Accessibility Specialist

About the job

Job summary

Discover a career in your hands at HMRC. Whether you’re seeking purpose, growth, or a workplace that gives you a true sense of belonging, hear from some of our employees as they share their story about what it’s really like to work at HMRC.

Visit our YouTube channel to watch the full series and come and discover your potential.

Join HMRC as an Accessibility Specialist and Make a Real Impact!

Are you ready to transform digital experiences and ensure they are accessible to everyone? HMRC is searching for a dynamic and passionate Accessibility Specialist to drive our accessibility efforts and champion inclusivity in our digital products and services.

Why Is This Role Exciting?

In this pivotal role, you’ll be the driving force behind making HMRC’s digital landscape accessible for all. Your work will directly align with our unwavering commitment to diversity and inclusion, ensuring that everyone, regardless of ability, can access and benefit from our services. This is more than a job – it’s a mission to create a truly inclusive digital world.

As a key member of our Internal Accessibility Centre of Excellence (CoE), you’ll be part of a dedicated team of Accessibility Specialists. Your mission? To support HMRC in meeting its legal obligations, communicate standards and support users of assistive technologies.

Job description

As an Accessibility Specialist and highly skilled in SharePoint, you will support the design, delivery, and governance of digital solutions across the organisation. The successful candidate will possess strong expertise in Microsoft SharePoint and demonstrate the ability to communicate information effectively. A core requirement of the role is a commitment to developing proficiency in accessibility regulations and applying them to all solution design, consultancy, and governance activities.

Person specification

Key responsibilities

Communicating information
• Listen to the needs of design and business stakeholders and interpret information.
• Take part in discussions within a multidisciplinary team.
• Be an advocate for the team externally, and can manage differing perspectives.
• Shape and share communications relevant to the audience.

Consultancy
• Provide specialist advice, guidance, and consultancy to teams and stakeholders on effective use of SharePoint and accessibility best practices.
• Propose methodologies to follow and approaches to implementation.
• Frame problems so they can easily be understood, and troubleshoot where required, to support the business in operating more effectively.

Governance and assurance
• Contribute to and uphold governance frameworks covering accessibility, data security, platform standards, and lifecycle management.

Leadership and guidance
• lead discussions, workshops, and technical sessions to support capability building across the organisation and promote a culture of accessible and inclusive digital delivery.

Technical understanding
• Support delivery: through design, configuration, and optimisation of SharePoint to meet business needs and align with organisational standards.
• Advocate appropriate solutions to a range of accessibility issues.
• Develop an expert understanding of relevant accessibility regulations (for example WCAG, public sector accessibility requirements) and ensure all digital products adhere to these standards.
• Be an advocate for the people affected by accessibility barriers across the department.

Essential Criteria
• Proficiency in Microsoft M365 Applications, in particular SharePoint.
• Ability to analyse issues, provide structured recommendations, and guide stakeholders.
• Ability to develop expertise in accessibility regulations and inclusive design practices.

Desirable Criteria
• An understanding of WCAG 2.2 standards.
• An understanding of assistive technologies such as JAWS / Narrator, Dragon / Voice Access, Windows 10 Ease of Access suite / Accessibility for Windows 11, and iOS is essential for validating our solutions.

Further Location Information

Please ensure that you only apply for a location that you are willing and able to work from, as we will only make one offer of employment. Any additional notes included in a ‘Further Location Preferences (optional)’ field within the application form, will not be considered. Please be aware that you cannot change your location preference after submitting your application.

Office Closures

If your location preference is for one of the following sites, it’s important to note that these are not long-term sites for HMRC and we will require you to move to a new building in the future, subject to our location strategy and the applicable employee policies at that time.

For more information on where you might be working, review this information on our locations (opens in a new window)

These sites are:

• Telford Plaza, Telford – moving to Parkside Court, Telford
• Trinity Bridge House, Salford – moving to an alternative office in Manchester/ Salford

You will be given more information about what this means at the job offer stage.

Behaviours

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

• Working Together

Benefits

Alongside your salary of £37,682, HM Revenue and Customs contributes £10,916 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).

HMRC operates both Flexible and Hybrid Working policies, allowing you to balance your work and personal commitments. We welcome applications from those who need to work a more flexible arrangement and will agree to requests where possible, considering our operational and customer service needs.

We offer a generous leave allowance, starting at 25 days and increasing by a day for every year of qualifying service up to a maximum of 30 days.

• Pension – We make contributions to our colleagues’ Alpha pension equal to at least 28.97% of their salary.
• Family friendly policies.
• Personal support.
• Coaching and development.

To find out more about HMRC benefits and find out what it’s really like to work for HMRC hear from our insiders or visit Thinking of joining the Civil Service

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 Experience.

How to Apply

As part of the application process, you will be asked to provide the following:

• A name-blind CV including your job history, qualifications and previous experiences. Your CV should cover up to your last 5 roles, detailing your responsibilities and key achievements (max 100 words per role).
• A 750-word Personal Statement. Your Personal Statement should clearly demonstrate how your skills and experience meet the essential criteria.
• A 250-word statement addressing the Behaviour Working Together