Senior User Researcher - FTC; office locations

Job Description

We are seeking a proven
Senior User Researcher to join our newly established Adult Population Genomics Programme (APGP). This exciting initiative will sequence the genomes of 150,000 adults to better understand how genomics can support preventative healthcare, improve early disease detection, and enable more personalised and proactive interventions.

In this role, you will draw on your expertise and experience to plan, deliver, and communicate high-quality research that directly informs product, service, and design decisions. You’ll work closely with multidisciplinary teams to understand user needs, explore behaviours, and evaluate solutions, helping to ensure that Genomics England’s products and services are effective, accessible, and impactful for all users.

Research Planning & Execution

• Plan, scope, and deliver user research activities for products or defined areas within a service.
• Conduct discovery research to explore user needs, behaviours, and constraints within defined problem spaces.
• Conduct evaluative research to refine product flows and features.
• Select and apply appropriate research methods (qualitative and quantitative) with guidance available for more complex study design.
• Independently run research activities such as usability testing, in-depth interviews, workshops, surveys, and field/contextual studies.
• Ensure research is planned effectively, documented clearly, and delivered to expected quality standards.
• Apply ethical research practices, ensuring participants’ rights, consent, and privacy are upheld.
• Ensure research includes people with diverse backgrounds, digital skills, and access needs.

Stakeholder Engagement & Communication

• Build trusted working relationships and work closely with multidisciplinary teams including designers, clinicians, product managers, developers, and operations specialists to shape research questions and interpret findings.
• Produce clear, actionable insights and recommendations to inform product, service, and design decisions, and disseminate by creating research artefacts (e.g., user journeys, personas, insight summaries, and user needs).
• Present research findings to product teams, designers, and operational stakeholders in a clear and compelling way.

Skills and experience for success

• Proven experience planning and delivering user research across qualitative and quantitative methods.
• Skilled at synthesising insights into actionable recommendations.
• Comfortable engaging confidently with stakeholders across disciplines to influence product and service design.
• Experience ensuring research is inclusive, ethical, and accessible.
• Strong communication and presentation skills to convey findings effectively.

If you’re an experienced Senior User Researcher who’s absolutely passionate about understanding users and shaping services that make a real impact, who loves turning insights into better experiences, all whilst working at the forefront of healthcare and genomics, we’d love to hear from you!

Relevant design and research qualifications are acknowledged; however, it is your work experience we are mostly interested in. We are looking for:

• A minimum of five years' work experience
• Proven experience and track record working in the UK public sector
• Digital delivery methodologies such as GDS (Government Digital Service) Service Standard (or equivalent)

• Salary From: £62,500
• Note: This is a 2 Year FTC (Fixed Term Contract)
• Closing Date: Wednesday 11th March at 23:00 (UK time)

Being an integral part of such a meaningful mission is extremely rewarding in itself, but to support our people, we’re continually improving our benefits package. We pride ourselves on investing in our people and supporting them to achieve their career goals, as well as offering a benefits package including:

• Generous Leave: 30 days’ holiday plus bank holidays, plus additional leave for long service, and the option to apply for up to 30 days of remote working abroad annually (approval required).
• Family-Friendly: Blended working arrangements, flexible working, enhanced maternity, paternity and shared parental leave benefits.
• Pension & Financial: Defined contribution pension…