JOB SUMMARY

In the Children and Families DDT portfolio, our aim is to support every child and young person to be safer, healthier and happier. We work with Families Group to deliver Manifesto commitments on children’s social care, early years childcare and our important contribution to delivering the Government’s Mission to break down barriers to opportunity. We work with policy teams to deliver and run services that help families have the best start in life.
We have one user research role available and this is an exciting time to join the portfolio with significant reform programmes underway in both early years and childcare, and children’s social care, which will have a direct impact on the outcomes and wellbeing of children and their families.
A second user research role is available in our School operations & estates services programme. We support schools to provide safe, sustainable, and engaging learning environments that help every child to achieve and thrive. We put user-centred approaches at the core of designing and building new and improved services, including to support the development of the education estate, its technology, and its digital infrastructure for the benefit of children from all groups in society.

In the Digital, Data and Technology (DDT) group, our diverse and inclusive culture reflects the society we live in. This helps us to achieve better outcomes for all our users. We work in multi-disciplinary teams using Agile methods to innovate and radically improve services that:

• Raise education standards and provide the best start in life for children
• Support disadvantaged and vulnerable children and young people
• Drive economic growth

You can read more about our strategy on the DfE digital and technology blog, by visiting our LinkedIn page, or by following us on Twitter @DfE_DigitalTech .

JOB DESCRIPTION

User researchers at Department for Education plan, design and carry out research activities with users that help teams get a deep understanding of the people that use our services, across education and social care. This research informs our policy, proposition, service, content and interaction design so that services work well for users and meet our policy intent.
As a user researcher you will usually be embedded in a multidisciplinary team, responsible for planning and carrying out user research activities. You will be expected to work independently on a team.

You will:

• Plan and lead user research activities in a team.
• Deliver user research insights at pace.
• Research inclusively with a wide range of users, including those with additional needs and other hard-to-reach groups.
• Effectively communicate user research findings to the team and the wider organisation, to influence decision making.
• Be part of the DfE user research community.

NATIONALITY REQUIREMENTS

This job is broadly open to the following groups:

• UK nationals
• nationals of the Republic of Ireland
• nationals of Commonwealth countries who have the right to work in the UK
• nationals of the EU, Switzerland, Norway, Iceland or Liechtenstein and family members of those nationalities with settled or pre-settled status under the European Union Settlement Scheme (EUSS)
• nationals of the EU, Switzerland, Norway, Iceland or Liechtenstein and family members of those nationalities who have made a valid application for settled or pre-settled status under the European Union Settlement Scheme (EUSS)
• individuals with limited leave to remain or indefinite leave to remain who were eligible to apply for EUSS on or before 31 December 2020
• Turkish nationals, and certain family members of Turkish nationals, who have accrued the right to work in the Civil Service

Further information on nationality requirements

Digital