Lead User Researcher in Nottingham

In this role you will lead the user research community in the HRA's journey to develop its digital services. The Digital Directorate is modernising and transforming the business, ensuring the user is at the heart of everything; including the delivery of business solutions using agile methods in a continuous delivery environment. You will be an active leader based in one of our offices or from home, with occasional travel for face‑to‑face meetings. Working under general direction and within a clear framework of accountability you will exercise substantial personal responsibility and autonomy to meet objectives and delivery timeframes, as well as providing leadership across the directorate.

Demonstrating excellent communication skills, influencing across multiple groups and partners, you will form a deep understanding of wider customer and organisational needs, participating in both internal and external activities to keep your skills up to date. With a clear ability to rationalise complex technical information, you will transform this to ensure it is understandable for others to work with. Engaging with stakeholders, you will facilitate collaborative approaches to prioritise requirements and deliver key user insights to constantly improve the design of services; demonstrating a proactive approach to alignment with Government service standards, so that optimum outputs and solutions are delivered to meet user needs, organisational objectives and policy intent.

Main duties of the job:

• Develop and assure good user research practices.
• Identify, capture and implement user needs.
• Implement service strategy with sound research to enable excellent service design.
• Provide guidance across projects on user research methodologies and GDS standards.
• Represent user research at service standard assessments.
• Determine user research standards, policies, user testing plans, roadmaps and vision.
• Manage user data in a secure way.
• Manage user research ethics processes.
• Ensure teams take a user centred, evidence‑based approach to service design.
• Consider accessibility and additional needs for inclusive design.
• Combine user research and analytics to improve user experience.
• Communicate the benefits of UI design, user testing tools, methods and standards to technical/non‑technical stakeholders.
• Evaluate research and design proposals from suppliers and make recommendations.
• Work across multiple services and lead User Centred Design (UCD) professionals to set direction.
• Interpret strategy and translate emerging trends which might impact or benefit the organisation.
• Draw together and present reasonable conclusions from a wide range of incomplete and complex evidence and data.
• Manage the user research function within the UCD team.
• Support the user research team to maintain focus on delivery, whilst instilling the importance of professional development and learning.
• Coach and lead teams in UCD principles.
• Onboard new staff within the team.

About us:

At the HRA, we are committed to fostering a supportive and inclusive working environment where we actively invest in the development and empowerment of our staff, enabling them to perform at their best. We strive to promote a healthy workplace culture where wellbeing, collaboration, and professional growth are valued and encouraged. Working at the HRA, we support flexible working, recognising that home based or hybrid arrangements provides us with the most productive environment to work well. Where possible, we'll offer a working pattern that suits you. The HRA offers home based contracts for all locations. Newcastle, Manchester and Nottingham based staff can be office based and hybrid working arrangements are also possible. We encourage you to speak with us to explore how this could be accommodated.

We are committed to creating an inclusive workplace that promotes and values diversity. We know from experience that different ideas, perspectives and backgrounds create a stronger, more creative workplace that helps us to deliver the best services. We welcome applications which represent the rich diversity of our community: age, disability, gender identity and expression, ethnicity, religion or belief, sex, sexual orientation and other diverse characteristics, and we have policies in place to ensure that all applicants are treated fairly and consistently at every stage of the recruitment process.

Organisational structure and directorate overview:

The HRA is made up of five directorates: Approvals, Chief Executive, Digital, Policy and Partnerships and Resources. This role sits within HRA Digital. The digital directorate is responsible for developing, delivering and supporting complex solutions within the HRAs portfolio of UK-wide information systems for health and care research. This includes a major programme to build new systems, and to achieve the successful migration and eventual closure of current systems. The directorate owns, develops, and delivers the HRAs digital strategy in line with government digital and functional standards. The HRA Digital team is a collaborative, supportive team consisting of HRA employees, secondees, contractors and vendors.

Person Specification:

Qualifications:

• Educated to degree level (or relevant qualifications) in a relevant field, or significant relevant working experience of the subject matter.
• Master's Degree or equivalent Post Graduate qualification.

Knowledge, Skills and Expertise:

• Implementing long term service strategy with sound research to enable service design.
• Determining research standards, policies, user testing plans, roadmaps and vision.
• Can focus on outcomes rather than solutions and activities.
• User consent processes and user‑research ethics management.
• User research operations and participant recruitment.
• Ongoing Continuous Professional Development.
• Past experience in Government or NHS organisation GDS/CDDO or NHS service standards.
• Significant experience in a senior/lead research role.
• Providing advice and guidance across projects on both user research methodologies and GDS standards related to research and deliverables.
• Combining user research and analytics to problem solve through design iterations and improve user experience.
• Understand and communicate to others the benefits and applicability of UI design, user testing tools, methods and standards to technical and non‑technical stakeholders.

Experience:

• Onboarding of new staff within a team or professional community.
• Identifying user needs and ensure they are captured and implemented.
• Managing user data in a secure way, in line with organisational policy.
• Accessibility considerations and testing with users with additional needs to shape inclusive design.
• Managing user research as a lead or as part of a UCD/user research team.
• Working within multidisciplinary agile teams, and experience of creating epics and user stories.

Analytical and Judgemental Skills:

• Able to have an overall perspective on business issues and activities, understand their wider implications and long-term impact.
• Working across multiple services and leading groups of UCD professionals to set direction, assuring the quality and depth of user research.
• Evaluate research and design proposals from external suppliers and make recommendations to senior stakeholders.
• Interpreting strategy and translate emerging trends and technologies which might impact or benefit the organisation.
• Multi‑tasking, analysing opportunities, defining successful approaches, and proactively solve problems.
• Ability to draw together and present reasonable conclusions from a wide range of incomplete and complex evidence and data.

Interpersonal Skills:

• Engaging and building relationships with a range of stakeholders and service owners to support delivery of user needs.
• Coaching and leading teams in user centred design principles.
• Influence and manage in a complex matrix department.
• Supporting the user research community to maintain a focus on delivery, whilst instilling the importance of professional development and continual learning.
• Facilitating conflict resolution within teams or professions.

Other:

• Commitment to inclusivity and valuing diversity.

Benefits:

• Full-time, Flexible working, Home or remote working, Compressed hours.