User Researcher (Contract)
Hybrid - Newcastle, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Leeds, Manchester, Birmingham, London
User Centred Design – User Research /
Contract - Contingent Day Rate /
Hybrid
Ready to turn curiosity into impact?
Do you want to use research to shape services that make a real impact? Are you ready to bring curiosity and insight to projects that improve people’s lives?
If so, Opencast could be the place for you. We’re a growing tech consultancy that creates user-centred solutions with purpose for our clients in government, healthcare and purpose-driven businesses. As a User Researcher, you’ll uncover the needs and voices of people, work in multi-disciplinary teams to feed these needs into design decisions shape impactful services, and bring curiosity, pragmatism and insight to projects. You’ll enjoy, a supportive community whilst working across public sector clients, to solve real problems that impact people's lives.
What you'll do within our teams
- Plan research approaches for complex projects that might have multiple research activities running at the same time whilst being delivered by other researchers
- Offer oversight of research conducted by other people, either formally or informally, to improve research practices
- Identify where research points to areas that need more investigation and, where necessary, help to re-define the project scope and priorities in response to this
- Produce the required documentation and materials for research activity, including discussion guides and consent forms
- Recruit participants in line with GDPR and MRS guidelines
- Use your excellent communication skills to clearly explain your approach to your team and stakeholders
You'll suit this role if you:
- Use a wide range of quantitative and qualitative research methods, including things like interviews, surveys, workshops, focus groups, shadowing, diary studies, usability testing, eye tracking, A/B testing, and analytics
- Have a strong understanding of GDS and designing to government service standards, preferably on projects that passed assessment(s)
- Can identify key themes, user needs, business needs, and personas through analysis
- Can explain findings to a range of audiences and translate these into areas of the service that need design focus
- Can produce user research deliverables like personas and journey maps
- Make sure your research is inclusive and includes people with disabilities and those who need support to use digital services
- Can build strong relationships with clients and persuade stakeholders of the importance of research to a project
- Thrive in a multidisciplinary team and encourage teammates to shadow and take part in research
- Understand agile processes
- Enjoy working with clients as they evolve and adapt
- Are naturally curious and able to champion your own learning and development
- Are an advocate for user-centred design
- Are respectful and tactful in your approach to clients who perhaps aren’t as familiar with user-centred design
- Are proactive and will take the initiative to solve a problem rather than seeing it and ignoring it
- Are keen to share your knowledge and experience
If you have any of this experience, please show it on your CV and in the interview.
Bonus nice-to-haves
- Experience in another UCD specialism (interaction design, content design or strategy, service design)
We may use artificial intelligence (AI) tools to support parts of the hiring process, such as reviewing applications, analyzing resumes, or assessing responses. These tools assist our recruitment team but do not replace human judgment. Final hiring decisions are ultimately made by humans. If you would like more information about how your data is processed, please contact us.
