These are exciting times at the Department for Education. We are transforming to become a user centred organisation, delivering better outcomes for all our users through agile and iterative software development and continuous improvement.

You will work with user researchers, product managers, designers, business analysts, delivery managers and content specialists as part of a multi-disciplinary team to directly deliver better outcomes for users. You will innovate to radically transform how public services are delivered and improved.

Read more about software development on the DfE Digital blog.

Senior user researcher

About the job

User researchers at Department for Education plan, design and carry out research activities with users that help teams get a deep understanding of the people that use our services, across education and social care. This research informs our policy, proposition, service, content and interaction design so that services work well for users and meet our policy intent.

As a senior user researcher you will be an experienced practitioner who can plan and lead user research activities in larger teams and across programmes of work and more complex services. You will:

deliver user research in complex subject areas, and supervise and develop other user researchers to assure and improve research practice, ensuring that research is high quality, ethical and safe
build user-centred practices in teams in your programme area, supervising other user researchers
help teams to research inclusively with a wide range of users, including those with additional needs and other hard-to-reach groups
be a service assessor, assessing DfE services against the government service standard
effectively communicate user research findings to the team and the wider organisation, to influence decision making
take an active role in the DfE user research community, helping develop and improve our practice across the department

This role is in [programme area]. [Short details about the programme area, service, and broad types of users of the service. No more than ~50 words]

Selection criteria

Essential skills and expertise we will assess you against are:

Research methods and planning. Ability to plan and deliver complex user research, using a range of methods, working in multi-disciplinary teams
Analysis and synthesis. Ability to analyse and synthesise complex quantitative and qualitative data, involving teams and stakeholders, and presenting clear and actionable findings
Inclusive research. Experience of researching with and advocating for a wide range of users, including users with additional needs and other hard-to-reach groups
Ethics and safeguarding. A good understanding of research ethics, and how to keep participants, teams and yourself safe in research
Research leadership. Working with teams and stakeholders to help them adopt user-centred practices, and ensuring user insight informs decisions and is impactful
Coaching, mentoring and supervising. Developing junior colleagues, supporting their professional development, and advising on and assuring their work

Desirable skills (used in the event of a tie-break situation between two candidates):

Agile working. Experience of delivering user research in agile digital delivery teams
Government Service Standard. Experience of delivering and assessing services against the Government Service Standard
[Add any other desirable skills relevant to your specific team or service – no more than one or two]

Successful applicants will be invited to a 90 minute interview consisting of a task and questions to assess your experience in the essential criteria listed above.