Job ref: 222989
TPR grade: Grade 7 – Lead Specialist
About us
More than half the UK working population rely on The Pensions Regulator (TPR) to regulate their retirement savings. With a career at TPR, you’ll be joining an organisation that will impact on millions of lives for decades to come.
Everyone at TPR plays an important role in helping to keep more than £2 trillion of savings safe. We’re committed to bringing people into TPR who are ready to make a difference and put UK savers at the heart of what we do.
It is important to us that TPR remains a great place to work. We do all we can to help our people reach their full potential with learning, secondment, and development opportunities. We put our 900+ employees first, supporting flexible working and offer a diverse, lively, and inclusive environment. This includes our Disability Network, Family Network, LGBT+ Network (Proud), Minority Ethnic (ME) Network and Women’s Network, which offer spaces to connect.
Our new corporate strategy outlines a bold and challenging vision of how pensions regulation should evolve to keep pace with a change in the scale and nature of the industry. We are at the start of that journey. Join us to find out what part you can play.
We operate a hybrid working model, with regular attendance in our Brighton office to connect with colleagues across the business.
Role
Our Digital team is undergoing transformation turning our existing capabilities into a modern, and high-performing digital function with agility, user-centricity and innovation embedded throughout. Our vision is to be a catalyst for pensions innovation and regulatory effectiveness. Using digital, data, and technology to revolutionise pension regulation, making it more efficient, secure, transparent, and user-centred.
As Senior User Researcher, you will play a crucial role in guiding multi-disciplinary teams to deliver value for users. You will be responsible for planning and leading user research activities for complex services, working with multidisciplinary teams and stakeholders to develop and iterate user-centred products and services. This includes responsibility for ensuring research activities meet ethical and data standards.
You will help build our understanding of users, expanding our research repository and knowledge sharing practices. You’ll mentor user-centred design practitioners, increasing capability and supporting professional development. You’ll advocate for user-centred approaches and grow knowledge of user research within Digital Data and Technology (DDaT) and across The Pensions Regulator (TPR).
This is an exciting time to join us as we implement our DDaT strategy, driving forward our mission to innovate and enhance regulatory effectiveness. Your expertise and leadership will be pivotal in achieving our vision and ensuring that our services are truly user-centred.
Responsibilities
- User research: plan and conduct user research that improves our understanding of users, generate insights to inform decisions, and meets our design, ethical and data principles.
- User focus: work closely with teams and senior stakeholders to develop and iterate user-centred services, ensuring clear understanding of user needs and service goals.
- Inclusive practices: design research that enable teams to deliver inclusive, accessible services and ensure research practices mitigate risks of bias in collection, interpretation, presentation and application.
- Strategic service development: inform our strategic approach to end-to-end services and evaluation frameworks to demonstrate clear value for users.
- Build capability: identify knowledge gaps and work with the User Research & Insights Lead and Head of User-Centred Design to address training needs.
- Practitioner development: oversee user research outputs, including contractors, and mentor user-centred practitioners to promote growth and ensure high standards of practice.
- Process improvement: improve processes and tooling to test robustness of insights and support hypothesis-driven iterations.
- Efficiency and consistency: develop and maintain user research practices and processes to increase efficiency and improve testing and evaluation frameworks.
- Collaboration and networking: build partnerships across disciplines, departments and other organisations to share knowledge and explore opportunities that improve services for users.
Essential criteria
Essential
- Strong experience of user research methodologies with ability to choose appropriate methods for different phases of the product/service development lifecycle.
- Experience planning and conducting inclusive research to help teams design for all users and deliver accessible services.
- Strong analytical ability and knowledge tools and techniques to challenge findings and test the robustness of insights.
- Experience involving colleagues in user research, encouraging participation in analysis and synthesis to improve team understanding of service users.
- Experience of user research operations, including managing scope and recruiting participants.
- Experience ensuring research meets ethical standards and data governance requirements, including improving guidance and processes to support that.
- Strong ability to communicate effectively, advocate for the users and help others understand user-centred practices.
- Experience working with senior stakeholders, persuading them on the value of research and challenging the use of research when necessary.
- Experience leading or mentoring user researchers to produce quality outputs and develop skills.
- Experience using user research and usability testing tools, for moderated and unmoderated research activities.
- Experienced learner, interested developing your skills and improving practice through reflection.
- Able to work independently or as part of a team, prioritize work and manage multiple deadlines.
Desirable
- Experience of presenting user research in government service assessments or similar demonstration of meeting government service standards.
Person specification
- Problem solving and analytical skills.
- Communication skills at all levels.
- Ability to prioritise and use initiative.
- Negotiating skills.
Salary and benefits
As well as a salary between £55,504 and £70,921, we offer:
- Civil Service Pension arrangements, which are recognised as some of the best in the pensions world
- discretionary bonus arrangements
- access to performance related pay progression
- 25 days annual leave provision
- flexible working arrangements
- development opportunities
- enhanced parental leave arrangements
- a free employee assistance programme
- an excellent office location in Brighton
How to apply
To apply please email recruitmentteam@tpr.gov.uk quoting role reference number 222989 along with:
- a covering letter with details of how your skills and experience meet the role requirements
- a copy of your CV
- details of your notice period
Current employees in their first 12 months of employment who want to apply for this vacancy should first contact their line manager to discuss their application.
We are an inclusive employer and offer equal opportunities regardless of an individual’s age, disability, gender identity, marriage or civil partnership status, pregnancy or maternity, race, religion or belief, sex and sexual orientation.
As a Disability Confident employer, we’re committed to the recruitment, employment, retention and development of people with disabilities and to improving their employment opportunities. Candidates who declare that they have a disability and who meet the essential criteria for the job will be offered an interview.
Applications will be considered on a part time and job share basis. If you want your application to be considered as part of a job share, please apply with the hours you are available to work.
In accordance with Home Office guidance, the successful candidate will be required to provide their right to work in the UK before they start employment. Unfortunately, TPR is not able to offer sponsorship at the time. TPR is a UK-based organisation with a working location in Brighton, candidates must live in the UK to be employed by us.
TPR is an arm’s length government body and part of the public service.
Any offer of employment will be subject to the receipt of satisfactory background screening checks and criminal record checks (BPSS).
If you have any queries about this role, or if you have a disability and wish to request a reasonable adjustment at any stage of the recruitment process, please email recruitmentteam@tpr.gov.uk.