Senior User Researcher

Job Description

We’re looking for a Senior User Researcher with significant experience in delivering user research projects. The focus of your role will be to plan, facilitate and lead user research activities on a variety of projects. You’ll often be working with multidisciplinary teams on complex projects where autonomy and project management will be important.    

We’re on the hunt for someone who will champion our values: to care passionately, be fluent in people, believe in your craft, push convention, be open to change, and to value each other.   

We work with a broad range of clients, some of whom are completely new to user-centred design (UCD). This means you’ll also play a key role in championing our UCD approach.  

The role may also involve:   

• Leading and directing projects – You’ll lead multidisciplinary teams and clients in the pursuit of inclusive, accessible and effective research outcomes.   
• Team support and management – You’ll help to support the user research team by inspiring and line managing team members, including overseeing appraisals and professional development.   
• Defining and refining practice – You’ll help to define the way our disciplines work together, and progress the way NEC Digital Studio delivers inclusive, accessible, and effective design.    
• Supporting new business – You’ll help NEC Digital Studio identify and win projects by spotting opportunities with clients and helping with proposals and pitches.    
• Supporting our Design School with the development and delivery of courses 

How we work:   

We work with central and local government, the NHS, voluntary, not-for-profit, and private sector organisations.   

We work hand-in-hand with our clients and sometimes we’re embedded in their teams for projects. You’ll move on to different sectors after 3 - 12 months because we want you to get a variety of experiences, from applying GDS (government digital service) standards, to improving customer buy-in. Beyond individual projects, NEC Digital Studio’s User Researchers support each other at weekly meet-ups where we share our work, discuss its wider implications, and learn about methods.   

You’ll also broaden your skills by working closely with members of our Digital teams, including interaction and content designers, and developers.  

All of our User Researchers are supported by more senior members of the User Research team. They look after your wellbeing, help you set goals and objectives and provide feedback to help you grow.

Qualifications

We’d like to hear from you if you have skills or experience in some of these areas:   

• Multidisciplinary teams – Leading and advocating for, the user research activities on a project. Working with the wider team (including Service Design and Digital roles) to deliver insightful project outcomes  
• Inclusive research – Conducting user research in an ethical way that ensures the safety of everyone involved. This includes actively identifying accessibility needs of users and being confident in making adjustments for these. 
• User Research to GDS service standards – planning and conducting research activities across the different agile phases of a project. 
• Qualitative analysis and synthesis – working with findings from user research to produce representative user journeys, user stories and user needs.  
• Facilitation – skilled in a variety of sessions, from user interviews and usability testing to co-analysis and co-synthesis sessions; guiding other stakeholders through these, clearly explaining the processes to enable them to engage fully and contribute. 
• Service Design – you have an interest in the discipline or some experience in service design thinking and outcomes  
• Written communication – write and share findings in an engaging and meaningful way to colleagues and stakeholders. 
• Recommendation & implementation – Work collaboratively with the wider design team, experts and clients to produce clear insights that will enable project teams to make informed design decisions.  
• Proactive and autonomous – you can lead the conversation, and look for ways to participate and add value 
• Stakeholder management – you know how to negotiate and guide clients and stakeholders towards positive outcomes that deliver outcomes within budget.   
• Managing complexity and ambiguity – UCD projects are complex and messy! You’re up for leaping into the unknown, supporting our team members and clients to navigate the uncertainty that comes with UCD projects  
• Proactive and autonomous – you can lead the conversation, and look for ways to participate and add value  

Additional Information

We pride ourselves in offering an excellent benefits package, including an above average pension scheme. When you join the team at NEC Software Solutions, you are provided with the following: 

• Private Medical Cover funded by NEC for Employees (with the option to add family members at an additional cost)  
• 25 days paid holiday with the option to buy/sell (FTE) 
• 4 x basic salary life assurance cover funded by NEC (with the option to increase cover at an additional cost) 
• A Group Pension Plan with fantastic employer contributions up to a maximum of 8.5% 
• A selection of flexible benefits to suit your individual needs 
• All colleagues get free access to LinkedIn Learning. Over 15,000 courses covering a huge breadth of subjects. Learn about what you like, when you like, how you like. 
• Give back days   
• Annual team and company away-days  

Other information:

• Candidates must be able to demonstrate a pre-existing right to work and travel within the UK. Documentary evidence will be required. 
• All offers are subject to satisfactory vetting, references and occupational health checks.  
• Depending on the nature of the role a Disclosure Barring Service (DBS) check may also be required. 

NEC Software Solutions is an equal opportunities employer, welcoming applications from all communities. If you require any reasonable adjustments or have specific accessibility needs during the recruitment or interview process, please feel free to share these with us. We are committed to ensuring an inclusive and accommodating experience for all candidates. 

We receive applicants from multiple different sources - so the application process may vary. Once you have chosen to apply the key things we would like to see in your applications are: 

• A CV 
• A Cover Letter - tell us why you think you’d a good fit for the role and why you want to work for NEC Digital Studio. Please aim to keep your covering letter to 1000 words. 
• A presentation of no more than 5 pages on a project or process that you led, which demonstrates your qualification for the role. This could be based on an extract from your portfolio. The example should frame the context and the challenge, demonstrate how you met that challenge and what the results were. If you are selected for an interview and you will have up to 10 minutes to present it to us. 

Who We Are:

We’re NEC Software Solutions (part of global tech giant NEC Corporation). While you read this ad, our software is helping to dispatch ambulances, support families, keep trains on the move, locate missing people and even test the hearing of newborn babies.

Working with us, you’ll be helping our 3,000+ employees push the boundaries of what’s possible and support amazing public services.

We work with governments, hospitals, police forces, housing providers, local authorities and more. We help them pay financial support faster, speed up treatments for patients and respond to emergencies in the right way. The more we do, the more our customers can do for others. And together, we make a world of difference.

We’d love your help. And we’ll support you all the way.

At NEC Digital Studio, we believe in design practices that make the world more human. 

NEC Digital Studio was created to put people at the centre of services, positively changing how they experience the world. Everything we design, build and maintain is made for life.  

Our mission is to empower organisations to be more effective, inclusive and sustainable, through tools, systems and experiences that are intelligent, integrated and intuitive for all.  

As a people-first digital studio, we are designing and developing evidence-led solutions at scale to transform the services used by everyone, every day. We specialise in working with seldom heard voices and diverse user groups. We practice participatory co-design and ethical research. Our teams are experts in accessibility and digital inclusion 

We’d love your help. And we’ll support you all the way. Discover more at NEC Digital Studio | Made for Life (necsws.com)