Senior User Researcher

Senior User Researcher - Health Sector

Salary: £50,000-£65,000 depending on experience

Design services that improve lives.

We're looking for an experienced user researcher to join Healthia and shape digital services across healthcare projects. This is an opportunity to work at scale and directly influence how people stay well for longer.

What You'll Be Doing

You'll plan and lead user research activities across larger teams and complex services, conducting discovery and evaluative research across healthcare programmes. You'll lead workshops and co-design sessions with clinical and operational stakeholders, presenting findings to senior stakeholders and building consensus through evidence-based insights.

You'll analyse qualitative and quantitative data to identify user needs and pain points, synthesising research findings into actionable insights and recommendations. You'll evaluate research quality against professional standards, supervising and developing other user researchers to assure and improve research practice. You'll monitor live service performance data and user feedback to identify improvement opportunities, adapting research approaches based on changing project requirements.

What We're Looking For

You need 7+ years user research experience, preferably in health, care or public sector, with proven experience leading discovery and evaluative research methods. Strong agile research practices and multidisciplinary teamwork are essential, plus experience with inclusive research approaches. Good understanding of healthcare pathways, clinical workflows and patient journeys is required, along with knowledge of research ethics, consent processes and health information governance.

You'll have expertise in qualitative research methods including depth interviews, focus groups and ethnographic studies, plus experience with co-design workshops and participatory research approaches. You must be proficient in stakeholder research and recruiting participants across diverse populations. You're experienced in analysis techniques including affinity mapping and thematic analysis, and can synthesise complex research findings into clear recommendations with strong presentation skills for both technical and non-technical audiences.

You'll work independently maintaining high standards of research quality and ethical practice, championing user needs throughout the product development lifecycle. You'll evaluate appropriate approaches for building team understanding of users, helping less experienced teams adopt user-centred practices. You'll identify the most important challenges and opportunities for service development, embedding research findings into agile workflows.

You'll need to deliver outcomes within fixed time and budget constraints. This means making pragmatic decisions about scope, adapting your research approach when you can't do everything you'd ideally like to, and ensuring projects remain successful for both clients and the business.

Working Arrangements

You'll work within multi-supplier teams, presenting to senior leadership while being mindful of commercial sensitivities. You'll manage stakeholders at multiple levels.

This is a permanent contract with a 6 month probation period. Right to live and work in the UK required. We offer hybrid working so you can be based anywhere in the UK with visits to our Bristol studio approximately once every 6 weeks.

About Healthia

Healthia is a team of human-centred design and transformation specialists with deep experience across health, care, public and third sectors. Since 2013, we've delivered hundreds of impactful projects, helping organisations unlock innovation, reduce costs and improve quality through proven co-design approaches.

Benefits

Sustainable, ethical pension with 5% employer contribution, £1k annual personal training budget, healthcare plan and life insurance, mobile phone and experience fund, profit share scheme, 25 days holiday plus birthday leave.

How to Apply

Please send the following to .services

• CV
• Portfolio with 3 case studies including project outcomes
• Covering letter that describes:

-Why you want to work at Healthia

-Why you are a good fit for the role

-Your experience of working on healthcare projects

-Your experience of working to the Government / NHS service standard and/or public sector projects

-Your experience of working in agile, multidisciplinary teams and how you collaborate effective

-Your notice period