Senior User Researcher -UK Health Security Agency-G7
Government Digital & Data -
Senior User Researcher
UK Health Security Agency
Apply before 11:55 pm on Monday 8th July 2024
Details
Reference number
359244
Salary
£51,824 - £65,089
National banding -£51,824- £61,414 per annum. Outer London -£53,812- £63,252 per annum. Inner London - £55,799- £65,089 per annum.
A Civil Service Pension with an average employer contribution of 27%
Job grade
Grade 7
Contract type
Permanent
Type of role
Architecture and Data
Digital
Information Technology
Working pattern
Annualised hours, Flexible working, Full-time, Homeworking, Job share, Part-time, Compressed hours
Number of jobs available
1
Contents
Location
Remote working (anywhere in the UK)
About the job
Job summary
Job title – Senior User Researcher
Profession- User Research
Directorate – Data Operations
Full Time equivalent - 37.5 hours
No of Roles – 1
Contract Type – Permanent
Location – Home Based
Working Pattern – Full Time / Flexible Working / Hybrid Working / Part Time / Job Share
Grade & Salary – Grade 7. National banding -£51,824- £61,414 per annum. Outer London -£53,812- £63,252 per annum. Inner London - £55,799- £65,089 per annum.
New entrants to the Civil Service are expected to start on the minimum of the pay band.
The internal roles rules apply to existing Civil Servants, i.e. level transfers move on current salary or the pay range minimum, transfers on promotion move to new pay range minimum or receive 10% increase. Either case is determined by whichever is the highest.
For further details please refer to the Information Sheet- Starting Salaries & Benefits attachment
This role is to be appointed under Civil Service Terms & Conditions. Full details on the T&C’s are found https://www.ukhsa.reed.com/.
Closing Date – 08/07/2024. 23:55pm. Unfortunately, late applications will not be considered
Interview Date – W/C 22/07/2024 Please note, these dates are subject to change.
Job description
At the United Kingdom Health Security Agency (UKHSA) our mission is to provide health security for the nation by protecting from infectious disease and external hazards. We are a trusted source of advice to government and to the public, focusing on reducing inequalities in the way different communities experience and are impacted by infectious disease, environmental hazards, and other threats to health.
Our mission is challenging, innovative and in the spotlight. We will work to ensure our people have the diverse skills, experiences and backgrounds we need to thrive, that our employees are representative of the communities we serve and feel valued and enabled to play their part in delivering our work.
Creating our working culture is an ongoing process which we are developing by listening and learning together, hearing and acting upon diverse voices and opinions to develop a common sense of identity and effective ways of working.
Job Overview
The post holder will be an experienced user researcher, able to plan and lead research for teams and more complex services. You will be a key member of the team delivering the public and private facing dashboards for UKHSA to prepare for, prevent, and respond to external hazards that threaten the health of the UK population. You will be tasked with influencing service proposition, aligning user research activities with wider plans and building user centred practices within the team. You will lead activities to generate new and useful user insights, working closely with designers, analysts and developers to iteratively improve our services for users.
Experienced in using a variety of user research methods to reveal actionable insights, you should also have excellent analytical and problem solving skills, and the ability to quickly develop recommendations based on quantitative and qualitative evidence.
You will need to be confident in explaining user needs to a wide audience. You will have experience working with agile development teams. You will be able to introduce user research practices into a team, establish a user centred culture, and continually monitor and improve practices.
Main Duties of the Job
As a Senior User Researcher, you will be working autonomously to lead user research activities including recruitment, preparing research materials, conducting research using a range of methods and analysis; your responsibilities include:
- Focus on leading and doing user research for complex and high profile agile projects, programmes and/or portfolios of work.
- Leading on planning, recruiting and conducting user research for new data product testing, including playing back user research to stakeholders and digital teams.
- Be a knowledge expert in the user research field and lead on user research and strategic issues, through effective planning, implementation and review.
- Working with user researchers and service managers to develop and advocate appropriate research strategies to understand user needs for a service, and to continually test and improve the service.
- Foster a culture of team involvement in user research, team analysis, design rationale and decision making based on user needs
- Managing and mentoring other user centred design staff to ensure quality of research, and drive improvements in practice.
- Planning, designing, preparing and running user research activities to support the design, development and continuous improvement of digital government services (including contextual discovery, experience mapping, diary studies, early stage concept and prototype testing, lab based and contextual usability and accessibility testing).
- Designing and running contextual and discovery research to develop a deep understanding of the needs of all users of a service.
- Managing the usability and accessibility testing process from recruiting participants, designing test tasks, and preparing discussion guides, to test moderation, analysis and presenting results.
- Designing, executing and analysing quantitative surveys.
