Senior Automotive Design Researcher

Position Title: Senior Automotive Design Researcher

Duration: Contract - Inside IR35

Location: Here East, Stratford. London

Position Description:

• Our Client are looking for a Senior Design Researcher to join their XLab team, helping shape the future of automotive products and experiences.
• Working within a multidisciplinary team of researchers, experience designers, interaction designers, industrial designers, strategists and engineers, you'll bring a deep understanding of customers into the development of future vehicle experiences and products.
• You will: Lead end-to-end research across discovery, concept development, prototyping and evaluation.
• Align with designers and stakeholders to plan and deliver qualitative research with customers
• Explore behaviours, needs, motivations and pain points to uncover opportunities for innovation.
• Evaluate early-stage concepts using storyboards, digital prototypes, physical prototypes and vehicle bucks.
• Synthesise research into clear insights, customer needs, opportunity areas and design recommendations. Partner closely with designers to translate research into new and improved experiences.
• Facilitate workshops that help teams move from customer insight to concepts and propositions.
• Communicate findings through compelling storytelling that influences design, product and leadership decisions.
• Champion customer-centred thinking and high-quality research practices across the team.

Skills Required:

• Strong qualitative research and customer interviewing skills.
• Excellent research planning and methodology selection.
• Strong synthesis and analytical thinking.
• Ability to identify patterns, unmet needs and meaningful opportunity areas.
• Excellent workshop facilitation skills.
• Strong storytelling and presentation skills.
• Ability to translate complex research into clear, actionable design direction.
• Strong collaboration and stakeholder management.
• Comfortable working with ambiguity and rapidly evolving projects.
• Customer-centred, curious and confident challenging assumptions with evidence.
• Able to work independently while collaborating effectively within multidisciplinary teams.

Experience Required:

• Significant professional experience in Design Research, UX Research, Human-Centred Design or a related discipline.
• Proven experience leading qualitative research.
• Experience working within multidisciplinary product, design or innovation teams.
• Experience researching early-stage concepts, future experiences and propositions where the solution is not yet defined.
• Experience conducting research with prototypes across different levels of fidelity.
• Experience translating research into actionable recommendations for design and product teams.
• Experience managing research across multiple projects and stakeholders.

Experience Preferred:

• Experience using Dovetail and discount to plan, conduct, analyse and synthesise customer research.
• Experience working within automotive, mobility, transportation, consumer technology or complex physical digital products is advantageous but not essential.

Education Required:

• Bachelor's degree in a relevant discipline or equivalent professional experience.
• Relevant disciplines may include Design Research, Human-Computer Interaction (HCI), UX Design, Interaction Design, Psychology, Anthropology, Sociology, Human Factors or a related field.

Education Preferred:

• Master's degree or postgraduate qualification in Design Research, HCI, Human Factors, Psychology, Anthropology, Service Design, Interaction Design or a related discipline.
• Additional training or certification in qualitative research, ethnographic research, human-centred design or research methods is advantageous.

Additional Information :

• Travel: Nothing planned currently, but potentially depending on location of research studies
• Location: Hybrid, 4 days on site Monday to Thursday in Here East, Stratford

#J-18808-Ljbffr