Contents Location About the job Benefits Things you need to know Apply and further information Location Birmingham, Cardiff, Darlington, Edinburgh, London, Salford About the job Job summary The Integrated Corporate Services (ICS) is a new shared corporate service, launched in July 2023. It provides corporate services (HR, Finance, Digital, Commercial, Security and Estates) across the Department for Energy Security & Net Zero (DESNZ) and the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology (DSIT). Our team of just over 300 professionals will be leading the way in how these functions will be delivered in the future. Our ambition is to be the leading provider of integrated corporate services for government and set the standard for quality, efficiency, and innovation in our field. We offer great working benefits including a world-class pension, flexible working options and a career where your learning and development is taken seriously. We are enormously proud to be a Disability Confident Leader employer. We support candidates with adjustments throughout our recruitment process. Information about disability confidence and just some examples of the adjustments that you can request can be found in the reasonable adjustment section below. The Civil Service is committed to attract, retain and invest in talent wherever it is found. To learn more please see the Civil Service People Plan and the Civil Service D&I Strategy. Find Out More You can also follow our LinkedIn Careers Page: https://www.linkedin.com/showcase/desnz-careers/ Job description Join ICS Digital, where innovation meets expertise to create digital solutions. We are a cohesive digital community who work in the open, solving problems together and fostering a culture of transparency and collaboration. Our commitment to user-focused design and data-driven decision-making ensures that we deliver accessible services tailored to the needs of our customers. The UCD team You will sit in the User-Centred Design (UCD) team alongside our user researchers, service designers, content designers, interaction designers and business analysts. We work across high profile and high priority projects for DESNZ and DSIT. Recently we have responded to energy price rises, grant delivery and energy sustainability for Net Zero. We are agile, collaborative and user centred. We are a welcoming community where you can develop your skills and career, and we want you to bring your whole self to work. Your role within the team We support Departments by delivering core technology services which help them achieve strategic and policy objectives. We put the user at the heart of what we do, and we take an interactive approach to service delivery. Our decisions are driven by data and we work collaboratively with partners to continue to deliver exceptional services. We are looking for driven, forward-thinking people with strong people skills who enjoy working collaboratively with others to solve problems. As a Senior User Researcher, you will be an experienced practitioner who is capable of planning and leading user research activities across large and complex projects and services. You will be an expert in problem definition and selecting the appropriate research strategies to tackle issues and understand user needs. You can help to champion a user-centred, evidence-based approach to formulating strategy and vision, both across the user research practice and the teams they are engaged in. You will also have management and coaching responsibilities, supporting the development of junior researchers, enabling quality research services and the growth of the user research community across the department. As a Senior User Researcher, you will work with teams across ICS, DESNZ and DSIT to make sure that public-facing services and internal systems meet user needs. You will help teams understand the problem they are trying to solve, and who their users are. Your role will be to plan and carry out user research. You will apply user research techniques to analyse and synthesise findings. You will work collaboratively with colleagues as part of a multi-disciplinary agile team to understand and solve complex problems. You will take a broad approach to user research to solve the whole problem for the user. You will use your problem-solving skills to find opportunities, risks, and dependencies across multiple services. You will be an excellent communicator who can advocate for your users and explain user-centred design principles to non-specialists. You will be part of the Digital Directorate, which is a cross-departmental team that provides digital solutions and services to support the delivery of DESNZ and DSITs objectives. We follow agile principles and practices to deliver high-quality products that meet user needs. We are a small but growing team with a strong sense of community. We care about the way we work, how we treat each other, the quality of our services and how we make a difference for our customers. This is an exciting opportunity to advance your career and develop your skills within a supportive and encouraging team. We are passionate about career development and offer a diverse range of learning and development opportunities. We have partnerships with leaders in professional development, such as Gartner, Pluralsight and CITF. Visit our blog to learn more about us and our work: https://icsdigital.blog.gov.uk/ Person specification Key responsibilities As a Senior User Researcher, you will: - take a strategic approach to user research to plan, shape, prepare and run user research activities to support the design, development, and continuous improvement of ICS services. - lead the team to conduct analysis and synthesis of findings, ensuring that insights, user needs and pain points are properly documented. - effectively