Social Work England is the specialist body that regulates social workers in their vital role. Every day, social workers support millions of people to improve their chances in life. We believe in the power of collaboration and share a common goal with those we regulate – to protect the public, enable positive change, and ultimately improve people’s lives.
This role will be pivotal in shaping how user research is done across our organisation, from the ground up. The senior user researcher will play a vital role in helping us understand the real needs of both the public who use our services and the colleagues who deliver them. These insights will directly influence how policies are shaped, services are designed, and digital tools are built—ensuring they truly work for the people who matter most, our diverse users.
This role will lead, define and embed user research practices in a supportive and collaborative environment where inclusion, co-creation and co-production are founding principles of our work.

What you will do

• Working with service managers to develop and advocate appropriate research strategies to understand user needs for a service, and to continually test and improve the service
• Collaborate with the digital communications team to ensure that content and website design are guided by evidence-based decision making
• Creation and ownership of user research approach across the organisation and associated continuous improvement activities, including defining the tools required to support research activities.
• Foster a culture of team involvement in user research, team analysis, design rationale and decision making based on user needs and actionable insights through knowledge transfer and coaching.
• Advocate for inclusive research principles, planning and conducting research that considers the diversity of users, keeping in mind any access requirements users may have and the ethical nature of research. 
• Designing and running contextual and discovery research to develop a deep understanding of the needs of all users of a service.
• Planning, designing, preparing and running user research activities to support the design, development of digital services (including contextual discovery, experience mapping, diary studies, early-stage concept and prototype testing, lab based and contextual usability, quantitative surveys and accessibility testing).
• Managing the usability and accessibility testing process from recruiting participants, designing test tasks, and preparing discussion guides, to test moderation, analysis and presenting results.
• Working with a cross-functional, blended team to analyse research data and synthesis findings so that research is shareable and traceable.
• Effectively communicating user research findings to the team and the wider organisation, so that they share a strong and empathetic understanding of their users.
• Working closely with product owners, designers, business analysts and developers to turn user research findings into stories and actions that lead to valuable product and service features.
• Working closely with analytics colleagues to define approaches to capture insight from our services and identify user centred KPIs, to create a rich picture of user behaviour to tell the full story of how and why people use our services.

Your skills, knowledge and experience

• Demonstrable knowledge, experience in and passion for user-centred design practices for web, service or software development.
• Proven experience of understanding user needs for web content, tools and digital services, especially those with complex user journeys.
• Proven experience of designing, facilitating and analysing a wide range of qualitative and quantitative user research methods, utilising appropriate toolsets where required.
• Strong understanding of strengths and limitations of different research methods.
• Proven experience of presenting user research findings in a wide variety of formats and contexts.
• Proven experience introducing and establishing user research practices in an organisation.
• Proven experience of working in an agile development environment to create new digital products and services
• A demonstrable commitment to inclusion and diversity.

Details

• Job type: Fixed-term 2 year contract from start date
• Working pattern: Full-time. We offer flexible working subject to business need.
• Salary: £47,735 per year, rising to £50,066 per year after successful completion of a 6-month probationary period.
• Location: Sheffield/hybrid
• Benefits: flexible working, contributory pension, life insurance and benefits portal.

Application
During the application process, you’ll be asked to provide answers to three questions from the job description. These answers will be what your application is scored on, please answer in as much detail as possible using examples where necessary.
Job Types: Full-time, Fixed term contract
Contract length: 24 months
Pay: £47,735.00-£50,066.00 per year

Benefits:

• Company pension
• Cycle to work scheme
• Free flu jabs
• Life insurance
• On-site gym
• Work from home

Schedule:

• Monday to Friday
• No weekends

Work Location: Hybrid remote in Sheffield, S3 8J

• Working with service managers to develop and advocate appropriate research strategies to understand user needs for a service, and to continually test and improve the service
• Collaborate with the digital communications team to ensure that content and website design are guided by evidence-based decision making
• Creation and ownership of user research approach across the organisation and associated continuous improvement activities, including defining the tools required to support research activities.
• Foster a culture of team involvement in user research, team analysis, design rationale and decision making based on user needs and actionable insights through knowledge transfer and coaching.
• Advocate for inclusive research principles, planning and conducting research that considers the diversity of users, keeping in mind any access requirements users may have and the ethical nature of research. 
• Designing and running contextual and discovery research to develop a deep understanding of the needs of all users of a service.
• Planning, designing, preparing and running user research activities to support the design, development of digital services (including contextual discovery, experience mapping, diary studies, early-stage concept and prototype testing, lab based and contextual usability, quantitative surveys and accessibility testing).
• Managing the usability and accessibility testing process from recruiting participants, designing test tasks, and preparing discussion guides, to test moderation, analysis and presenting results.
• Working with a cross-functional, blended team to analyse research data and synthesis findings so that research is shareable and traceable.
• Effectively communicating user research findings to the team and the wider organisation, so that they share a strong and empathetic understanding of their users.
• Working closely with product owners, designers, business analysts and developers to turn user research findings into stories and actions that lead to valuable product and service features.
• Working closely with analytics colleagues to define approaches to capture insight from our services and identify user centred KPIs, to create a rich picture of user behaviour to tell the full story of how and why people use our services