Senior User Researcher

On behalf of the Department of Education, we are looking for a Senior User Researcher (Inside IR35) for a 6 month contract based Remote with occasional travel to the Coventry Office. Our vision is to strengthen the teacher workforce in England with overseas-trained teachers, to help children achieve and thrive at school. Our mission is to provide an accessible pathway to Qualified Teacher Status (QTS) for high-quality and suitably trained overseas teachers to be recognised to teach in schools in England. The team will continue developing and iterating the AQTS service to improve the user experience and support the Professional Recognition team to improve the assessment process, making efficiency savings and reducing backlog time where possible. Team goals are dependent on policy changes and/or new requirements needing to be responded to. You will plan, design and carry out research activities with users that help teams get a deep understanding of the people that use the services. This research informs policy, proposition, service, content and interaction design so that services work well for users and achieves its intent. As a Senior User Researcher your main responsibilities will be to: Ensure applicants understand the required evidence for applying for QTS at the earliest opportunity. Plan, design and conduct user research using a range of appropriate methods. Respond to ministerial priorities and policy steers including identifying options, redesigning functionality and ensuring an understanding of impact on users throughout the process. Contribute to evolving the case management system to improve assessment efficiency and reduce backlog, ensuring all changes are GDS compliant. Use our knowledge of and learnings from the current service to improve usability and accessibility so eligible teachers can apply fairly and easily. Work with other Schools Digital services to increase our understanding of the end-to-end journey for our applicants and create an aligned user journey. Improve assessor processes by removing offline activity and explore improving applicant self-serve options. Provide clear, actionable playback of findings to stakeholders and support smooth collaboration with commercial teams and suppliers where required. Essential: Strong experience as a User Researcher in government or the wider public sector. Ability to work effectively in multidisciplinary teams and collaborate across design, delivery, policy and engineering. Experience working to GDS standards and within the Government Digital Service framework (Discovery, Alpha, Beta, Live). Experience applying user research methods and knowing when and how to use them. Understand the diversity of users and the need to make services usable and accessible for everyone. Excellent stakeholder engagement skills and the ability to communicate across different audiences. Strong understanding of the social and technological context of the service and how user behaviour changes over time. Knowledge of the technologies used to build and operate digital services. Experience of user centred practices and continuous user research in multidisciplinary teams. Ability to proactively understand policy, delivery and digital strategy, advocate for user research and turn insights into clear, actionable recommendations that influence design, policy and service improvements.