Lead User Researcher

145642

£68,699 - £75,566

Permanent

HO - Digital Data & Technology

Digital
Information Technology
Operational Research
Project Delivery

Flexible working, Full-time, Job share, Part-time, Compressed Hours

1

London - Clive House

The first duty of the government is to keep citizens safe and the country secure. The Home Office has been at the front line of this effort since 1782. As such, we play a fundamental role in maintaining the security and economic prosperity of the UK.

The Home Office leads on immigration and passports, refugee protection, counter-terrorism, policing, fire services, and crime and drugs policy.

Digital Data and Technology (DDaT) enables the Home Office to keep the UK safe and secure. We design and build the services that help people apply for visas or passports; support policing and counter-terrorism operations; and protect the UK’s borders.

This is an exciting time to be at the Home Office. You’ll have a chance to shape the future and support our mission to deliver exceptional public services that work for everyone.

Our work is guided by these principles:

• We put user needs first
• We value delivery and outcomes over process
• We work in the open

Our flexible working policy ensures a healthy work-life balance. We also nurture talent and offer a broad range of learning and development opportunities that will help you flourish in your role.

We work hard to maintain a positive working culture and are committed to helping you fulfil your potential. We value diversity and provide an open, inclusive and supportive environment to help you do your best work.

You can keep up-to-date with our work on the Home Office DDaT blog.

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

As a Lead User Researcher, you will work closely with Interaction Designers, Content Designers, Service Designers, Product Manager and Delivery Managers to align user research activities across several projects to better understand the needs and behaviours of all users of Home Office services.

We’re looking for an expert practitioner to lead a team of User Researchers. You will be part of the Centre for Digital Design (CDD) in PPPT reporting and working closely with the Head of the centre feeding into programme strategy and the transition of the wider organisation to be user centred. As part of the CDD leadership team you will engage with Programme Directors and managers to establish and scale user research across the major programmes. A key part of your role will also be regular engagement with our policing partners and wider stakeholders where you will introduce user research as a fundamental part of ideation to live and throughout continuous improvement. You’ll work closely with Service Managers, Programme Directors and senior stakeholders to resource teams, resolve problems and develop future projects. You will also work closely with the Head of User Research on resourcing, ensuring best practice and building an inclusive community.

You’ll ensure services meet both user needs and business goals and will promote your discipline, taking a lead in CDD and the wider organisation (PPPT) and cross government user research communities. To promote quality and consistency, you’ll ensure the User Research team follows the GDS Service Manual and assess services against the Digital Service Standard.

You’ll communicate insights and empower teams to present research in engaging and impactful ways to senior stakeholders to drive change and improve government services and inform policy.

This post is eligible for DDaT RRA. Successful candidates with exceptional skills and experience may apply for a Recruitment Retention Allowance between £3500 and £9000. This allowance is subject to an initial review within six months of taking up the post and thereafter an annual review in line with departmental priorities and could be reduced or withdrawn at any time.

Responsibilities

Your main day to day responsibilities will be:

• Working with the Head of User Research to ensure current and future resourcing needs for user research are met, by upskilling, hiring new talent and allocating resources as required.

• Day to day you will report into the Head of the Centre for Digital Design where you will update on the progress of establishing UR across the organisation and feed into strategic approaches for PPPT as well as advise across major Law Enforcement programmes.

• You will support the Head of CDD by inputting into submissions and other governance processes to update and or approve the work we are doing to our policing partners and the wider Home Office.

• Collaborating with the Head of User Research and the Portfolio team to develop and assure good user research practice.

• Communicating with senior stakeholders to promote a user-centred approach and balance user needs with business needs.

• Building and leading a team of User Researchers in CDD and PPPT, providing performance feedback and supporting their learning and development goals.

• Establish and manage a UR support network within PPPT.

• Ensuring that delivery teams take a user-centred, evidence-based approach to service design and delivery.

• Ensuring that delivery teams build services that are accessible and inclusive and that this is informed by research with participants from the full range of users who rely on government services in their research.

You will also be expected to carry out the following day to day activities:

• Providing hands on support and user research as required.

• Running stakeholder workshops to set expectations of standards and ways of working.

• Providing user research expertise and consultancy to the portfolio.

• Contributing to the internal research community by speaking at internal events in PPPT and DDAT wide, sharing best practice and contributing to a central repository of research assets.

• Contributing to the wider research community, for example by blogging, speaking at conferences etc.

• Overseeing the work of user-centred designers (user research, interaction design, content design, service design, accessibility and digital inclusion) as well as Product Managers and Delivery Managers.

Essential Criteria:

You’ll have a demonstrable passion for user centred design, with the following skills or extensive experience in:

• Understanding organisational strategy and objectives, aligning user research activity across multiple projects simultaneously and adapting to changing priorities.

• Advising on the application of appropriate user research methods across different life cycle phases, as well as extensive hands on experience in applying these methods.

• Establishing an effective user-centred design culture in an organisation, convincing senior stakeholders of the value of user research and embedding user-centred design practices into a team’s agile workflow.

• Building and leading a team of researchers that work across a range of services, and assuring the quality of their research.

• Driving the standards for ethical research standards and practices to ensure the safeguarding and wellbeing of participants and researchers.

• Researching diverse audiences to help teams deliver accessible and inclusive digital services

Desirable Criteria:

Ideally you will also have the following skills or some experience in:

• Working in an agile development environment, creating new digital services as part of a multidisciplinary team.

• Demonstrating strong interpersonal skills and leadership experience in a complex agile environment.

• Coaching and developing skills of team members, supervising the work of others.

• Acting autonomously and with authority, dealing effectively with competing priorities.

• Demonstrating strong communication and negotiation skills to convince others of a user-led approach and ensuring user research concerns are treated with appropriate priority.

• Familiarity with the Government Service Standard

Desirable but not essential: a degree in HCI/ Cognitive Psychology/ Anthropology/ Sociology/ Computer Science or related field, and/or relevant industry experience