Senior User Researcher

Salary: £46,062 (National) or £50,182 (Croydon) plus skills allowance of up to £6,000 pending assessment.

Location:
Croydon, Manchester or Sheffield on a hybrid basis

Advert Close: 11:55 pm Monday 9th March 2026

Please note that this role requires Security Check (SC) clearance, which would normally need 5 years’ UK residency in the past 5 years.

You’ll work in a fast-paced Digital Channels team to create and manage clear, accurate and user-led content for the Home Office intranet and other internal channels.

We design and publish content to help staff find policy and guidance they need to do their jobs, helping the Home Office to keep the UK safe and secure. We also train and support channel owners to ensure their content meets writing and accessibility standards.

You will work flexibly on business-as-usual tasks and projects.

You’ll know how to:

• Make complex language and processes simple to understand.
• Make the case for designing content based on user needs.

You’ll work closely, and build relationships, with our internal communications teams, content designers working on  and online services, Home Office Digital technical teams, operational staff and policy officials.

You can learn more about design and research in the Home Office on our Digital and Data blog:

• Designing content for people with limited English
• Inclusive language by design
• And by looking at our design system

As a Senior User Researcher, you will have experience of establishing and leading an effective user centred design culture in a team and supporting them to embed user centred design practices into their agile workflow. During the selection process, you’ll be assessed on your experience of this and the following technical skills:

• Managing People and Leading: establishing an effective user centred design culture in a team, and supporting them to embed user centred design practices into their agile workflow.
• User Research: understanding and applying a range of user research methods correctly for different life cycle phases, and advising others on these methods at a senior level.
• Analysis and Synthesis: communicating insights from research in a clear and impactful way that drives change in the design of services and informs policy and proposition.
• Communicate, persuade and advocate: convincing senior stakeholders about the benefits of adopting a user‑centred approach, based on evidence.
• Research Ethics: establishing and applying ethical research standards and practices to ensure the safeguarding and wellbeing of participants and researchers.
• Accessibility and inclusion: researching diverse audiences to help teams deliver accessible and inclusive digital services.

Skills for the Information Age (SFIA) is the technical framework that sets the standard capability and development of all levels in the Home Office. This is a link to the capability framework:
All skills A - Z English (sfia-online.org).

• A civil service pension with employer contribution rates of at least 28.97%.
• In-year reward scheme for one‑off or sustained exceptional personal or team achievements.
• The ability to potentially adopt flexible working options that suit your work/life balance, plus the opportunity in future to take a career break.
• 25 days annual leave on appointment, rising with service.
• Eight days public holidays, plus one additional privilege day.
• 26 weeks maternity, adoption or shared parental leave at full pay, followed by 13 weeks statutory pay and a further 13 weeks unpaid, after qualifying service.
• Maternity and adoption support leave (also known as paternity leave) of two weeks full pay, after qualifying service.
• Paid leave for fostering approval processes, support when a child is substantively placed with you plus a foster to adopt policy.
• Support for guardians and kinship carers.
• Corporate membership of ’Employers for Carers’ providing additional information and advice for carers, plus a ’Carer’s Passport’ to discuss workplace needs and underpin supportive conversations.
• Time off to deal with emergencies and certain other unplanned special circumstances.

Please click on apply now where you will be redirected to the full job advert and our application portal