Lead User Researcher


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Details

Reference number

310406

Salary

£50,466
Grade A: £50,466 (National Framework) or £55,635 (London Framework – if you are London office based or homebased and live within the boundary of the M25) – There is also an additional homeworking allowance of £529 per annum for those working from home. Contracted Hours: Full-time 37 hours per week. (May consider a 4 day week or 9 day fortnight). Talk to us about compressed hours. Contract Type: Permanent Location: Flexible office or home-based role. As part of this role the successful candidate will be expected to travel for work. Travel is likely on a monthly basis for user research activities or workshops. Generally, these would be in London, Newcastle or Leeds but always within England. Closing Date: Sunday 24th September 2023 at 11.59pm This role is NOT open to applications from those who will require sponsorship under the points-based system. Should you apply for this role and be found to require sponsorship, your application will be rejected, and any provisional offer of employment withdrawn.

Job grade

Grade 7
Grade A: £50,466 (National Framework) or £55,635 (London Framework – if you are London office based or homebased and live within the boundary of the M25) – There is also an additional homeworking allowance of £529 per annum for those working from home.

Contract type

Permanent

Type of role

Analytical
Communications / Marketing
Market Research
Project Delivery

Working pattern

Full-time, Part-time, Compressed Hours

Number of jobs available

1

Contents

East Midlands (England), East of England, London (region), North East England, North West England, South East England, South West England, West Midlands (England), Yorkshire and the Humber

Job summary

For an informal discussion or further information about this role please contact Hiring Manager – Owen Griffiths, Manager: Information & Services; Owen.Griffiths@cqc.org.uk and for general enquiries contact recruitment@cqc.org.uk 

Are you committed to helping us regulate health and social care within England? 
When thinking about what drives you every day in your job, what keeps you motivated and passionate about your work what comes to mind?  For 3000+ people at the CQC we end each day knowing that we have made a difference to the lives of those most in need in our communities. We make sure health and social care services provide people with safe, effective, compassionate, high-quality care and encourage care services to improve. We are looking for people who are caring, demonstrate integrity and work well as part of a team to join with us and share in this sense of achievement. If you would like to help us make a positive impact to health and social care within England, then read on. 

Why this could be a great role for you…. 
If you’re passionate about delivering high quality, effective and accessible services designed around the needs of people who use them then you could be the perfect fit for this role. 

We’re looking for an experienced user researcher with the organisation and enthusiasm to lead a team. You will oversee research plans and professional development and ensure senior stakeholders understand key findings. 

We’re in the middle of launching a range of transformed digital services for the public, providers of care and our own staff so the team will be working on a mix of build and live service projects.  

Job description

What you will bring…  
As a Lead User Researcher you will be an expert practitioner, leading and aligning user research activities across different projects and teams. At this level you will ensure that teams take a user-centred, evidence-based approach to service design and delivery and develop and assure good user research practice.  

Skills needed for this role (level) 

Analysis and synthesis. (Skill level: expert) 
Inclusive research. (Skill level: practitioner)  
Research. (Skill level: expert)  
Society and technology. (Skill level: practitioner)  
Strategic insight. (Skill level: practitioner)  
Technical understanding (user-centred design). (Skill level: practitioner)  
User-centred and Agile practices. (Skill level: practitioner) 

Person specification

JOB DESCRIPTION 
Accountabilities: 

Line manages the Senior User Researchers and Performance Analyst (Engagement). 

Attend senior digital, engagement or transformation meetings to act as the champion of the user’s needs.  

Contribute evidence from user research and performance analysis to inform the organisation’s digital roadmap plan.  

Agree the user research and performance analyst support needed for digital projects and plan accordingly. 

Work to create a user-centered culture and evidence-based service design within the organisation.  

Ensure user research and performance analysis is of a consistent high standard across teams and projects.  

Ensure you are familiar with the tools and techniques that all roles in your team will use.  

Ensure that people in your team can contribute to the understanding of a user’s end-to-end experience of a service.  

Align user research activities with wider plans to inform roadmap of service development.  

Build user-centered practices into the work of the organisation’s teams.  

Ensure that service teams understand what success looks like for their users and services.  

Mentor and guide more junior user researchers to assure and improve research practice.  

Contribute to the wider government user research community.  

Plan, design and prepare user research activities to support the design, development, and continuous improvement of complex services for all our users – public, provider, stakeholder, and staff.  

Organise the recruitment of user research participants including working with recruiters where needed.  

Prepare discussion guides and scripts to support user research sessions.  

Moderate user research sessions.  

Lead analysis of research data and produce clear and actionable findings, including working closely with colleagues to create a rich picture of user behaviour.  

