Senior User Researcher

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

- 408819

**Salary**:

- £60,300 - £70,730
- National: £60,300 - £66,330
London: £64,300 - £70,730
New entrants to the Civil Service will start their role on the salary band minimum: £60,300 for National Roles. £64,300 for London Roles.
- A Civil Service Pension with an employer contribution of 28.97%

GBP

**Job grade**:

- Grade 7

**Contract type**:

- Permanent

**Business area**:

- HO - Digital Data and Technology - User-Centred Design

**Type of role**:

- Digital
Information Technology

**Working pattern**:

- Flexible working, Full-time, Compressed hours

**Number of jobs available**:

- 1

**Contents**:

- Location
- About the job
- Benefits
- Things you need to know

**Location**:

- Croydon CR0 2WF, Liverpool L3 9AF, Manchester M5 3LZ, Southport PR8 2HH, Sheffield S3 8NU

**About the job**:
**Job summary**:
Team members have specialised knowledge and a calling to build on it. We want the best people to come to the Home Office and work in the diverse roles and communities they’re passionate about. This is how we produce exceptional outcomes.

**Job description**:
We’re looking for a skilled and experienced Senior User Researcher who is passionate about what they can bring to delivering better services at the Home Office and prepared to be a vocal advocate for user needs.

You will work within a fast-paced delivery team - either across several smaller services or dedicated to one larger programme of work. Your research will inform policy, proposition, service, content and interaction design so that digital services work well for users and achieve their policy intent.

As a Senior User Researcher, you will plan and lead user research activities in large teams and on complex services. You will develop research strategy and test design, as well as lead on expansive discovery research and analysis within the broad problem space. You will lead research using a range of methods, including usability testing, contextual interviews, pop-up testing, and will lead on rapid analysis that involves the wider team whenever possible.

You will also carry out line management, mentoring, training and other activities designed to up-skill junior staff in primary research techniques, as well as recruitment activities to ensure that we continue to have the required skills within the organisation.

You’ll communicate insights from research in engaging and impactful ways to delivery teams and stakeholders to drive change and improve government services.

This role is not suitable for part-time working due to the nature of this role.

**What you will do**

Your main day to day responsibilities will be:

- Leading the planning, design and execution of user research and usability testing to understand user needs and behaviours, and inform the design and development of government services.
- Influencing how decisions are made and constructively challenging ways of thinking at both the team and senior stakeholder level.
- Leading other user researchers within a digital delivery team, mentoring and up-skilling researchers and supporting the growth and development of the team.
- Taking a user centred, evidence-based approach by turning user research findings into actionable insights that influence service/product development.
- Supporting digital delivery teams to build accessible digital services by ensuring that participants with access needs and low digital skills are included in all research.
- Sharing insights from research and examples of best practice where they can help other researchers across the Home Office.
- Aligning user research activities with wider organisational objectives to provide strategic insights that inform policy and proposition

**Person specification**:
**UK residency and security requirements - You need to have lived in the UK for the past 5 years.**

**Essential Skills**

As a Senior User Researcher, you will have experience of establishing and leading an effective user centered design culture in a team and supporting them to embed user centred design practices into their agile workflow. During the selection process, you’ll be assessed on your experience of this and the following technical skills:

- ** Managing People and Leading**: establishing an effective user centred design culture in a team, and supporting them to embed user centred design practices into their agile workflow **(Lead essential criteria).**:

- ** Analysis and Synthesis**: communicating insights from research in a clear and impactful way that drives change in the design of services and informs policy and proposition.
- ** Communicate, persuade and advocate**: convincing senior stakeholders about the benefits of adopting a user-centred approach, based on evidence.
- ** Accessibility and inclusion**: researching diverse audiences to help teams deliver accessible and inclusive digital services.

Our skills are consistent with the cross gov DDaT Capability Framework.

**Behaviours**:
We'll asses