- Leading colleagues to analyse research data and synthesis findings so that research is shareable and traceable.
- Understanding the service problem then aligning user research activities to influence and support decision-making.
- Effectively communicating user research findings to the team and the wider organisation, so that they share a strong and empathetic understanding of their users (including presentations at show and tells, designing and maintaining research outputs on the team wall, formal reports)
- Working closely with designers and developers to turn user research findings into stories and actions that lead to valuable product and service features.
- Working closely with analytics colleagues to define user centred KPIs, to create a rich picture of user behaviour to tell the full story of how and why people use our services
PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT
- Identify, discuss and action own professional performance and training / development needs with your line manager through appraisal / individual development plan. Attending internal / external training events
- To participate in all mandatory training as required, i.e. fire safety, information governance and all other mandatory training.
STAKEHOLDER MANAGEMENT
The post holder will develop working relationships and communicate regularly with a wide range of individuals, clinical and non-clinical, internal and external to UKHSA. This will include;
Internal Stakeholders
- Staff across all disciplines and at all levels within the DA&S Data Operations Directorate
- Senior management across all UKHSA directorates
- Staff in the Customer Comms & Innovation and Technology groups
- Executive Directors across UKHSA
- Leadership Teams
- Matrix UKHSA Directorate leads for Programme Management, Communications, Engagements, and Strategy & Planning
External Stakeholders
- Department of Health and Social Care
- Secretary of State and Cabinet Office
- NHS England & Improvement
- NHS Digital
- ONS
- HSCIC
- Other Government Departments
- Commercial Organisations
- Third Sector Organisations
- Members of the public
Person specification
Essential Criteria
- Demonstrable knowledge, experience in and passion for user centred design practices for web, service or software development
- Educated to degree level in relevant subject or equivalent level of experience of working at a similar level
- Experience of understanding user needs for web content, tools and transactional services, especially those with the most complex user journeys
- Experience of designing, facilitating and analysing a wide range of qualitative and quantitative user research methods
- Experience of advocating for user research and engaging sceptical colleagues and stakeholders
- Experience of presenting user research findings in a wide variety of formats and contexts
- Experience introducing and establishing user research practices in an organisation
- Experience of working in an agile development environment with designers and developers and product managers to create new digital services
- Strong understanding of strengths and limitations of different research methods
- Ability to turn research data into clear findings that inform decisions
- Knowledge of the technologies used to build and operate digital services
- Ability to manage your own workload with limited supervision
- Ability to understand complex problems a team is trying to solve. Align user research activities to inform decision-making and action.
- Experience in line management
- An understanding of and commitment to equality of opportunity and good working relationships.
Desirable Criteria
- Previous experience within government services
- Degree in User Centred Design, Cognitive Psychology or related field
We pride ourselves as being an employer of choice, where Everyone Matters promoting equality of opportunity to actively encourage applications from everyone, including groups currently underrepresented in our workforce.
UKHSA ethos is to be an inclusive organisation for all our staff and stakeholders. To create, nurture and sustain an inclusive culture, where differences drive innovative solutions to meet the needs of our workforce and wider communities. We do this through celebrating and protecting differences by removing barriers and promoting equity and equality of opportunity for all.
Benefits
Alongside your salary of £51,824, UK Health Security Agency contributes £13,992 towards you being a member of the Civil Service Defined Benefit Pension scheme. Find out what benefits a Civil Service Pension provides.
- 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%
Things you need to know
Selection process details
This vacancy is using Success Profiles, and will assess your Behaviours, Experience and Strengths
Stage 1: Application & Sift
As part of the application process, you will be asked to provide a Statement of Suitability in no more than 1250 words. This should outline your skills, experience, and achievements, providing evidence of your suitability for the role, with particular reference to the essential and desirable criteria (outlined in the person specification section).
You will also be asked to provide information within the ‘Employer/ Activity history’ section of the application form. This is equivalent to the information you would provide on a CV, setting out your career history.
Note: both your Statement of Suitability and Employment History sections will be scored with equal weight in the sifting process. You must complete both to progress. If you are successful at this stage, you will progress to an interview.
If you are successful at this stage, you will progress to interview
Stage 2: Panel Interview
All applicants that progress to interview will be assessed on behaviours, experience and technical through Success Profiles.
When assessing strengths, we want to find out whether you and the job role are a good fit. We will look at what you enjoy doing and what you do well and often. By ensuring that the role is the right fit for you, you are more likely to enjoy it and perform well.
If successful at sift stage, you will be invited to interview where you'll be assessed on the Behaviours and Technical skills listed below:
- Seeing the Bigger Picture
- Changing and Improving
- Making Effective Decisions
- Communicating and Influencing
