Senior User Researcher Full Time

City, Newcastle Upon Tyne
scrumconnect ltd

About Scrumconnect Consulting
Scrumconnect Consulting is a multi-award-winning digital consultancy, recognised for delivering impactful technology solutions across UK government departments. Our work has positively influenced the lives of over 40 million UK citizens. With a strong commitment to user-centred design and agile delivery, we build innovative digital services that matter.

Role Overview
We are looking for a Senior User Researcher to lead research activities for a Generative AI platform for a UK government department. This role focuses on understanding how internal government users work today, how they perceive and trust AI-assisted outputs, and how the platform can be designed to support safe, effective, human-in-the-loop decision-making, while meeting GOV.UK Service Standard expectations for user research.

Key Responsibilities

• Define and own the user research plan across discovery, Alpha, beta, and live phases
• Ensure research activities are timed to inform key product and design decisions, not just validate them after the fact
• Conduct research to understand how government users interpret, trust, and act on AI-generated answers, retrieval sources, and confidence indicators
• Surface risks around over-reliance, misunderstanding, or mistrust of AI outputs
• Plan and conduct interviews, contextual inquiry, usability testing, and diary studies with civil servants and internal government users
• Recruit participants in line with government research standards and data handling policies
• Test and validate that human-in-the-loop checkpoints and escalation flows are understood and usable by real users
• Synthesise research findings into clear, actionable insights for Product, UX, and Engineering teams
• Present findings to senior stakeholders to support evidence-based decision-making
• Prepare and present user research evidence for GOV.UK service assessments (Alpha/Beta/Live)
• Contribute research findings and methodologies to “Docs-as-Code” artefacts supporting the OKUA knowledge-transfer framework
• Work closely with UX Designers, Product Managers, and Engineers to ensure findings inform design iterations and roadmap prioritisation

Essential Skills & Experience

• Demonstrable experience as a User Researcher on complex, digital products, ideally data-heavy or AI-assisted systems
• Strong grounding in qualitative (and ideally quantitative) research methods: interviews, usability testing, contextual inquiry, surveys
• Experience researching trust, transparency, and comprehension issues in software presenting automated or algorithmic outputs
• Experience recruiting and conducting research with government or otherwise sensitive/regulated user groups
• Practical experience with GOV.UK Service Standard research expectations and preparing evidence for service assessments
• Strong synthesis and communication skills, able to translate research into recommendations for varied audiences
• Comfortable working within secure, regulated environments and handling sensitive data appropriately

Desirable

• Direct experience researching LLM/RAG-based products, chatbots, or other AI-assisted decision-making tools
• Experience delivering digital services within UK central government or the wider public sector
• Experience designing or evaluating human-in-the-loop or escalation workflows
• Familiarity with accessibility research methods and inclusive design principles
• Exposure to research repositories, tooling, or open-source UX research communities

Scope & Accountability

• Responsible for the design and execution of the user research plan across all delivery phases
• Owns the quality and rigour of research artefacts and evidence produced
• An execution and validation role for human-in-the-loop checkpoints, not a policy-setting one
• Accountable for timely delivery of research insights to support product, design, and assessment milestones

Our Commitment to Diversity & Inclusion
At Scrumconnect Consulting, we believe that diversity drives innovation. We are committed to creating an inclusive environment where everyone is respected, valued, and supported. We actively encourage applications from women, people with disabilities, individuals from under-represented communities, and those seeking flexible working arrangements.
As a Disability Confident Level 1 employer, we provide reasonable adjustments throughout the recruitment process and employment to ensure equal opportunity for all.