Job Description

Starting salary:

40158

Contract type:

Permanent

Grade:

4

Location:

Longmore House with hybrid working available

Working Hours:

Monday - Friday

Interviews:

To be held in person at Longmore House on Week Commencing 25 August 2025


The Digital Accessibility Lead will work with internal teams and third-party suppliers to ensure Historic Environment Scotland consistently delivers inclusive and accessible digital content to our audiences. You will be a champion for encouraging best practice and innovation in digital accessibility solutions, raising standards through advice and training, and managing the development of an internal digital accessibility champions network. You will use your technical skills and experience to audit and test digital products, working closely with internal developers and suppliers, and play a key role in supporting a current project to redevelop our corporate website.

Benefits of joining us at Historic Environment Scotland

Enrolment onto a Civil Service Pension scheme - 28% employer contribution 25 days annual leave, pro-rata (increasing to 30 days after 3 years) + 11.5 public holidays Reimbursement for relevant professional subscriptions Support for further education and personal development Study leave for work related courses Flexible working hours (where appropriate) Free entry to all of our properties (with up to three guests) Free entry to English Heritage, Manx and Cadw properties

Key Responsibilities of this role

Technical support

Carry out and co-ordinate accessibility audits across the HES digital estate as required and write, compile and publish accessibility statements to comply with accessibility regulations. Work with suppliers and internal HES IT to receive initial time and cost estimates for any remedial work required and thereafter work with developers, product owners and content authors to plan, oversee, and test this work to ensure compliance. Implement regular accessibility checking of our digital estate using website quality checker tools and manual tests. Working with the project team and supplier, support the delivery of a current project to redevelop the HES corporate website and ensure the new product is fully compliant.
Organisational engagement

Provide practical support for colleagues on how to make digital content accessible including PDFs, multimedia (videos, podcasts) and social media materials to ensure they meet the right standards. Act as a quality checker for documents to be published on our corporate website and step in where necessary to remediate or provide advice on how to remediate documents. Build strong working relationships throughout HES to raise the profile of and standards for digital accessibility across the organisation. Manage and develop an internal network of digital accessibility champions via a dedicated Teams channel. Manage the implementation of the HES Digital Accessibility Policy across HES, reviewing and updating the policy as required. Collaborate with colleagues to identify relevant internal workflows for content creation and digital developments and, where required, implement new processes for ensuring digital accessibility standards have been considered.
Training

Advise staff on appropriate external training opportunities as well as scoping and delivering internal training, advisory sessions, and webinars. Manage an online annual training programme for staff.
New technology platforms

Provide advice to colleagues when procuring and developing new technology platforms to ensure they can meet accessibility legislation. You may be invited to sit on scoring panels for the tendering of new technology systems as well as contribute and help write procurement briefs.
New standards and guidelines

Play an active role in the accessibility community, keeping up-to-date with standards and demonstrating thought leadership in order to ensure HES remains legally compliant.

Key requirements of the role:

In order for you to be successful in this post, we will be looking for you to submit a cover letter which addresses how you can meet each of the essential and desirable criteria (in up to 1,200 words), using examples of where you have demonstrated these criteria previously. Please ensure that you provide real life examples for each of the criteria to be considered for this post. You can use examples of how you have met this criteria from your work life, home life, education or volunteer experience.

Essential:

Professional knowledge of accessibility legislation guidelines and standards and their application to Historic Environment Scotland, such as: Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.2, Public Sector Bodies (Website and Mobile Application), Accessibility Authoring Tool Accessibility Guidelines (ATAG) and the Equality Act 2010 Practical and proven experience of auditing websites for accessibility, writing and publishing accessibility statements. Experience of liaising with external suppliers and/or internal IT teams. Knowledge and practical experience of creating accessible and inclusive content across a range of channels from websites and apps to social media channels, in order to provide guidance, support and training to colleagues producing content for both external and internal audiences. Experience with PDF accessibility (tagging and content ordering), experience in using AxeDevTools and experience of using a website content management system (CMS) with a demonstrable record of liaising with developers and designers to commission and deploy new developments. Experience in user acceptance training (UAT) for websites or mobile apps Experience of delivering training to in-house teams, enthusing others and upskilling colleagues. Excellent organisational and planning skills, can work flexibly, think creatively to solve problems, and demonstrate sound judgement. Excellent interpersonal and team-working skills, experience of working in teams with staff at all levels, presenting and influencing.




We are dedicated to building a workforce which is reflective of diversity within Scotland. We warmly welcome applications from candidates of all backgrounds, regardless of age, race, gender or gender identity, religious beliefs, marital status, sexual orientation, disability, or neurodiversity. In support of our Gaelic Language Plan, we welcome applications from Gaelic speakers.


We want every candidate to have the best chance to succeed during the recruitment process. If you require your application in an alternative format, please reach out to us via email at recruit@hes.scot or call our Head Office at 0131 668 8600 and speak to a member of our People Team.


Please note that, at this time, we are unfortunately unable to provide sponsorship as part of the recruitment process, therefore you must have current right to work in the UK to be considered for a post.

Due to site maintenance, please note that we are currently experiencing problems with issuing notification emails through our recruitment platform. If you have not received notification that your application has been received, please email recruit@hes.scot. We apologise for any inconvenience caused by this.