User Researcher - Contractor

As a User Researcher, you will be responsible for planning and executing a broad range of user research activities to help the team understand user needs and behaviours. You will gather data in terms of identifying core user groups and the process of the user journey which will be turned into actionable insights that shape the design of services and products. As a User Researcher, you will gather any pain points from users during processes, gathering user needs at all points of a project. You will work with a degree of autonomy, guiding the choice of research methods and ensuring that the development lifecycle is user-centered. The role supports the delivery of user-centred, accessible, secure and effective digital services, aligned to Government Service Standard and organisational delivery frameworks.

You will be working closely with product managers, designers, developers and delivery managers to embed user research into agile delivery.

You will contribute evidence to prioritisation decisions, backlog refinement, and design iterations. Supporting continuous improvement of live services through ongoing research and feedback loops.

It will be your responsibility to ensure services meet Government Service Standard principles, particularly around user needs and accessibility. The User Researcher will need a flexible approach to needing to be on site due to the type of work needed on this project.

Requirements

Must haves:

• Minimum 3–5 years of experience in a dedicated user research role, ideally within an Agile environment.
• Proven experience in both generative (discovery) and evaluative (testing) research methods.
• Strong communication and presentation skills, with the ability to advocate for the user to non-researchers.
• Experience facilitating workshops or collaborative analysis sessions with stakeholders
• Ability to source and secure research tools to enable expediting research analysis and synthesis
• Collaborative, personable and a good visual, literal and verbal communicator.
• Recruiting and engaging research participants
• Capturing, challenging, distilling and presenting user needs and ensuring they can be used to inform and
• assess potential options.
• Proficient at conducting virtual interviews
• Ability to source and secure research tools to enable expediting research analysis and synthesis
• Developing research related artefacts i.e. personas and user journey maps etc.

Nice to haves:

• Proficiency in research tools.
• Familiarity with the GDS Service Standard or similar public/private sector design frameworks.
• Experience working in the Ministry of Defence (MOD) or similar secure environments.

Important Information

• Start Date: ASAP
• Contract Length: Initially 6 months with possible extension
• Location: Portsmouth
• On Site Requirements: 2-3 days per sprint (fortnight)
• Minimum Security Level: SC
• Day Rate: £480

Security Requirements: the post holder must be a British citizen to meet the criteria for national security vetting required by our client