communicate user research findings to the team, so that they share a strong and empathetic understanding of their users (including presentations, designing, and maintaining research outputs, formal reports etc). - build strong relationships across different teams and effectively manage relationships with stakeholders to ensure that services you deliver are of high quality. - advocate for inclusive design and research, ensuring full inclusion and understanding of users with access needs and those that require non-digital access or support. Skills and experience Essential criteria We would love to hear from you if you have experience: - working in an agile environment and delivering public-facing services. - leading on complex projects and taking a strategic approach to user research. - making services accessible and inclusive for a wide range of users. - using strong analytical skills to uncover patterns and connections in research findings across various programs and projects. - mentoring and managing junior colleagues. The below experience would be beneficial but not essential as we will provide necessary training. - Survey software (Microsoft Forms, Survey Monkey, Google forms). - Rapid prototyping experience or use of tools (i.e. Balsamiq, Figma, Adobe XD, Sketch). - A degree in Psychology/Behavioural Science/Anthropology/Human-Computer Interaction/Ergonomics/Market Research or a related field. It is unusual that all candidates will meet all the desirable criteria. If your skills and experience look slightly different from what we have identified and you think you can bring value to the User Researcher role and the team, we strongly encourage you to apply. We'd love to hear from you Please, no recruitment agencies. Behaviours We'll assess you against these behaviours during the selection process: Changing and Improving Seeing the Big Picture Technical skills We'll assess you against these technical skills during the selection process: User research methods Stakeholder relationship management Benefits Alongside your salary of £42,385, Department for Energy Security & Net Zero contributes £12,278 towards you being a member of the Civil Service Defined Benefit Pension scheme. Find out what benefits a Civil Service Pension provides. The Department for Energy Security and Net Zero offers a competitive mix of benefits including: A culture of flexible working, such as job sharing, homeworking and compressed hours. Automatic enrolment into the Civil Service Pension Scheme, with an employer contribution of 28.97%. A minimum of 25 days of paid annual leave, increasing by 1 day per year up to a maximum of 30. An extensive range of learning & professional development opportunities, which all staff are actively encouraged to pursue. Access to a range of retail, travel and lifestyle employee discounts. Office attendance The Department operates a discretionary hybrid working policy, which provides for a combination of working hours from your place of work and from your home in the UK. The current expectation for staff is to attend the office or non-home based location for 40-60% of the time over the accounting period. Things you need to know Selection process details This vacancy is using Success Profiles (opens in a new window), and will assess your Behaviours, Experience and Technical skills. After submission of the first stage of your application you will be invited to complete a Civil Service Numerical Test. If you successfully pass the test, you will be invited to complete the final stage of the application. Please complete the online tests as soon as possible (within 24-48 hours is recommended), the closing date for the tests is 23:55 on 23/02/2025. If yo u fail to complete the online test before the deadline your application will be withdrawn. Guidance for the test will be available when you are invited to take the test. The tests are administered online and accessed via the CS Jobs website. As part of the application process you will be asked to complete a CV and personal statement. Further details around what this will entail are listed on the application form. Please use your personal statement (in no more than 500 words) to describe how your past experiences relate to the essential criteria outlined in this job description, focusing on your most recent career history. Applications will be sifted on CV and Personal Statement. In the event of a large number of applicants, applications will be sifted on the personal statement. Candidates who pass the initial sift may be progressed to a full sift, or progressed straight to assessment/interview. The interview will consist of behaviour and technical questions. Interviewees will be asked to deliver a presentation; further details will be provided nearer the time. Sift and interview dates to be confirmed. Further Information Reasonable Adjustment We are proud to be a disability confident leader and we welcome applications from disabled candidates and candidates with long-term conditions. I nformation about the Disability Confident Scheme (DCS) and some examples of adjustments that we offer to disabled candidates and candidates with long-term health conditions during our recruitment process can be found in our DESNZ Candidate Guidance. A DESNZ Plain Text Version of the guidance is also available. We encourage candidates to discuss their adjustment needs by emailing the job contact which can be found under the contact point for applicants section. If you are experiencing accessibility problems with any attachments on this advert, please contact the email address in the 'Contact point for applicants' section. If successful and transferring from another Government Department a criminal record check may be carried out. New entrants are expected to join on the minimum of the pay band. A location based reserve list of