Designer, BBC Verify

JOB BAND: C

CONTRACT TYPE: Permanent, Full Tine

DEPARTMENT: BBC News

LOCATION: London

PROPOSED SALARY RANGE: £34,000 - £44,850 depending on relevant skills, knowledge and experience. The expected salary range for this role reflects internal benchmarking and external market insights.

We're happy to discuss flexible working. If you'd like to, please indicate your preference in the application – though there's no obligation to do so now. Flexible working will be part of the discussion at offer stage.

JOB PURPOSE

You will be a key member of a creative and supportive team of world-class designers, journalists, open-source analysts, producers and correspondents. You will be embedded in the Verify team and play a central role in open-source investigations - visualising verification, bringing satellite imagery to life, producing rich maps and executing everything from simple diagrams to long-form visual investigations.

You will combine strong motion design skills with design craft to bring clarity, pace, and visual distinction to our journalism across all platforms.

WHY JOIN THE TEAM

BBC Verify brings together the BBC’s best open source investigators, fact checkers, data specialists and visual journalists.

You will explore creative ways to show our audiences how we know what we know, how we validate evidence, corroborate claims and gather information.

Working for one of the biggest, most trusted news organisations in the world, free from commercial interests, your work will appear across platforms and reach our audiences in the UK and across the globe.

YOUR KEY RESPONSIBILITIES AND IMPACT:

• Create best-in-class motion graphics, as part of visual investigations such as maps, diagrams, charts, annotations across platforms
• Be comfortable working in an exciting, high pressure, fast-paced news environment, usually within tight timeframes managing competing demands.
• Help drive the continued design integration of digital and broadcast storytelling through strong design solutions that are cohesive across all platforms.
• Have strong communication skills, with an ability to communicate ideas and design decisions to relevant stakeholders.
• Possess sound problem-solving skills and techniques to bring creative solutions to design and storytelling problems.
• Collaborate effectively with others ensuring you maintain excellent relationships throughout, whilst advocating for the user, design frameworks and our core design values.
• Be as much a journalist as a designer – drive the creation of visual investigations.

YOUR SKILLS AND EXPERIENCE

ESSENTIAL CRITERIA:

• A strong portfolio demonstrating your ability to deliver best-in-class motion and information graphics to help audiences engage with and understand complex information across platforms.
• Experience either in a newsroom or working in a setting where investigations are undertaken, or open-source intelligence techniques are used, with good editorial judgement.
• Map design skills: the ability to create a variety of static and animated maps from simple locator maps to more complicated satellite maps. An understanding of relevant production tools and processes.
• Strong understanding of social platforms and content, including what graphics work best on those platforms
• Proven experience in the use of After Effects to create motion graphics

DESIRED BUT NOT REQUIRED:

• Experience working with OSINT sources and tools.
• Journalism skills
• 3D Design skills
• Experience with QGIS or other mapping software.
• Coding skills: HTML, CSS and Javascript, R, D3

If you can bring some of these skills and experience, along with transferable strengths, we’d love to hear from you and encourage you to apply.

Disclaimer

This is a written statement of the essential characteristics of the job, with its principal accountabilities, incorporating a note of the skills, knowledge and experience required for a satisfactory level of performance. This is not intended to be a complete, detailed account of all aspects of the duties involved.

Please note: If you were to be offered this role, the BBC will conduct Employment screening checks which include Reference checks; Eligibility to work checks; and if applicable to the role, Safeguarding and Adverse media/Social media checks. Any offer made is conditional on these checks being satisfactory.

Before your start date, you may need to disclose any unspent convictions or police charges, in line with our Recruitment policy. This allows us to discuss any support you may need and assess any risks. Failure to disclose may result in the withdrawal of your offer.

For any general queries, please contact: [email protected]