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User Researcher
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.
User Research Practice
You will be planning, designing and conducting qualitative and quantitative user research across the service lifecycle (discovery, alpha, beta, live). You will select and apply appropriate research methods (e.g. interviews, usability testing, contextual inquiry, surveys, diary studies). You will recruit screen, and vet research participants to ensure they are appropriate for the research objectives, including assessing suitability, managing ethical considerations, and ensuring representative participation.
It will be your responsibility to conduct design and conduct user research with difficult-to-reach users, including adapting research methods to accommodate poor or unreliable connectivity, accessibility needs, and other contextual constraints. The User Researcher will synthesize research findings into clear, actionable insights that inform service design and delivery decisions. They will also maintain research repositories and ensure findings are reusable and accessible.
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Digital Service Delivery
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.
Stakeholder Engagement
Communication is an important part of this role. You will effectively communicate research plans, findings and recommendations to a range of stakeholders. You will facilitate research playback sessions and workshops to build shared understanding of user needs; advising teams and stakeholders on user-centred approaches and best practice.
Governance, Ethics and Quality
You must ensure research is conducted ethically, securely and in line with organisational and government policies; applying accessibility, inclusion and data protection standards (e.g. WCAG, GDPR). You will also contribute to the development and improvement of user research standards, tools and templates.
Top 3 requirements needed for this role
- Someone who is evidence-led and user-focused
- Someone who is collaborative and adaptable
- Must be comfortable working in fast-paced, iterative delivery environments
Experience and skills
Must haves:
- Minimum 3–5 years of experience in a dedicated user technical requirements or experience needed for the role 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
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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
DDaT description: User Researcher SFIA Level: 5 Start date: 1st August 2026 Initial contract length: 3 months Role location: Portsmouth Nationality specification: British Citizen only, no dual nationality Number of days per week expected on site: 3+ per week (depending on need) Minimum security level: SC or above Day rate: £520 Outside IR35
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