successful candidates will be kept for 12 months. Should another role become available within that period you may be offered this position. Please note terms and conditions are attached. Please take time to read the document to determine how these may affect you. Any move to the Department for Energy, Security and Net Zero from another employer will mean you can no longer access childcare vouchers. This includes moves between government departments. You may however be eligible for other government schemes, including Tax Free Childcare. Determine your eligibility https://www.childcarechoices.gov.uk DESNZ does not normally offer full home working (i.e. working at home); but we do offer a variety of flexible working options (including occasionally working from home). DESNZ cannot offer Visa sponsorship to candidates through this campaign. DESNZ holds a Visa sponsorship licence but this can only be used for certain roles and this campaign does not qualify. In order to process applications without delay, we will be sending a Criminal Record Check to Disclosure and Barring Service /Disclosure Scotland on your behalf. However, we recognise in exceptional circumstances some candidates will want to send their completed forms direct. If you will be doing this, please advise Government Recruitment Service of your intention by emailing Pre-EmploymentChecks.grscabinetoffice.gov.uk stating the job reference number in the subject heading. For further information on the Disclosure Scotland confidential checking service telephone: the Disclosure Scotland Helpline on 0870 609 6006 and ask to speak to the operations manager in confidence, or email Infodisclosurescotland.co.uk Applicants who are successful at interview will be, as part of pre-employment screening, subject to a check on the Internal Fraud Database (IFD). This check will provide information about employees who have been dismissed for fraud or dishonesty offences. This check also applies to employees who resign or otherwise leave before being dismissed for fraud or dishonesty had their employment continued. Any applicants details held on the IFD will be refused employment. A candidate is not eligible to apply for a role within the Civil Service if the application is made within a 5 year period following a dismissal for carrying out internal fraud against government. Feedback Feedback will only be provided if you attend an interview or assessment. Security Successful candidates must undergo a criminal record check. People working with government assets must complete baseline personnel security standard (opens in new window) checks. Nationality requirements This job is broadly open to the following groups: UK nationals nationals of the Republic of Ireland nationals of Commonwealth countries who have the right to work in the UK nationals of the EU, Switzerland, Norway, Iceland or Liechtenstein and family members of those nationalities with settled or pre-settled status under the European Union Settlement Scheme (EUSS) (opens in a new window) nationals of the EU, Switzerland, Norway, Iceland or Liechtenstein and family members of those nationalities who have made a valid application for settled or pre-settled status under the European Union Settlement Scheme (EUSS) individuals with limited leave to remain or indefinite leave to remain who were eligible to apply for EUSS on or before 31 December 2020 Turkish nationals, and certain family members of Turkish nationals, who have accrued the right to work in the Civil Service Further information on nationality requirements (opens in a new window) Working for the Civil Service The Civil Service Code (opens in a new window) sets out the standards of behaviour expected of civil servants. We recruit by merit on the basis of fair and open competition, as outlined in the Civil Service Commission's recruitment principles (opens in a new window). The Civil Service embraces diversity and promotes equal opportunities. As such, we run a Disability Confident Scheme (DCS) for candidates with disabilities who meet the minimum selection criteria. The Civil Service also offers a Redeployment Interview Scheme to civil servants who are at risk of redundancy, and who meet the minimum requirements for the advertised vacancy. Diversity and Inclusion The Civil Service is committed to attract, retain and invest in talent wherever it is found. To learn more please see the Civil Service People Plan (opens in a new window) and the Civil Service Diversity and Inclusion Strategy (opens in a new window). Apply and further information This vacancy is part of the Great Place to Work for Veterans (opens in a new window) initiative. The Civil Service welcomes applications from people who have recently left prison or have an unspent conviction. Read more about prison leaver recruitment (opens in new window). Once this job has closed, the job advert will no longer be available. You may want to save a copy for your records. Contact point for applicants Job contact : Name : Eunice Dakwoji Email : peopleanddevelopmentics.gov.uk Recruitment team Email : desnzresourcing.grscabinetoffice.gov.uk Further information Appointment to the Civil Service is governed by the Civil Service Commissions Recruitment Principles. If you feel that your application has not been treated in accordance with the recruitment principles, and wish to make a complaint, then you should contact in the first instance DESNZrecruitment.grscabinetoffice.gov.uk. If you are not satisfied with the response that you receive, then you can contact the Civil Service Commission. For further information on bringing a complaint to the Civil Service Commission please visit their web pages: Click here to visit Civil Service Commission/Complaints Attachments DESNZ TCs v1.2 Opens in new window (doc, 174kB) Share this page Print Email Gmail Facebook LinkedIn