Midweight user researchers

Salary: £39k – £47k (depending on experience)

Location: Wales. Remote but may be expected to attend some in person meetings.

Term: This is a permanent role for the remainder of this Senedd term (until 2026) with an option to extend in future.

This role is available as a secondment for Welsh public sector employees. Please follow your own organisation’s policy on informing and getting permission from line managers.  

The ability to speak and write Welsh is desirable. We will judge applications submitted in Welsh or English equally.

About the Centre for Digital Public Services

The Centre for Digital Public Services (CDPS) helps to design and deliver better public services for Wales. 

We are an arm’s length body of the Welsh Government set up to help deliver the Digital Strategy for Wales. 

Our focus is on:

• creating shared digital standards (including for services and technology), building communities and sharing knowledge
• building skills and capability and a pipeline of digital talent
• creating ‘digital squads’: multidisciplinary teams who work in partnership with organisations to design and deliver better services around the needs of the people who use them

We’re a diverse team of digital experts made up of permanent staff, fixed term appointments, secondments from the Welsh public sector and suppliers.  

The role

We’re looking for people who are passionate about creating accessible services that are simple enough for everyone to use.

We are looking for user researchers to lead research on a specific user journey, project or workstream for CDPS. You will make sure all our work is rooted in a deep understanding of users and their needs.  

The work will include planning and implementing research activities and methods and communicating actionable insights to project teams and partners.  

You’ll be expected to ensure quality, innovation and creativity in our approach to all aspects of user research and to reporting on its results.  

You’ll be an advocate for user-centred design and respond to queries and challenges on the need for good user research.

What you’ll do

• build strong relationships with stakeholders, working with them to improve our user focus and their understanding of user-centred design
• create artefacts to test and run user testing sessions
• implement and improve user research practices 
• share good user research practice across teams 
• map user needs, translate them into user stories and iterate accordingly
• engage in meaningful interactions and relationships with users
• interpret evidence-based research and incorporate the results in your work
• synthesise research findings rapidly, using appropriate tools and techniques
• derive user needs from research findings and express them as user stories
• bring research insights to life for colleagues, including through presentations and printed or online artefacts

Who you are

We want to speak to people with skills and experience in: 

• in-depth interviewing, workshop facilitation and ethnography research
• making complex language and processes easy to understand (how things work now, what are the issues, what works well already)
• understanding which tools and methods to use and how to meet the needs of users across a variety of channels
• researching vulnerable and niche audiences such as those in financial hardship, with health concerns, young people, elderly or the disabled
• research moderation skills and questioning techniques
• development of qualitative research discussion guides 
• Agile working: you have participated in Agile ceremonies, worked in sprints and helped write user stories

You should be:

• good at managing your own time and able to work autonomously
• naturally curious – you keep on top of your own learning and development and are up to date with the latest techniques and trends in your field
• able to get to the heart of an issue quickly and clearly
• committed to improving digital services across Wales and aware of the Digital Strategy for Wales
• an advocate for user-centered practices, embedded within Agile delivery
• fluent in spoken and written Welsh (desirable)

Please keep reading

Research shows that, while men apply for jobs where they meet 60% of the criteria, women and other marginalised people tend only to apply when they check every box. So, if you think you have what it takes, but don’t necessarily meet every single point on the job description, please still get in touch. We’d love to have a chat and see if you’d be a good fit. 

We are passionate about creating a diverse workforce and positively encourage applications from under-represented communities. We embrace equality of opportunity irrespective of disability, neurodivergence, ethnic origin, colour, nationality, gender and gender presentation, marital status, sexual orientation, culture or religion.  

Benefits  

• Generous holiday entitlement: 28 days’ annual leave plus public holidays
• 37.5-hour week for all full-time team members  
• Flexible working policy
• Enhanced contribution to our workplace pension  

How to apply   

Please submit your CV and a covering letter to support your application.

The covering letter should be no more than two sides of A4. Your letter needs to:

• explain why you’re interested in the position
• provide evidence of why you’re suitable, based on the ‘Who you are’ section above
• tell us where you saw the job advertised

Email your applications to careers@digitalpublicservices.gov.wales.

The successful candidate must have BPSS certification before starting this role, which we will pay for and process.