User Researcher

Snook are on a mission to design a world that works better for people.

We work with organisations to design more effective services which help people thrive. We do this by engaging with users, building digital products, training our clients, and much more.

Snook started as a service design company in 2009. In the past five years, we have become a multidisciplinary team and scaled to more than double our original size, when we started up in Scotland. We are now based in Glasgow and London and our team is approaching 100 people. And we've worked with brilliant clients — from Cancer Research UK and Tesco to Hackney City Council and the Scottish Government.

One of Snook’s core missions is ‘Next Era Government’. We strive to ensure that human needs are at the centre of government services’ design and delivery. We are the User-Centred Design partner for multiple government agencies, including Home Office, Department for Education, NHS Digital and NHSX. Working in these sectors will give you valuable experience of applying GDS standards and preparing for GDS Service assessments. We also work with local government and third and private sector organisations. 

This role provides the opportunity to work across these sectors while receiving knowledge and support from other Snooks. Where possible, we rotate people from one sector to another after 3 to 12 months (depending on the project), enabling people to develop in-depth knowledge of a variety of sectors.

About the role
As a User Researcher at Snook, you will work in multidisciplinary project teams and will be responsible for ensuring our design projects are rooted in a deep understanding of users and their needs. You will sometimes be embedded in our client team within organisations such as the Home Office or NHS Digital, working with other disciplines there. 

Your work will include participating in a range of research activities and methods, and communicating actionable insights to project teams. 

Your work will require collaboration across our user-centred disciplines and go beyond the screen. 

You will work in the open, communicating user research findings within the project team and with clients.

You’ll relish working closely with our clients and partners in co-designing services and products with users.

• Location: UK-Based - (This is a UK home based role, although you may be required to attend client offices and Snook or NEC sites for meetings, from time to time)
• Contract: Permanent
• Salary: UK £32,292 - £45,908 & London-weighting £35,100 - 49,900
• Right to work in the UK
• This role requires Security Clearance. In order to qualify for this applicants will need to have been a continuous resident in the UK for the past 5 years

Requirements 
We’re keen to hear from a range of applicants, not just those who have worked in the design or creative industries.

You should be able to demonstrate that you are able to meet some, or all, of the following requirements:

• Have a working understanding of ethical and responsible research best practice.
• Understand the importance of inclusive research
• Work within an agile environment with multidisciplinary teams, knowing your role at each phase of development.  
• Support others in the delivery of user research activities. 
• Communicate findings in an engaging and meaningful way to colleagues and stakeholders.
• Participate in the analysis and synthesis of research data and findings.
• Work collaboratively with the wider design team, experts and clients produce clear insights that will enable project teams to make informed design decisions. 
• Support the continuous improvement of services based on data and evidence gathered through user research.
• Work collaboratively with senior stakeholders to collate and present research findings in a range of formats and contexts. 
• Brief and support our research ops team members with recruiting participants for user research activities and develop recruitment screeners
• Be aware of and active in identifying accessibility needs of users and be confident in making adjustments for these. 
• Contribute to the development of policies and standards around ethical research, accessibility specifications and equalities impact assessments. 
• Take part in design sprints and research sprints as both the designated user research and eventually as a facilitator
• Being able to manage your own time and budget on both client and internal projects.
• Familiar with the requirements of preparing and presenting to ethics review boards.
• Communicate effectively in written reports of user research findings.

Your skills and experience

• Experience in delivering user research activities.
• Experience in wider research methodologies 
• Experience of supporting junior colleagues in developing user research skills. 
• Be detailed, focussed and rigorous in your practice. 
• Have a natural curiosity and empathy for people.
• Experience of conducting usability tests at all phases of the agile service design process in person and online
• Experience of working as part of a multidisciplinary project team
• A strong portfolio of user research projects
• Familiarity with a wide range of user research techniques and methods.
• Experience of working with design and development teams
• A basic understanding of user experience best practice across web and mobile (desirable)
• Familiarity of the purpose of design systems (e.g Gov.uk prototyping kit) (desirable)

• A competitive salary 

• Generous holidays giving you 29.5 days holiday (including bank holidays), 4 of which are fixed to be taken at Christmas. Plus there are up to an additional 6 discretionary days for Christmas Closure

• A supportive maternity package

• We respect that people have commitments, providing flexible working hours through discussion

• A bike to work scheme

• Every Monday morning, we have a virtual team breakfast checkin where we eat together, share updates, learnings and our ambitions for the week ahead

• Membership to the Headspace, the mental health app

• We have an annual team-away day and quarterly show+tells; where we come together as a company, taking time out to learn, reflect, and eat snacks

• We provide an annual training budget, which can be used for external opportunities from talks and conferences to more bespoke hands-on training. We have weekly learning sessions for all our team members, with a vast topic range

• Access to Snook social clubs, and opportunity to run your own 

• Snook group pension plan

• We support you with a Snook buddy when you join to get you started

How to apply 
This is an ongoing campaign so please don’t wait to submit your application. We are sifting and interviewing candidates on a weekly basis. The vacancy will be closed when available positions are filled.

Please submit a CV, cover letter and your notice period.

In your covering letter, please tell us a little bit about yourself, why you want to work at Snook and what sort of design problems you’d be interested in tackling with us.

We strive for diversity in our team. If we’re going to design services for the public we need to ensure our team is inclusive. Snook encourages applications from all backgrounds, abilities or impairments, communities and industries, and is committed to having a team that is made up of diverse skills, experiences and abilities. If you have any questions please get in touch at [email protected]

Due to the current Covid-19 epidemic, we anticipate that all interviews will be conducted remotely. We will offer interviews at times that suit you, so if you have children, caring duties, or other circumstances affecting your availability for an interview, we’re happy to offer convenient times outside of work hours.