Role Overview
A Senior Experience Consultant specializing in Research provides strategic leadership in shaping, delivering, and championing user research across digital services. The role leads complex research programmes, oversees methodological decisions, and ensures insights directly influence policy, service design, and delivery across the GDS lifecycle.
Responsibilities
* Lead complex research programmes, oversee methodological decisions, and ensure insights directly influence policy, service design, and delivery across the GDS lifecycle.
* Develop comprehensive user research plans, aligned with project goals and wider organisational priorities.
* Design and carry out research activities that help teams develop a deep understanding of users and their needs across government services.
* Document user insights clearly and consistently, producing high‑quality outputs such as personas, journey maps, research summaries, and insight repositories.
* Champion user research.
* Ensure research evidence effectively informs policy, propositions, service design, content design, and interaction design to achieve both user and policy outcomes.
* Communicate complex insights clearly and persuasively to diverse audiences, including senior leaders.
Required Technical and Professional Expertise
* Experience leading planning, design, and execution of end‑to‑end user research using a broad range of qualitative and quantitative methods.
* Skilled at shaping research strategies that drive decision‑making and align with client needs and organisational objectives.
* Provide guidance, mentoring, and quality assurance to researchers, improving research practice across teams.
* Develop advanced artefacts such as service‑level journey maps, research frameworks, behavioural models, and thematic insight repositories.
* Facilitate workshops and collaborative sessions with senior stakeholders to prioritise research needs and embed evidence‑based decisions.
* Conduct expert reviews, heuristic evaluations, and cognitive walkthroughs to assess and improve user experience quality.
* Champion user‑centred design principles and influence product and service direction across multidisciplinary teams.
* Remain current on emerging research methodologies, accessibility standards, and best practices in user‑centred design.
Preferred Technical and Professional Experience
* Experience with advanced analytics, A/B testing, card sorting, or contextual inquiry.
* Experience mentoring or line‑managing junior researchers.
* Familiarity with digital accessibility standards and specialised accessibility testing tools.
* Knowledge of behavioural science, service design, or systems thinking.
* Experience using insight repositories or researchOps platforms.
This role is subject to pre‑employment screening in line with the UK Governments Baseline Personnel Security Standard (BPSS). An additional range of Personal Security Controls referred to as National Security Vetting (NVS) may apply, this could include meeting the eligibility requirements for The Security Check (SC) or Developed Vetting (DV).
Equal Opportunity Employment Statement
IBM is committed to creating a diverse environment and is proud to be an equal‑opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, gender, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, national origin, caste, genetics, pregnancy, disability, neurodivergence, age, veteran status, or other characteristics. IBM is also committed to compliance with all fair employment practices regarding citizenship and immigration status.
Benefits
* Tools and policies to support your work‑life balance from flexible working approaches, sabbatical programmes, paid paternity leave, maternity leave and an innovative maternity returners scheme.
* More traditional benefits, such as 25 days holiday (in addition to public holidays), private medical, dental & optical cover, online shopping discounts, an Employee Assistance Program, life assurance and a group pension plan through salary sacrifice.
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