User Researcher

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

- 265578**Salary**:

- £41,782 - £44,932**Job grade**:

- Senior Executive Officer**Contract type**:

- Permanent**Business area**:

- HMRC - CDIO - Chief Technology and Design Officer**Type of role**:

- Digital
- Information Technology**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
- Leeds, Newcastle-upon-TyneAbout the job

**Job summary**:
At HMRC, we are committed to creating a great place to work for all our colleagues; an inclusive and respectful environment that reflects the diversity of the society we serve. We want to maximise the potential of everyone who works for us, and we offer a range of flexible working patterns and support to make an exciting career at HMRC accessible to you.

**About the Chief Technology and Design Office Group**

This role is in Chief Technology and Design Office, part of HMRC’s Chief Digital and Information Office (CDIO). We are responsible for managing all IT demand and change coming into CDIO, as part of this we ensure User Centred Design is at the heart of our designs. This enables us to ensure the solutions we deliver maximise success rates for internal and external users, and so maximise business outcomes and minimise costly rework.

**Job description**:
HMRC is looking for User Researchers who are passionate about User Centred Design, supporting the work of our Policy Lab team.

**Policy Lab Team**

HMRC’s services are complex, you will need to enjoy tricky problems and thinking broadly about how services and policies will interact. With complex services we have a complex user base - millions of people have to use these services, which means a broad spectrum of different needs and outcomes.

We want people who are curious about who will use a service, how they will interact with it, how something can be improved and how as user researcher you can advocate for your users’ needs and help HMRC design the right services.

Alongside working on a policy area you’ll be a member of a thriving user research community; the community provides a safe space to test out research ideas, developing your own skills and offering support to other user researchers to attain the best possible outcomes.

If this sounds like the sort of thing which excites you, these are the jobs for you.

You can also watch this video, where our Service Designers talk about what HMRC does and then how the work we do helps create better services, have a think about what opportunities this gives you as a User Researcher

Policy Lab

**Responsibilities**:

- As a User Researcher, responsibilities include:
- Lead on planning, recruiting and conducting user research for early policy ideas or new technology concept testing.
- Understanding the policy or service problem then aligning user research activities to influence and support decision making.
- Advocate for, and include, all kinds of users in appropriate research activities to help teams design accessible services for all users.
- Engage in a community of user researchers, contributing to areas of development.
- Manage and/or mentor Junior User Researchers.
- Participate in HMRC’s cross-government research, policy communities conferences.

**Person specification**:
**Essential Criteria**

You will already have experience and understanding of:
- Analysing and synthesising user research insights to influence decision making.
- Using qualitative and quantitative research methodologies such as contextual and remote interviews, diary studies and surveys.
- Advocating for the value of user research and engaging sceptical stakeholders.
- Producing appropriate research outputs to support and demonstrate insights.
- A degree in psychology, cognitive science, human factors, computer science, product/interaction design, human computer interaction or related disciplines or relevant user research experience

**Technical skills**:
We'll assess you against these technical skills during the selection process:

- Research Skills
- Analysis and Synthesis
- Strategic Insight

**Benefits**:

- 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 average employer contribution of 27%

Team members that are moving offices as a result of the Locations Programme will be entitled to a Moves Adjustment Payment for three years where they incur additional costs. This is calculated based on the difference between the costs of travelling to and from the new and old office, over a weekly period. You will get more detail on this as part of targeted locations move communications.

Find more about HMRC benefits in 'Your little extras and big benefits handbook' for further information or visit Thinking of joining the Civil Service.

Things you need to know

**Selection process deta