User Research Officer/ Swyddog Ymchwil Defnyddwyr

We are recruiting for three fixed‑term User Research Officer roles for our Digital Team. Two 23‑month contracts and one 12‑month contract. This is an exciting opportunity to join The National Lottery Community Fund, and develop your skills as a User Research Officer within a multi‑disciplinary team. You'll conduct user research to help us understand the needs of both the people who apply for our funding, and our colleagues who manage that funding. Your insights will inform the design of new systems and improvement of existing ones, ensuring that we make changes based on real user needs.

Working within our Digital Team, you'll also have opportunities to collaborate with and learn from a thriving group of designers and researchers who love sharing knowledge and experience. We'll offer you support to develop your research and design skills, and opportunities to take part in training and communities of practice.

You’ll need some practical experience of qualitative research methods, and of designing and running research. This could be from working in user research or user experience design. But we’d also welcome applications from people with similar experience from professional work, academic work, or study in fields like:

• human‑computer interaction
• user‑centred design
• psychology
• ethnography
• social research

Responsibilities

• Designing and running user research to help us improve our existing digital services and design new ones.
• Recruiting participants for research.
• Analysing qualitative research data.
• Presenting findings to Digital team colleagues, and stakeholders from the wider organisation.
• Collaborating in a multidisciplinary team, and supporting colleagues' design work by helping them understand what users need.
• Contributing to our user research and design community - taking part in team meetings and providing feedback on prototypes and other design work working in a collaborative and inclusive way.

Qualifications and Experience

• Passionate and knowledgeable about user‑centred design, and digital ways of working.
• Experience of designing and running user research or other qualitative research studies, and a good understanding of when and how to use different research methods.
• Experience of analysing qualitative research, and turning it into clear insights that others can understand and use.
• Confident in explaining research findings to others, verbally or in writing.
• Good at collaborating, involving colleagues in research activities and contributing to shared planning.

Desirable Criteria

• Experience of standing up for the needs and perspectives of users.
• A good understanding of inclusion and accessibility for digital services.
• Knowledge of agile working and the roles in a multidisciplinary digital team.

Location and Working Conditions

Location: Hybrid working, anywhere in the UK. Choice of home or office working (offices in Belfast, Birmingham, Cardiff, Exeter, Glasgow, Leeds, London, Manchester, Newcastle, or Newtown). Some in‑person meetings, including quarterly away days across UK locations.

Equity, Diversity and Inclusion

Communities in the UK come in all shapes and sizes. National Lottery funding is for everyone - therefore, we are committed to equity, diversity and inclusion and we work hard to ensure our funding reaches where it is needed. We also believe our people should represent the communities, organisations and individuals we work with. That’s why The National Lottery Community Fund is committed to being an inclusive employer and a great place to work. We recognise and celebrate the fact that our people come from diverse backgrounds.

We positively welcome applications from people from ethnic minority backgrounds, people with disabilities or longstanding health conditions, people who are LGBTQ+, and people from different socio‑economic and educational backgrounds, as well as people of all ages. As a Disability Confident Employer, we take a proactive approach in making reasonable adjustments, if needed, throughout the recruitment process and during employment.