Senior User Researcher

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

- 310214**Salary**:

- £53,400 - £66,875- Up to £58,850(National) £66,875 (London) - based on capability. The base salary of this grade is £53,400 (National) £58,800 (London). Offers made above this will be made up with a specialist pay allowance. For more info visit our things you need to know page.**Job grade**:

- Grade 7**Contract type**:

- Permanent**Business area**:

- GDS - Identity Services**Type of role**:

- Digital**Working pattern**:

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

- 1Contents

Location

About the job

**Benefits**:
Things you need to know

Location
- Bristol, London, ManchesterAbout the job

**Job summary**:
GDS exists to help government make brilliant public services that empower people in the UK. We work at the very centre of government to drive digital transformation, focused on users. We build and maintain common platforms, products and tools for others to use and create great public services that are accessible, inclusive and easy to use. We also work with departments to identify patterns, share learning and create change to make government more efficient.

Our teams are organised around delivering on our priorities. These are:

- making it easier for people to find what they are looking for on GOV.UK
- building common service platforms to make it simpler and cheaper to build quality digital services
- promoting agile, user-centred design practices both in the UK and across the world

**Job description**:
User Researchers are key figures in the teams that design and deliver services. They help their teams develop a deep understanding of the people - citizens, businesses or government colleagues - who use a service. Their findings allow their teams to design and build better services more quickly and at lower cost and risk. And to continuously improve services, based on data and evidence.

As a Senior User Researcher you will:

- plan, design and prepare a range of user research activities to support the design, development and continuous improvement of complex government services
- carry out a wide range of user research activities from recruiting participants, preparing discussion guides and moderating research sessions
- lead colleagues to analyse research data and synthesise clear and actionable findings, including working closely with analytics colleagues to create a rich picture of user behaviour
- communicate user research findings to help the team and wider organisation develop a deep understanding of users and their needs
- work closely with product managers, designers and developers to turn user research findings into stories and actions that lead to valuable product and service features
- align user research activities with wider plans to inform service proposition
- build user centred practices in new and larger teams
- mentor and guide junior user researchers to assure and improve research practice
- contribute to the wider user research community - including presenting at meetups, writing blog posts and leading on aspects of practice

**Person specification**:
We’re interested in people who have:

- experience of advocating for user research and engaging sceptical colleagues and stakeholders, particularly in large-scale complex organisations
- the ability to understand the complex problems a team is trying to solve, and align user research activities to inform decision making and action
- experience of a wide range of user research methods, analysis techniques, and approaches to sharing findings
- the ability to include all kinds of users in appropriate research activities to help teams understand the diversity of users of government services

**Benefits**:
The benefits of working at GDS

There are many benefits of working at GDS, including:

- flexible hybrid working with flexi-time and the option to work part-time or condensed hours
- a Civil Service Pension with an average employer contribution of 27%
- 25 days of annual leave, increasing by a day each year up to a maximum of 30 days
- an extra day off for The King’s birthday
- an in-year bonus scheme to recognise high performance
- career progression and coaching, including a training budget for personal development
- paid volunteering leave
- a focus on wellbeing with access to an employee assistance programme
- job satisfaction from making government services easier to use and more inclusive for people across the UK
- advances on pay, including for travel season tickets
- death in service benefits
- cycle to work scheme and facilities
- access to children's holiday play schemes across different locations in central London
- access to an employee discounts scheme
- 10 learning days per year
- volunteering opportunities (5 special leave days per year)
- access to a suite of learning activities through Civil Service learning

GDS offers hybrid working for all employees. This means that everyone does some worki