Communicate user research findings to help the team and wider organisation develop a deep understanding of users and their needs.  

Work closely with product managers, content designers and developers to turn user research findings into user stories and actions that lead to valuable product and service features.  

Ensure close collaboration with other teams working in research, performance, and user-centered design. 

Essential Skills and Experience:  

Excellent oral and published written communication skills.  
Agile project management qualification and experience of working within an Agile environment.  
Knowledge of health and social care or regulatory environments.  
Experience of managing multiple projects.  
Experience of user research for government services and the GDS service standard assessment.  
Experience of presenting to, influencing and challenging senior stakeholders.  
Experience of advocating for user research and engaging sceptical colleagues and stakeholders.  
Experience of helping teams adopt user-centred service design and delivery practices and embed them into their agile workflow.  
The ability to understand the complex problems a team is trying to solve and align user research activities to inform decision making and action.  
Experience of leading user researchers and continually assuring, improving, and innovating user research practices.  
Experience of people and performance management and staff development.  
Experience of advocating for inclusive practices and including all kinds of users in appropriate research activities to help teams understand the diversity of people who use CQC services.  
Experience of helping teams adopt a wide range of user research methods, analysis and synthesis techniques and approaches to presenting and sharing findings.  
Proven experience of introducing new user research methods into a team, and guiding colleagues in the choice and effective application of research methods.  
A good understanding of the social and technological context for public sector services and experience of aligning user research activities to help teams understand changing user behaviour.  
Knowledge of the technologies used to build and operate digital services, and the ability to work closely with colleagues in technical roles and to constructively challenge technical constraints.  
Experience of managing internal and external suppliers.  

Please note some roles may be subject to a satisfactory DBS check 

What we can offer you… 
Your health and wellbeing are important to us and are supported through our benefits scheme. 
– 27 days’ annual leave, rising with service to 32.5 days, plus 8 Bank Holidays 
– NHS pension scheme, with around a 14% employer contribution 
– Free employee assistance service 24 hours a day 
– Discounts to supermarkets, high street stores, electronics and fleet cars 
– Discounted gym vouchers 
– Cycle to work scheme 
– Internal reward scheme where you could earn yourself a voucher or two! 
– Equipment for homeworking 

We want to make working for CQC a great experience for everyone, and to role model a diverse and representative culture. To support an inclusive environment where colleagues feel empowered to bring their whole self to work, we support a variety of staff networks, including the Race Equality Network, LGBT+ Equality Network, Carers Equality Network, Disability Equality Network and Gender Equality network. 

We want to support you to succeed and be your very best with opportunities for training and development; along with the support of experienced managers and mentors. 

Individual Adjustments… 
We are committed to being open and transparent around our processes and we endeavour to offer every candidate the opportunity to perform at their best throughout the recruitment process. We seek to support candidates to identify potential challenges and work with them to identify and facilitate individual adjustments as appropriate. Should you require assistance and/or would like to request an adjustment at any stage of the recruitment process, please contact a member of the team via email: recruitment@cqc.org.uk.  

Selection process details

TBC

Feedback will only be provided if you attend an interview or assessment.

Security

People working with government assets must complete baseline personnel security standard (opens in new window) checks.

Nationality requirements

This job is broadly open to the following groups:

  • UK nationals
  • nationals of the Republic of Ireland
  • nationals of Commonwealth countries who have the right to work in the UK
  • nationals of the EU, Switzerland, Norway, Iceland or Liechtenstein and family members of those nationalities with settled or pre-settled status under the European Union Settlement Scheme (EUSS) (opens in a new window)
  • nationals of the EU, Switzerland, Norway, Iceland or Liechtenstein and family members of those nationalities who have made a valid application for settled or pre-settled status under the European Union Settlement Scheme (EUSS)
  • individuals with limited leave to remain or indefinite leave to remain who were eligible to apply for EUSS on or before 31 December 2020
  • Turkish nationals, and certain family members of Turkish nationals, who have accrued the right to work in the Civil Service

Further information on nationality requirements (opens in a new window)

Working for the Civil Service

Please note this Post is NOT regulated by the Civil Service Commission.
The Civil Service embraces diversity and promotes equal opportunities. As such, we run a Disability Confident Scheme (DCS) for candidates with disabilities who meet the minimum selection criteria.
The Civil Service welcomes applications from people who have recently left prison or have an unspent conviction. Read more about prison leaver recruitment (opens in new window).
Once this job has closed, the job advert will no longer be available.
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Contact point for applicants

Job contact :

  • Name : recruitment@cqc.org.uk
  • Email : recruitment@cqc.org.uk

Recruitment team

  • Email : recruitment@cqc.org.uk

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