User researcher

User researchers help teams understand the people who use and deliver health and care services, including patients, carers, clinicians, and care staff. They plan and carry out research safely and ethically, turn what they learn into clear insight, and make sure decisions about digital health services are based on evidence of real needs, including the needs of people who find services hardest to use.

Family: User-centred design
UK GDaD PCF role: User researcher (User-centred design)
ESCO occupations: user experience analyst (ISCO-08 2511)
On GitHub: Role document · Role data

Levels

Band	Role level	UK GDaD PCF level	Civil Service grades	Job evaluation points
4	Associate user researcher	Associate user researcher	AO/EO	281
5	Junior user researcher	Junior user researcher	EO/HEO	342
6	User researcher	User researcher	HEO/SEO	427
7	Senior user researcher	Senior user researcher	SEO/G7	484
8b	Lead user researcher	Lead user researcher	G7/G6	591
8c	Head of user research	Head of user research	G7/G6	650

In a digital health care organisation

Research participants are often unwell, anxious, or in vulnerable circumstances, so researchers plan carefully for informed consent, safeguarding, and participants' wellbeing.
Research may hear about distressing experiences of illness, loss, or poor care, so researchers need support to manage the emotional effect on themselves and their team.
Clinicians and care staff have little time away from patients, so researchers plan research in clinical settings without disrupting care, often through observation and short sessions.
Some research counts as formal health research or uses patient data, so researchers need to know when ethics or research governance approval and data protection checks apply.
Health inequalities are real, so researchers make deliberate efforts to include people with low digital skills, disabilities, or limited English, and people who use services least.

UK GDaD PCF role description

User researchers plan, design and carry out research activities with users that help teams get a deep understanding of the people that use government services. This research informs policy, proposition, service, content and interaction design so that services work well for users and achieve policy intent.

Contains public sector information from the UK Government Digital and Data Profession Capability Framework (https://understand-digital-data-roles-skills.service.gov.uk/), licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0. © Crown copyright.

ESCO occupations and skills

ESCO lists the skills and knowledge that employers usually need (essential) or may need (optional) for each occupation. Use them as a checklist for development conversations.

user experience analyst

http://data.europa.eu/esco/occupation/faed411a-f920-4100-86a8-b877928b429c · ESCO code 2511.19 · ISCO-08 2511 Systems analysts

User experience analysts assess client interaction and experience and analyse users' behaviours, attitudes, and emotions about the usage of a particular product, system or service. They make proposals for the improvement of the interface and usability of products, systems or services. In doing so, they take into consideration the practical, experiential, affective, meaningful and valuable aspects of human–computer interaction and product ownership, as well as the person's perceptions of system aspects such as utility, ease of use and efficiency, and user experience dynamics.

Essential skills and knowledge (18)

Skills and competences

Knowledge

Optional skills and knowledge (27)

Skills and competences

Knowledge

Contains ESCO v1.2.1 data (https://esco.ec.europa.eu/). © European Union. Reuse authorised under Commission Decision 2011/833/EU.