Lead User Researcher - Government Digital Service - G6
Government Digital & Data -
Location
London
About the job
Job summary
The Government Digital Service (GDS) is the digital centre of government. We are responsible for setting, leading and delivering the vision for a modern digital government.
Our priorities are to drive a modern digital government, by:
- joining up public sector services
- harnessing the power of AI for the public good
- strengthening and extending our digital and data public infrastructure
- elevating leadership and investing in talent
- funding for outcomes and procuring for growth and innovation
- committing to transparency and driving accountability
We are home to the Incubator for Artificial Intelligence (I.AI), the world-leading GOV.UK and at the forefront of coordinating the UK’s geospatial strategy and activity. We lead the Government Digital and Data function and champion the work of digital teams across government.
We’re part of the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT) and employ more than 1,000 people all over the UK, with hubs in Manchester, London and Bristol.
The Government Digital Service is where talent translates into impact. From your first day, you’ll be working with some of the world’s most highly-skilled digital professionals, all contributing their knowledge to make change on a national scale.
Join us for rewarding work that makes a difference across the UK. You'll solve some of the nation’s highest-priority digital challenges, helping millions of people access services they need
About CustomerFirst
Long phone queues, repeated form-filling, and endless paperwork will be cut out as technology is put to work to transform public services, modernise government, and accelerate national renewal across the UK.
CustomerFirst transforms how public services are designed, delivered and operated. Driving efficiency while radically improving the experience for citizens and the staff who deliver services. We work in partnership with government departments, taking inspiration from the best of industry and leading practice across the public sector. Our focus is on fixing the root causes of poor customer service: fragmented journeys, inefficient processes and systems that don’t join up.
CustomerFirst exists to make government services work better for the people who rely on them and for the teams who run them. Not incrementally better. Fundamentally better.
Job description
As the Lead User Researcher for CustomerFirst, you’ll play a defining role in shaping the team to improve customer service at scale with a user-centred mindset. This is not about leading the research on a single project. This role will sit across multiple delivery squads setting the research strategy and practice, and conducting research yourself when needed.
This role will be shaping how research is conducted across complex portfolios and helping government move from quick fixes to deep transformation based on what people fundamentally need from our services.
CustomerFirst is still being built. Our operating model, culture and ways of working are evolving, and that’s deliberate. We’re looking for a Lead Researcher who is comfortable in ambiguity, and is motivated by the chance to build something new with real public impact.
This is a hands-on leadership role, involving research tasks and also strategic direction and responsibility for a small team of researchers embedded in different projects. You’ll set direction and standards, and step in wherever needed to help teams deliver.
What you will do
As a Lead User Researcher, you will:
- develop and assure good user research practice across multiple teams, supporting researchers to adopt a range of techniques and to continuously improve
- oversee and lead the planning, design and delivery of user research to support the design and development of excellent public services
- establish and align user research activities and teams to meet organisational goals
- lead colleagues to analyse research data and synthesise clear and actionable findings
- ensure that teams take a user-centred, evidence-based approach to service design and delivery, and that our research includes all kinds of users
- contribute to the wider user research community – taking on a leadership role in the community including sharing findings and insights across the organisation, mentoring other researchers, writing blog posts and leading on aspects of practice
- may be required to provide line management and leadership to a team of researchers
This role will involve overseeing research across multiple different projects, each a partnership with a different organisation across government. This means you’ll be advising and coaching service teams on how to improve, as well as being part of a multidisciplinary team delivering a service. You’ll need skills building relationships quickly, identifying problems, and helping others to solve them.
What this role offers
- a chance to fix real customer service problems that affect millions of people
- the opportunity to shape how government considers products and services, not just work within existing models
- exposure and opportunity to influence senior leadership across policy, operations, digital and delivery
- a start-up/ scale up environment with the mandate to challenge, experiment and build
- work with purpose, scale and visibility – without losing pragmatism or pace
Person specification
We’re interested in people who have experience:
- of a wide range of research methods, track record of deploying appropriate research methods for the product environment, and supporting others to adopt new approaches
- leading in ambiguity, providing others with support and direction to deliver results while external factors are uncertain.
- establishing and aligning user research activities to organisational goals.
- building stakeholder relationships quickly, and partnering with others to resolve issues and enable progress
- in user-centred practice and advocacy, including helping teams adopt user-centred practices
- in developing and assuring best practice in a wide range of user research methods
