Senior User Researcher

**Details**:
**Reference number**:

- 373616**Salary**:

- £51,934-
- A Civil Service Pension with an employer contribution of 28.97%**Job grade**:

- Grade 7**Contract type**:

- Fixed term**Length of employment**:

- 23 Months**Business area**:

- Digital**Type of role**:

- Digital**Working pattern**:

- Flexible working, Full-time, Job share, Part-time**Number of jobs available**:

- 1Contents

Location

About the job

**Benefits**:
Things you need to know

Location
- Birmingham, Bristol, Darlington, Leeds, Manchester, WolverhamptonAbout the job

**Job summary**:
Here at the Ministry of Housing, Communities & Local Government (MHCLG), we work on things that make a real difference to people’s lives.

Whether it's through the homes we live in, the work of our local councils, or the communities we’re all part of, our work is at the top of the political agenda. We have ambitious and far-reaching outcomes to achieve this year and, if you’re thinking of joining us, there’s never been a more exciting time.

We have over 3,500 staff who are based in 20 offices across the UK.

We're looking for a great researcher to join our Funding Service team. We're aiming to improve how billions of pounds of funding is provided to hundreds of grant recipients. This is a large programme with several sub-teams. You will probably work on a part of the service called Delta, which is already operational. Delta allows internal users to build forms for external users to submit data, and make payments.

As a senior user researcher, you'll play a key leadership role in the Funding Service's User Centred Design Community and will help lead and manage our growing community of user researchers. You'll also conduct your own research and make sure insights are shared across the Funding Service. You will need to have a pragmatic approach to design as many parts of Delta do not meet the standards of our new work in the Funding Service. We are committed to improving it. Your findings will allow the team to continue to iterate and improve this critical service based on data and evidence from our users.

Find out more about what it's like to work in a digital, data and technology role at MHCLG including our culture, ways of working, career progression and staff benefits. You can also read the MHCLG Digital blog to learn about the work we're doing.

**Job description**:
As a Senior User Researcher, you'll:

- lead on user research activities, engaging the user community and preparing discussion guides as well as moderating research sessions with end user committees or groups
- lead on planning, designing and preparing a range of user research activities to support the design, development and continuous improvement of our services
- lead analysis of research data and identify actionable findings and outcomes to enable us to have a clear picture of user behaviour
- manage and mentor several user researchers and play an active role in the Funding Service's User Centred Design community
- identify ways the programme's user research practices could improve and be standardised

**Person specification**:
We will use the essential criteria below to evaluate you during the recruitment process. Make sure your CV and cover letter details how you meet the criteria.

As a Senior User Researcher, you'll:

- have knowledge of a range of user research methods, techniques for analysis of research data, synthesis of findings and presentation of clear findings that are usable
- have experience of leading research on agile multidisciplinary teams and helping teams adopt a wide range of user research methods
- be able to plan user research for services with challenging user needs and complex aims
- have experience of working with and challenging senior stakeholders, championing user research and a focus on users
- have experience of developing the capability of other researchers
- be pragmatic about working within constraints to deliver improvements for users
- have a strong understanding of WCAG 2.1 guidelines and inclusive design

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

- Working Together
- Developing Self and Others

**Benefits**:

- Alongside your salary of £51,934, Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government contributes £15,045 towards you being a member of the Civil Service Defined Benefit Pension scheme. Find out what benefits a Civil Service Pension provides.- Learning and development tailored to your role
- An environment with flexible working options
- A culture encouraging inclusion and diversity
- A Civil Service pension with an employer contribution of 28.97%

Things you need to know

**Selection process details**:

- This vacancy is using Success Profiles (opens in a new window), and will assess your Behaviours, Strengths and Experience.MHCLG want to bring in a diverse workforce at all levels.

**CV and Cover Letter Declaration**

We recruit based on your knowledge and skills, and n