Senior User Experience Researcher

Senior User Experience Researcher

Grade: SEO
Salary: £46,677 - 54,957 (Plus +8% plus DDAT salary supplement)
Benefits: Flexible working arrangements, employer pension contributions of circa 29%, generous annual/parental and special leave policies, plus extensive personal wellbeing benefits. Please see full reward package at end of job description for more information.
Duration: Permanent
Working Pattern: As an employer that supports flexible working, we will consider part-time or compressed working requests, though these will be reviewed on a case by case basis and dependant on the role requirements.
Location: We offer a hybrid working model that provides flexibility to our colleagues in terms of how they work, as long as it meets the needs of both the individual and the organisation. We envision that many of the team community activities and co-design sessions will take place at our Edinburgh or Glasgow offices, for at least a part of each week and you will be expected to attend these wherever possible.
Your contractual base will be either Meadowbank House, Edinburgh EH8 7AU or St Vincent Plaza, Glasgow G2 5LD.
Department: User Centred Design - UX Team
Directorate: Digital, Data and Technology
Role Reports to: User Experience Lead
Closing date: 20/04/2025 at 23:59
Number of Vacancies: Two

Registers of Scotland (RoS) manages 23 land, property and other legal registers which are a critical asset for the Scottish economy. We aim to provide the best public service for Scotland and are on a mission to make some of the oldest public land registers in the world into some of the most modern. We are committed to providing the best service to our customers through the creation of award-winning digital services, supported by the latest in cloud and AI technology.

When working at RoS we support our colleagues by offering a range of modern work policies and workspaces, as well as encouraging an inclusive, diverse, and equitable work environment. We are proud to promote our We Invest in People Gold Award, Investors in Young People Silver Award and We Invest in Wellbeing Gold Award, alongside our zero gender pay gap and the fact we are a disability confident employer.

About this role:

An experienced practitioner, you can plan and lead user experience research activities on more complex services. At this level, you will be expected to:

1. Build customer and colleague centred services
2. Align user research activities with wider plans to inform a service proposition
3. Supervise and develop other user experience researchers to assure and improve research practice
4. Support the demand for user experience activity

Main duties:

1. Involved in ensuring that service touchpoints during a customer or colleagues' lifetime with Registers of Scotland (RoS) are part of a coherent, consistent experience
2. Conducting exploratory user research that will bring out customer or colleague needs.
3. Ensuring that usability research is undertaken frequently, economically with appropriate users and measures as part of the development cycle.
4. Creating low to high fidelity prototypes based on existing design patterns that bring the research to life.
5. Delivering UX feedback to Agile delivery teams to compliment sprint cycles
6. Work as part of a multi-disciplined team to design user focussed and successful services
7. Support the UX community and coach or pair with other members of the team
8. Build relationships and working effectively with external parties, for example legal firms, public, and Scottish Government

What can we offer you? - Benefits at RoS:

1. We are a welcoming and inclusive community that functions on supportive practices such as Agile Coaches, Business Analysts, UX specialists and more.
2. We offer a stimulating working environment and strongly believe that a diverse team is crucial to achieving our mission!
3. Our team is ambitious, acts with integrity and demonstrates commitment to progress and impact. We nurture talent and reward success.
4. We work in an agile way, which is applied across the whole organisation.
5. RoS offers a generous annual leave entitlement. Starting with 26 days of holiday plus 12 days bank holidays (for a total of 38 days). We reward your commitment to us by increasing annual leave by +1 day per year, for up to +4 additional days on your entitlement, bringing your allowance to 42 days.
6. We operate a 35-hour working week and offer flexible working arrangements (up to 30 hours flexi per month).
7. We offer office locations in Edinburgh & Glasgow and currently offer a hybrid working model, having established we can successfully work remotely.

As part of the reward package, you will get access to:

1. Civil Service pension at circa 29% contribution on the employer side.
2. Service benefits, cycle to work scheme, discounted dental insurance, £100 eye care vouchers subsidised gym memberships, childcare vouchers, buying and selling annual leave, retail discounts and more!
3. Family friendly leave policies (Maternity at 1-year full pay, Paternity Leave/Shared parental Leave/Special Leave & more) after 1 year of continuous service.
4. We offer continuous training and development opportunities, including being able to attend industry events.
5. A generous salary range with pay progression arrangements is in place.
6. You will have access to external counselling and external advice.
7. We are a Disability Confident employer.
8. We monitor equal opportunities and offer support where needed.

Essential criteria - Your Skills and Attributes for Success

Competencies
Collaborating and Partnering

1. Able to listen to the needs of the technical and business stakeholders and interpret between them.
2. Able to manage stakeholders' expectations and be flexible, capable of proactive and reactive communication
3. Facilitates difficult discussions within the team or with diverse senior stakeholders
4. Experience working within an agile, multi-disciplinary team environment.
5. Experience of working with teams to understand detailed requirements and deliver appropriate research activities that capture user experiences.
6. Engages in fostering a UX community within RoS.

Thinking Wider

1. Can identify and understand constraints across the business and is able to communicate these and work within them.
2. Able to challenge the validity of constraints ensuring RoS objectives are still met with reasoned research findings.
3. Can provide insights and clear advice based on research findings and emerging trends to help shape strategy and direct change
4. Experience with prototyping tools for example Axure

Analysis and Making Effective Decisions

1. Able to make recommendations characterised by medium levels of risk and complexity that build consensus between services or stakeholders.
2. Able to identify issues in the team dynamics and rectify them.
3. Able to set the highest standards for user experience research and analysis, utilising both quantitative and qualitative methodologies.
4. Experience of simplifying high volume, complex customer journeys.
5. Knowledge of insight tools for example google analytics and hotjar.

Demonstrating Commitment and Drive

1. Manages, supports and stretches self and others to deliver agreed goals and objectives
2. Keeps focused on the goals that really matter, and takes responsibility for delivering outcomes on time and to a high standard
3. Experience of working in a team of UX professionals

Delivering a Quality Service

1. Experience visualising and implementing strategic user-centred design that supports a wide range of users. Including those with additional needs and other hard to reach groups.
2. Knowledge of Scottish Government Digital First Service Standard
3. Knowledge of WCAG accessibility standards and principles
4. Good understanding of research ethics and how to keep participants, teams and yourself safe in research.

Recruitment process

How to Apply
To apply, click on 'Apply now' and complete our online application form, you will need to submit:

1. A CV setting out your career history and how you meet the Technical/Experience elements of the essential criteria (we recommend no more than 4 pages in length).
2. As a continuation of your CV and within the same document, a Statement of Suitability (500 words minimum but no longer than 1000 words) with examples of how you meet the competencies as stated above.
3. Your CV and Statement of Suitability should be submitted as a single document in MS Word format.

Please note:

1. CVs that are not accompanied by a full supporting statement will not be scored.
2. Statements exceeding 1000 words will not be considered. We would strongly recommend that your answers are written in the STAR format (Situation, Task, Action & Result).
3. We recommend that you work on your supporting statement using MS Word, and then uploading it; please note the system will "time-out" and sign you off if you are inactive or spend over a certain amount of time in the application without saving your progress.
4. We strongly suggest you review our policy on responsible use of AI in the application/recruitment process. In the interest of transparency . click apply for full job details