Lead User Researcher

Lead User Researcher

Location: Cardiff

Salary: NHS AfC Band 8a £56,514 - £63,263 (new entrants will join at the nottom of the band)

Closing date: 29th September 2025

We’re looking for an enthusiastic and talented Lead User Researcher to join our User-Centred Design team to support digital products and services in the Primary, Community and Mental Health directorate.

As a Lead User Researcher who is user-centred, you will specialise in planning and leading user research activities in larger teams and on more complex services. You will plan, design and carry out research activities with users that help teams get a deep understanding of the people that use our services - ensuring that those services are accessible and work well for users.

Putting users' needs at the heart of your work, you will make people's interactions with our products and services as simple as possible.

English and/or Welsh speakers are equally welcome to apply.

As a Lead User Researcher, you will:

• undertake interviewing, workshop facilitation and ethnographic research - making complex processes and insights easy to understand
  
  
• identify which tools and methods to use and how to meet the needs of users across a variety of channels
  
  
• conduct user research with underrepresented or minority groups, or groups who may have sensitive personal conditions
  
  
• develop qualitative research discussion guides and undertake research facilitation and questioning using the appropriate techniques
  
  
• collect and analyse data related to people's behaviours, needs and opinion and provide evidence drawn from that analysis to represent the user in product and design discussions
  
  Working for your organisation
  
  Digital Health and Care Wales (DHCW) is an expert national body and part of NHS Wales. We work in partnership with NHS Wales colleagues and other key stakeholders to provide national digital and data services which support the delivery of health and social care in Wales. Modern health and care services depend on good digital tools, data and information. DHCW runs or works with more than 100 services and delivers major national digital transformation programmes to support this. In addition, DHCW provides expert advice in relation to cyber security and information governance. We give frontline staff the digital tools which help them provide safer and more efficient care. We are also giving patients and the public digital tools to better manage their own health and wellbeing, empowering people to live healthier lives. We put people at the heart of what we do, working to the highest standards to deliver quality and make digital a force for good in health and care.
  
  Working for DHCW offers lots of employee benefits, including flexible working, a competitive salary, 28 days of annual leave plus Bank Holidays and opportunities for career development. We are committed to recognising and celebrating our staff as the most valuable part of our organisation.
  
  As a Lead User Researcher you will be an expert practitioner, leading and aligning user research activities, and setting the strategic direction for research in your business area. You will:
  
  
• provide user research expertise and consultancy to your business area, and hands-on support as required
  
  
• ·ensure that teams take a user-centred, evidence-based approach to service design and delivery
  
  
• develop and assure good user research practice across your business area
  
  
• take a leading role in the User Centred Design community of practice
  
  
• design and implement inclusive user research activities, including running usability testing sessions
  
  Person specification (to be used for shortlisting)
  
  Qualifications and Knowledge
  
  Essential criteria
  
  
• Educated to Master’s level or equivalent qualification / experience
  
  
• Evidence of continuous professional development
  
  Experience
  
  Essential criteria
  
  
• Experience in a user researcher role at a similar level, planning and leading a wide range of user research activities on complex services
  
  
• Proficient at aligning user research activities with wider plans to inform a service proposition
  
  
• Attention to Detail skills to apply specific quality standards to all tasks undertaken to ensure that deliverables are accurate and complete
  
  
• Communication skills as an effective, approachable and sensitive communicator in different communities and cultures with the ability to adapt style and approach to meet the needs of different audiences
  
  Skills and Attributes
  
  Essential criteria
  
  
• Information Acquisition skills to identify gaps in the available information required to understand a problem or situation and devising a means of resolving them
  
  
• Interpersonal skills to establish relationships, contributing to an open culture and maintaining contacts with people from a variety of backgrounds and disciplines
  
  
• Communication skills as an effective, approachable and sensitive communicator in different communities and cultures with the ability to adapt style and approach to meet the needs of different audiences