Lead User Researcher

at  Financial Conduct Authority

Lead User Researcher 12 month Fixed term Contract
Salary: National ranging from £67,100 to £85,000 and London from £73,700 to £93,500
Are you interested in joining a growing user centred design team, putting the needs of people who use the FCA’s vital products and services at the heart of design and development?
The team/department
This role sits within the User Centred Design Team within the Digital Delivery Hub. We are part of the Data, Technology & Innovation (DTI) Division leading the FCA in harnessing the power of data and advanced analytics to transform financial regulation.
What you will be doing (the role)

As a Lead User Researcher at the FCA you will work within a specialist user-centred design (UCD) team to help increase the maturity of UCD across the organisation, and provide expert user research support to emerging multi-disciplinary digital product teams to design new products and services that help our users achieve their goals:

• Set, maintain and iterate standards for user research practice
• Provide profession leadership for the wider user research community in DTI
• Alongside other Design Lead roles, form a user-centred design leadership group
• Spend a portion of time working within a programme to help build user-centred practices
• Align user research activities with wider plans to inform a service proposition

What you will get from the role

It is an exciting time to join our community of UCD specialists and you will:

• Help continue the work done to shape and deliver excellence in user research practice
• Deliver impactful work in programmes that help consumers avoid financial harm and ensure fair markets
• Help FCA products and services meet the needs of people in firms, consumers and FCA staff alike
• Benefit from a vibrant and positive community of practice making a difference to the maturity of user-centeredness

Our competitive flexible benefits scheme gives you the opportunity to create a personalised benefits package, tailored to suit your lifecycle. You can use this allowance to purchase additional benefits such as dental or cycle to work or you have the option top up your base salary by taking this as cash.

Core benefits that you will receive as standard are:

• 28 days holiday per year plus bank holidays
• Private healthcare with Bupa
• A non-contributory Pension of at least 8% of basic salary each month (there are several contribution levels that increase depending on your age – up to 12% a month once you reach age 35)
• Life assurance of eight times your basic salary
• Income protection

We support hybrid working which means you will be able to work from home up to 60% of the time over a month with the remainder of your time in one of our three office locations.
The skills and experience you will have
Minimum

We are a signatory to the Government’s Disability Confident scheme. This means that we will offer an interview to disabled candidates entering under the scheme, should they meet the minimum criteria for a role.

• Relevant user research experience, most recently at a Senior or Lead level
• Experience in working in project/programme environments involving business & IT change
• Research experience within any of the following types of organisations/sectors: financial services, government/regulatory body, technology, consultancy (ideally IT consultancy)

Essential

• Research. You can help an organisation adopt a wide range of user research methods. You can lead a community of practice to help an organisation continually assure, improve and innovate their user research. You can advocate user research, and engage sceptical colleagues and stakeholders
• Inclusive research. You can help teams understand the diversity of users of FCA services. You can effectively include all kinds of users in appropriate research activities. You can advocate inclusive practices and help teams design and deliver accessible services that work for all users
• User-centred and Agile practices. You can understand and demonstrate experience in a range of user-centred practices. You can help inexperienced teams adopt user-centred practices and embed them into their Agile workflow
• Analysis and synthesis. You can help an organisation to adopt a wide range of analysis and synthesis techniques, and to continually assure, improve and innovate their practices to generate clear and valuable findings
• Society and technology. You can help teams understand the ways that digital technology is changing user behaviour, and the challenges and opportunities for the design and delivery of FCA services
• Strategic insight. You can understand organisational goals and challenges. You can align research activities across teams to inform policy and proposition
• Technical understanding. You can demonstrate knowledge of the technologies used to build and operate digital services. You can collaborate closely with colleagues in different digital disciplines

About the FCA
The FCA regulates the conduct of 50,000 firms in the UK to ensure our financial markets are honest, fair and competitive. We do this to make sure markets work well for individuals, businesses and the economy as a whole. For more information on what we do, our three-year strategy can be found
here.
The FCA’s Values & Diversity
Our ambition is to cultivate a culture of inclusion for all employees that respects their individual strengths, views, and experiences. We believe that our differences and similarities enable us to be a better organisation – one that makes better decisions, drives innovation, and delivers better regulation.
The FCA is committed to achieving greater diversity across all levels of the organisations. Given this, we particularly welcome applications from women, disabled and minority ethnic candidates for our Technical Specialist role.
Flexible working
We welcome applications from candidates who are looking for flexible arrangements. Many of our staff work flexibly including working part-time, staggered hours, and job shares. We can’t promise to give you exactly what you want but we won’t judge you for asking.
Multi-location
As part of the FCA’s on-going commitment to develop our national presence, most of our vacancies are now open to working in our Edinburgh, Leeds, or London offices. This means that as part of the application process you will be able to select your preference of which office location you would like to work from.
Useful information
Applications for this role close at 23:59 on the 16th April 2024
This role is graded as Technical Specialist - Regulatory
Got a question?
If you are interested in learning more about the role please contact:
For internal applicants, please contact Michael Wood,
michael.wood@fca.org.uk
For external applicants, please contact Asha Gladis,
asha.gladis@fca.org.uk
What to expect from our interview process
The assessment process consists of an initial screening call with one our Recruitment Partners. If successful, you will be invited to attend a 30 minute first stage interview to bring your CV and application to life and share your motivations for this role. If a candidate progresses to the final stage there will be a competency-based interview, including a case study presentation.
Application support
We want to remove any possible barriers and are committed to providing a wide range of reasonable adjustments so that you can keep the focus on your conversations and be at your best.
If you have an accessibility requirement, disability, or condition that means you might require changes to the recruitment process, please contact your recruiter to discuss this further. Our aim is to make your application as easy and comfortable as possible, and your recruiter will be happy to work with you to make any necessary arrangements where possible.
Security Clearance/Vetting
The successful candidate will hold or will be required to obtain Security Clearance (SC) level vetting.
Please note that all applications must be submitted through our online portal, applications sent via email will not be accepted

• Relevant user research experience, most recently at a Senior or Lead level
• Experience in working in project/programme environments involving business & IT change
• Research experience within any of the following types of organisations/sectors: financial services, government/regulatory body, technology, consultancy (ideally IT consultancy