Lead User Researcher - London, United Kingdom - Government Digital Service

Government Digital Service

Verified Company

London, United Kingdom

3 weeks ago

Posted by:

Tom O´Connor

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Description

Details:

Reference number:

Salary:

- £64,700 - £83,353

Up to £83,353 for London and £75,970 for national based on capability. The base salary of this grade is £68,790 for London and £64,700 for other locations.

Offers made above this will be made up with a specialist pay allowance
Job grade:

Grade 6
Contract type:
Permanent
Business area:
GDS
Identity Services
Type of role:
Digital
Working pattern:
Flexible working, Fulltime, Job share, Parttime, 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.

Lead User Researcher responsibilities:
- work with the Head of UCD to lead the development of user research and UCD strategy across the Digital Identity directorate
- work with the Head of UCD and UR leads to lead user researchers and user research activities across teams, ensuring good practice and knowledge sharing
- inform the development of programme strategy and product roadmap, supporting user-centred, evidence-based decisions and teams' active involvement in evaluation
- work with the programme leadership to communicate insights to senior leaders across government, seeking opportunities to collaborate and share findings, and through that process help the programme shape strategy
- work with other UCD discipline leads and head of UCD to develop and support UCD strategy, and with programme teams to support them to implement the strategy
- evolve the use of research tools and techniques, assuring compliance with privacy policies and legislation
- contribute to the GDS and cross-government user research communities, supporting the development and assurance of professional standards, skills and capabilities
- line manage senior user researchers and coach practitioners at all levels, whilst acting as a point of escalation

Person specification:

We're interested in people who have:

experience in leading the development of user research strategy across programmes, understanding organisational goals and challenges, supporting UCD strategy and product development, and ensuring that teams take a user-centred, evidence-based approach to service design and delivery

- experience of leading and developing teams of researchers, preferably in multidisciplinary and agile environments; and of managing, coaching and mentoring researchers to develop their practice
- demonstrable knowledge of user research practice and experience in a wide range of user research methods and of deploying them effectively to generate clear and valuable findings
- demonstrable experience of embedding user research as a collaborative practice in teams, helping them to adopt a wide range of user research methods, analysis and synthesis techniques
- experience of advocating for user research, engaging sceptical colleagues and stakeholders as well as understanding how to reconcile business and user needs
- experience of leading a community of practice to help an organisation continually assure, improve and innovate their user research

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 pro