Lead User Researcher

We’re looking for a Lead/Principal User Researcher to join our Product Design team and establish, lead, and champion research at Yoto across both hardware and software. This is a senior, high-impact role for someone who wants to define what great research looks like in a growing, product-led company, not inherit a mature function. As Yoto’s first dedicated researcher, you’ll shape how research fits into product development, how decisions are informed, and how insight compounds over time.

You’ll operate as a practice leader and hands-on researcher, working closely with designers, product managers, engineers, and a Research Ops partner. You’ll help teams ask better questions, make better trade-offs, and build confidence in evidence, while keeping pace with a fast-moving, ambitious organisation. This role is critical to helping Yoto create products that genuinely support creative play, learning, and independence for children.

About Yoto: Yoto is a screen-free interactive audio platform for kids. We make carefully connected audio players that kids control, with no microphones, cameras or ads. We have a catalogue of audio that inspires creative play and learning with 1,000+ titles in our card store from top creators, publishers and labels - think Disney, Marvel, Roald Dahl and Universal Music. We also create Yoto Originals like BrainBots.

What you’ll be doing:

• Establishing and owning the research practice at Yoto, defining principles, standards, and ways of working that balance rigour with the pace of a fast-moving product organisation.
• Taking accountability for research impact, ensuring insights meaningfully shape product direction, prioritisation, and roadmap decisions, not just inform them.
• Leading strategic, discovery-focused research to inform major initiatives such as the future of our physical hardware, Yoto Club, content discovery, and the evolution of our app and services.
• Designing and running a wide range of studies, from in-home and ethnographic research with families, to usability testing, interviews, diary studies, surveys, and mixed-method work for both software and hardware products.
• Partnering closely with designers, product managers, and engineers, helping teams frame the right questions, choose appropriate methods, and apply research at the right moments.
• Supporting and upskilling designers to plan and conduct effective research themselves, raising the overall research capability of the Product Design team.
• Synthesising complex findings into clear, compelling narratives, tailored to different audiences, including senior leaders, to drive alignment and action.
• Creating and maintaining shared research artefacts, such as customer archetypes, insight repositories, and guidance, to build a common understanding of our customers across the business.
• Advocating for the value of research, making pragmatic trade-offs when needed while building a long-term case for deeper investment in research over time.

What you’ll bring:

• Significant experience leading user research in a product-led organisation, with responsibility for shaping research direction, not just executing studies.
• Strong expertise across both qualitative and quantitative research methods, with sound judgement about when to go deep, when to go broad, and when to move fast.
• Proven experience working as a sole or lead researcher, managing competing priorities, stakeholders, and expectations independently.
• Confidence influencing senior stakeholders, including challenging assumptions and navigating disagreement with credibility and empathy.
• Ability to balance a long-term vision for research with pragmatic, actionable steps that deliver value quickly.
• Excellent communication and storytelling skills, with the ability to turn insight into clear direction.
• A collaborative, enabling mindset, comfortable working across disciplines and helping others succeed.
• Experience researching both physical and digital products, including in-home or ethnographic studies.

• Experience researching products for children, families, or education.

Salary: £80,000 - £90,000 based on experience.

What you can expect from Yoto:

• Flexibility: Hybrid working - expectation of 1 day a week on average in our London office, but you are welcome to come in more than this. Take advantage of our ‘work from anywhere’ policy to work from a different location for up to 6 weeks every year.
• Financial: Receive Income Protection, covering long term sickness for up to 2 years and company sick pay that increases with length of service. Life Assurance cover from day one of your service. Workplace Pension offering up to 3% employer contributions, following probation.
• Health & Wellness: Private Medical Insurance via Aviva, or a Wellbeing Allowance to be used for memberships, subscriptions, treatment or therapy. Access to 24/7 Employee Assistance Programme (EAP) through WeCare and unlimited access to Dental advice and guidance.
• Time Off: 25 days of holiday per year, plus bank holidays. On top of this, you also receive your birthday off, plus 1 extra day of holiday for every year worked after you hit your 2 year anniversary, up to 5 extra days.
• Helping Families: Variety of family-friendly leave, including enhanced maternity, paternity, adoption, fertility, pregnancy loss and carers leave.
• People & Planet: Up to 2 volunteer days a year. A Book Allowance of up to £50 a year to contribute to your professional development.
• Fun Perks: You receive your very own Yoto player and starter pack of cards! Regular company socials and celebrations, including our annual YotoFest!

Equity and Diversity: At Yoto, we love creating a world where childhood is rich with discovery and joy. We’re also passionate about building a workplace where everyone can thrive - both professionally and personally. We value flexibility and give our team the freedom to balance life and work in ways that suit them.

We’re committed to fostering a safe, diverse, and inclusive environment where all individuals, regardless of their background, feel valued and supported. We invite candidates from all walks of life to explore opportunities with us and join a company that champions flexibility, equity, and inclusion.