User Researcher

**Details**:
**Reference number**:
208806

**Salary**:
£36,337

**Grade**:
Senior Executive Officer

**Contract type**:
Fixed Term

**Length of employment**:
1 year

**Business area**:
Planning Transformation

**Type of role**:
Digital

**Working pattern**:
Flexible working, Full-time, Job share, Part-time

**Number of posts**:
1

**Contents**:
Location

About the job

**Benefits**:
Things you need to know

Location

Bristol, Leeds, London, Wolverhampton

About the job

**Summary**:
DLUHC are leading the work to transform the planning system through the Levelling Up and Regeneration Bill. The Planning Reform Division sits within the Planning Directorate and was set up to deliver planning reform policy, legislation and implementation to an ambitious timeline. Planning reform is a top priority for DLUHC and the Government.

We are dedicated to building a diverse team that represents residents in our communities, and an inclusive culture where everyone feels they can be themselves at work, belong in the organisation and can speak up to challenge. We want everyone to be able to contribute to the success of our organisation, regardless of your background.

**Job description**:
We are looking for an enthusiastic and ambitious User Researcher that can join our User-Centred Design to support the ongoing policy development and the design of implementation. It is an exciting opportunity to put the voice of the user at the heart of planning reforms, helping to ensure reforms are deliverable from a user perspective. The role holder would be part of the User-Centred Design Team, working closely with other researchers and working collaboratively across the department, to ensure insights from our users are embedded into the whole planning reform programme.

As a User Researcher, you will plan, design and carry out research activities to inform the reform programme helping to shape ongoing policy development, test policy with users, and support the design of implementation.

**Responsibilities**:

- Planning, designing and conducting user research to support the design, development and continuous improvement of policies, support and services within the reform agenda, particularly focused towards policy and implementation.
- Working closely with internal, multidisciplinary teams to raise awareness of, and co-design, user research to enable teams to contribute to the research process and to support user research to be embedded within day-to-day practices.
- Identifying appropriate research methods to meet the aims of the research, such as workshops and interviews, with a focus on qualitative, creative approaches.
- Ensuring user research is conducted with a diverse range of users within the planning system.
- Analysing and synthesising research data to present clear user insights and actionable findings that speak to the needs of users within the planning system.
- Communicating user research findings with teams and relevant stakeholders through presentations, show and tells and more formal reporting as well as ensuring insights feed into specific relevant aspects of the reform agenda.
- Supporting the research operations of managing a user research panel and the ethical storage of data to meet GDPR.

Person Specfification and Essential Criteria:

- Experience and understanding of user research and user centred design practices.
- Ability to involve internal stakeholders in research activities, raising awareness of user research and planning or co-designing research with a multidisciplinary team.
- Ability to understand the problem the team is trying to solve, aligning user research activities in a way which gains relevant user insights to inform decision and action.
- A good understanding of the importance of conducting research with a diversity of users and ability to include many kinds of users in appropriate research activities.
- Analysing research data to generate actionable and implementable insights and, where appropriate, involving teams in that analysis to work towards consensus and challenging assumptions.
- Presenting clear findings of user insights to stakeholders in a range of formats that suit the audience and delivered in a way that teams can understand and use those insights.
- Meeting ambitious deadlines and delivering high-quality work on schedule, including creating research plans and outputs in different formats.
- Working in an open and collaborative way as part of a multidisciplinary team.

The following is desirable but not essential:

- Knowledge or experience of working within the planning system or working within public service design.
- Understanding of agile approaches and working in agile teams.

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

- Seeing the Big Picture
- Making Effective Decisions
- Communicating and Influencing
- Working Together

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

- Descr