Senior User Researcher

**Details**:
**Reference number**:
193294

**Salary**:
£49,861 - £57,603

**Grade**:
Grade 7

**Contract type**:
Permanent

**Business area**:
DFE - Operations Group

**Type of role**:
Architecture and Data
Digital
Engineering
Information Technology
Other

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

**Number of posts**:
1

***:
Location

Bristol, South West (region), BS1 6EH : Coventry, West Midlands (region), CV1 2WT : Darlington, North East (region), DL1 5QE : Leeds, Yorkshire and the Humber (region), LS2 8ER : Manchester, North West (region), M1 2WD : Newcastle upon Tyne, North East (region), NE1 8QH : Nottingham, East Midlands (region), NG1 6HJ : Sheffield, Yorkshire and the Humber (region), S1 2FJ

About the job

**Summary**:
The Department for Education is responsible for education, children’s services, higher and further education policy, apprenticeships and wider skills in England, and equalities. We work to achieve a highly educated society in which opportunity is equal for all, no matter what their background or family circumstances.

Data is a key aspect in achieving this vision and the role on offer is part of the Data Directorate within DfE.

As the Data Directorate, we are aspiring to make the department a data-led organisation, where we can have responsive decisions that lead to better outcomes for all children, young people and adults.

These are exciting times within our division, as we are progressing through a transformation journey, and we’re looking for experienced technical professionals to help us achieve our vision.

Your unique vision and skills will shape our services.

As well as doing great work, we’re crafting a place that’s great to do work in. We offer forward-thinking ways of working and training opportunities, as well as providing support from specialist colleagues.

On top of that, you’ll find flexible working, an inclusive culture, and a place where your opinion is valued.

**Job description**:
We want to use the best of digital, data, technology and associated approaches to transform the way in which we deliver our data products and services across the Department for Education. The decisions we make are driven by data, and we work collaboratively with our internal partners to continue to deliver exceptional services.

As a Senior User Researcher, you will:

- Lead a range of user research activities across service teams, in larger teams or on more complex government services
- Carry out a range of user research activities and deliver clear and actionable findings
- Collaborate with insight and analyst colleagues to build up a rich picture of our users
- Work closely with business analysts, designers, and developers to turn user research findings into stories and actions that lead to valuable product and service features
- Effectively communicate user research findings to the team(s) and the wider organisation to influence decision-making.
- Foster a supportive culture, in some cases establishing a community of practice across service lines or mentoring junior user researchers.
- Build user-centred practices in new teams in new teams, and align user research activities with wider plans to inform service proposition.
- Foster a culture of team involvement in user research, team analysis, design rationale and decision making based on user needs.
- Take an active role in developing user research communities and linking these with the wider DfE user research community and across government.
- Advocate for inclusive design and research, ensuring full inclusion and understanding or users with access needs and those that require non-digital access or support.
- Access services, both internally and cross-government, to ensure they meet the Government Service Standard.

**Responsibilities**:**
Essential Criterial**

You should be able to demonstrate:

- Experience of advocating for user research and championing a focus on all users.
- Proven ability to understand the complex problems a team or service line is trying to solve and align user research activities to inform decision-making and action.
- Experience of using research findings to influence decision making, both within service teams, and at senior levels.
- Ability to prioritise and define approaches to understand the user story, guiding others in doing so.
- Strong understanding of strengths and limitations of different research methods, and the ability to support and guide others in using new methods, where appropriate.
- Experience of helping teams adopt a wide range of user research methods, analysis and synthesis techniques and approaches to presenting and sharing findings.
- A strong understanding of the difference between user needs and desires of the user.
- Able to integrate digital analytics with qualitative data, such as user surveys and user research.
- Experience of supervising, mentoring, and developing other user researchers.
- Able to support and fost