Senior User Researcher Full Time

Care Quality Commission
Grade B – £37,694 (National Framework) or £42,712 (London Framework – if you are London office based or homebased and live within the boundary of the M25) – There is also an additional homeworking allowance of £514 per annum for those working from home.

Contracted Hours: Full time 37 hours per week

Contract Type: Fixed Term, Secondment for 12 Months

Location: Homebased, with the occasional travel to meetings

Closing date: Sunday 28th August 2022 at 11.59pm

Are you committed to helping us regulate health and social care within England?
When thinking about what drives you every day in your job, what keeps you motivated and passionate about your work what comes to mind? For 3000+ people at the CQC we end each day knowing that we have made a difference to the lives of those most in need in our communities. We make sure health and social care services provide people with safe, effective, compassionate, high-quality care and encourage care services to improve. We are looking for people who are caring, demonstrate integrity and work well as part of a team to join with us and share in this sense of achievement. If you would like to help us make a positive impact to health and social care within England, then read on.

Why this could be a great role for you .
This is an opportunity to directly impact the provision of health and social care in England. We work with hospitals, trusts, GP practices, care homes, as well as mental health care and social care providers.

The services you will work on allow inspectors to assess the quality of care a provider delivers. They also allow directives for improvement to be shared with providers.

You will work in a multi-disciplinary service team. A community of user researchers and performance analysts will support you in your role.

What we can offer you…
Your health and wellbeing are important to us and are supported through generous annual leave (starting at 27 days and rising with service to 32.5days, plus 8 Bank Holidays), a cycle to work scheme, discounted gym vouchers and access to a free employee assistance service 24 hours a day. We also understand the importance of financial health and offer membership of the NHS pension scheme, contributing about 14% of basic salary. You will also be able to access discounts to supermarkets, high street stores, electronics, fleet cars, plus we also have an internal reward scheme which could see you earn yourself a voucher or two! All of our Homeworkers are also kitted out with everything they need to comfortably work from home.

We want to support you to succeed and be your very best, with opportunities for training and development along with the support of experienced managers and mentors.

We want to make working for CQC a great experience for everyone, and to role model a diverse and representative culture. To support an inclusive environment where colleagues feel empowered to bring their whole self to work, we support a variety of staff networks, including the Race Equality Network, LGBT+ Equality Network, Carers Equality Network, Disability Equality Network and Gender Equality network.

What you will bring
You advocate for users and their needs. You can navigate challenging conversations where business requirements may impact meeting their needs. You advocate for user research activities with owners of services and their teams.

You understand complex ecosystems of services, and the people using them. You are able to work with a team of researchers to ensure research activities understand and evaluate full user journeys.

Accountabilities:

Plan, design and prepare user research activities to support the design, development and continuous improvement of complex services for all our users – public, provider, stakeholder and staff

Organise the recruitment of user research participants including working with recruiters where needed

Prepare discussion guides and scripts to support user research sessions Moderate user research sessions

Lead analysis of research data and produce clear and actionable findings, including working closely with colleagues to create a rich picture of user behaviour

Communicate user research findings to help the team and wider organisation develop a deep understanding of users and their needs

Work closely with product managers, content designers and developers to turn user research findings into stories and actions that lead to valuable product and service features

Align user research activities with wider plans to inform roadmap of service development

Build user-centred practices into the work of the organisation s teams Mentor and guide more junior user researchers to assure and improve research practice

Contribute to the wider government user research community

Essential:
Excellent oral and published written communication skills Experience of an Agile project management environment and preferably qualified in them

Knowledge of health and social care or regulatory environments

Experience of managing multiple projects

Experience of dealing with senior stakeholders

Experience of advocating for user research and engaging sceptical colleagues and stakeholders

Experience of helping teams adopt user-centred service design and delivery practices and embed them into their agile workflow

The ability to understand the complex problems a team is trying to solve, and align user research activities to inform decision making and action

Experience of helping teams adopt a wide range of user research methods, analysis and synthesis techniques and approaches to presenting and sharing findings

Proven experience of introducing new user research methods into a team, and guiding colleagues in the choice and effective application of research methods

The ability to include all kinds of users in appropriate research activities to help teams understand the diversity of users of CQC services

A good understanding of the social and technological context for public sector services and experience of aligning user research activities to help teams understand changing user behaviour

Desirable:
Knowledge of the technologies used to build and operate digital services, and the ability to work closely with colleagues in technical roles and to constructively challenge technical constraints

Experience of user research for government services and the GDS service standard assessment

Line management experience

Experience of managing internal and external suppliers

For an informal discussion or further information on the role, please contact Sarah Stokes, Lead User Researcher at

Note for external candidates:
CQC are currently working through an organisational transformation programme which includes the creation of a new target operating model. This role is offered as a fixed term contract as part of the transition process to that new model. For further information on this and to access our team information packs please visit

CQC is committed to promoting a fair and inclusive workplace where all our people can flourish and reach their full potential. We know diverse teams allow for a more creative and productive environment and therefore encourage applications from everyone regardless of: age, gender/sex, gender identity or expression, religion or belief, disability, ethnicity or sexual orientation.

Our Values

Excellence – Meeting our challenge to be a high-performing organisation
Caring – Treating everyone with dignity and respect
Integrity – Demonstrating our passion for doing the right thing
Teamwork – Enabling us to be the best we can