligence can be a useful tool to support your application, however, all examples and statements provided must be truthful, factually accurate and taken directly from your own experience. Where plagiarism has been identified (presenting the ideas and experiences of others, or generated by artificial intelligence, as your own) applications may be withdrawn and internal candidates may be subject to disciplinary action. Please see our candidate guidance (opens in a new window) for more information on appropriate and inappropriate use.

Selection process details

This vacancy is using Success Profiles (opens in a new window), and will assess your Behaviours and Technical skills.

Applications for this role are restricted to existing officers of a UK police force or UK policing organisation.

Vacancy reference: 7324

Anticipated interview dates: 9th October 2026

This role is available until March 2027 as a fixed term appointment or as a secondment opportunity to:

Serving police officers substantive in the rank of 2B inspector, or those officers suitably qualified for temporary promotion in the rank of 2A Sergeant. All applicants must have the support of their Chief Officer which must be of NPCC rank, i.e., CC, ACC or DCC and this must accompany an application. .

Central service conditions may apply.

Please ensure you return the attached secondment approval form either as an attachment when submitting your application or via email to recruitment@college.police.uk.

For further information on applying for a secondment please visit the “Secondments into the College” page.

Internal applicants who are at risk of redundancy or in need of redeployment and pass the recruitment process, will be given priority over other applicants.

The closing date for this vacancy is 27th September 2026. We reserve the right to close this vacancy early if a high volume of applications is received.

How to apply and contact information:

For further information visit our ‘Work for us’ page.

What it's like working at the College of Policing

If you would like to discuss the role in more detail please contact Claire Smith claire.smith@college.police.uk, Head of Learning Design.

Artificial Intelligence can be a useful tool to support your application, however, all examples and statements provided must be truthful, factually accurate and taken directly from your own experience. Where plagiarism has been identified (presenting the ideas and experiences of others, or generated by artificial intelligence, as your own) applications may be withdrawn and internal candidates may be subject to disciplinary action. Please see our candidate guidance for more information on appropriate and inappropriate use.

We believe that a diverse workforce brings many benefits to the organisation including diversity of thought and improvements to the way we work internally and with partners and communities. We strive to be fully inclusive but we know there is more to do. We genuinely encourage people from all backgrounds and underrepresented groups to apply for this role.

We want to continually improve our recruitment processes and to remove any barriers to equal opportunities that could disadvantage those from particular backgrounds. In order for us to have the information to do this, we ask you to please complete the diversity section of the online application process. We use a “blind” shortlisting process and we hope that by using this method we will be able to promote greater diversity in our workforce and remove any subconscious decisions based on biases.

The College is committed to support the Greening Government Commitment and reducing our Environmental impact. We have a dynamic Environmental Management Plan in place which encompasses various objectives, including our pledge to reduce business travel. To support our green agenda we have, in phase one, installed Electric Vehicle Charging Points at our sites in Ryton (12 points) and Harperley Hall (4 points) alongside two at our Harrogate office. We encourage employees to become an Environment Champion to help with promoting and delivering our Environmental Management Plan. Our One Step Greener approach encourages all College staff to make small changes to create a better future for everyone.

Please note that in order to work for the College of Policing you must have the Right to Work in the UK with indefinite leave to remain. In addition, you will also be required to provide an address history in the UK for the preceding 5years.

Feedback will only be provided if you attend an interview or assessment.

Security

Successful candidates must meet the security requirements before they can be appointed. The level of security needed is security check (opens in a new window).

See our vetting charter (opens in a new window).People working with government assets must complete baseline personnel security standard (opens in new window) checks.

Nationality requirements

This job is broadly open to the following groups:

UK nationals
nationals of the Republic of Ireland
nationals of Commonwealth countries who have the right to work in the UK
nationals of the EU, Switzerland, Norway, Iceland or Liechtenstein and family members of those nationalities with settled or pre-settled status under the European Union Settlement Scheme (EUSS) (opens in a new window)
nationals of the EU, Switzerland, Norway, Iceland or Liechtenstein and family members of those nationalities who have made a valid application for settled or pre-settled status under the European Union Settlement Scheme (EUSS)
individuals with limited leave to remain or indefinite leave to remain who were eligible to apply for EUSS on or before 31 December 2020
Turkish nationals, and certain family members of Turkish nationals, who have accrued the right to work in the Civil Service

Further information on nationality requirements (opens in a new window)

Working for the Civil Service

Please note this Post is NOT regulated by the Civil Service Commission.The Civil Service embraces diversity and promotes equal opportunities. As such, we run a Disability Confident Scheme (DCS) for candidates with disabilities who meet the minimum selection criteria.

Diversity and Inclusion

The Civil Service is committed to attract, retain and invest in talent wherever it is found. To learn more please see theCivil Service People Plan (opens in a new window) and the Civil Service Diversity and Inclusion Strategy (opens in a new window).

Apply and further information

This vacancy is part of the Great Place to Work for Veterans (opens in a new window) initiative.Once this job has closed, the job advert will no longer be available. You may want to save a copy for your records.

Contact point for applicants

Salary range

£36,520 per year

​​Learning Design Specialist ​