Lead user researcher

Band 8b · User researcher · 591 job evaluation points

UK GDaD PCF level: Lead user researcher

Most often performed at Civil Service grade G7 or G6.

A lead user researcher is an expert practitioner, leading and aligning user research activities across several teams.
At this role level, you will:
ensure that teams take a user-centred, evidence-based approach to service design and delivery
develop and assure good user research practice

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.

Responsibilities

Lead and align user research across several teams or a whole programme.
Make sure teams take a user-centred, evidence-based approach, and that research reaches people most affected by health inequalities.
Set and assure research practice, including consent, safeguarding, data handling, and participant wellbeing.
Build shared research assets, such as research repositories and participant panels, that teams can reuse safely.
Line manage and develop user researchers.

Skills

Skill	Expected level	What this level means
Agile research practicesUK GDaD PCF	Practitioner (3)	You can: advocate for agile working adapt how you design and conduct research to respond to the complexity of the product environment understand the strategic decisions the team needs to make so you can design appropriate research influence decisions about priorities and agile processes in the team
Analysis and synthesisUK GDaD PCF	Expert (4)	You can: help an organisation to adopt a wide range of analysis and synthesis techniques, and to continually assure, improve and innovate their practices to generate clear and valuable findings
Inclusive researchUK GDaD PCF	Practitioner (3)	You can: help teams understand the diversity of users of government services effectively include all kinds of users in appropriate research activities advocate inclusive practices and help teams design and deliver accessible services that work for all users
Research management, leadership and assuranceUK GDaD PCF	Expert (4)	You can: establish and align user research programmes and teams to meet organisational goals synthesise findings from research programmes, producing strategic insights to inform the organisation’s roadmap set and assure good practice user research standards for the organisation, including ethics and safeguarding assure user research quality across the organisation
Stakeholder relationship managementUK GDaD PCF	Expert (4)	You can: direct the stakeholder relationship strategy for your teams ensure stakeholder's objectives are set and support teams to meet them influence and negotiate with senior stakeholders to resolve issues and enable progress
User research methodsUK GDaD PCF	Expert (4)	You can: help an organisation adopt a wide range of user research methods lead a community of practice to help an organisation continually assure, improve and innovate their user research
User-centred practice and advocacyUK GDaD PCF	Practitioner (3)	You can: evaluate and choose approaches for building your team’s understanding of the user advocate for user research with sceptical colleagues and stakeholders help inexperienced teams to adopt user-centred practices identify the most important challenges and opportunities for your team's service development align research plans to address team priorities
Understanding health and care servicesThis reference	Practitioner (3)	You can: analyse how a service fits into care pathways across organisations work with clinicians, care staff, and patients to shape digital services explain the effect of digital decisions on care, safety, and staff workload
Ethical research with patients and care staffThis reference	Practitioner (3)	You can: judge when research needs formal ethics or research governance approval and prepare what it needs plan safe research with people in vulnerable circumstances, such as children, people with dementia, and people in crisis plan research in clinical settings without disrupting care, working with clinical leads and care staff support researchers to look after their own wellbeing after distressing sessions
Information governance and data protectionThis reference	Practitioner (3)	You can: lead data protection impact assessments and information sharing agreements advise teams on lawful basis, consent, confidentiality, and retention investigate incidents and recommend improvements
Equality, diversity, and inclusionThis reference	Practitioner (3)	You can: carry out equality impact assessments build inclusive teams and practices
Clinical risk managementThis reference	Working (2)	You can: take part in hazard workshops and contribute to a hazard log follow the clinical risk management process for your work provide evidence for a clinical safety case, such as test results
People managementThis reference	Practitioner (3)	You can: line manage a team, setting objectives and running appraisals support wellbeing and manage attendance, performance, and conduct plan the team's development and succession

Typical qualifications and experience

Extensive experience of leading user research across teams.

Band 8b outline

Knowledge: Expert knowledge across several disciplines or a large service.
Autonomy: Shapes policy and strategy for a large area.
Scope: Several services or teams, or a principal-level discipline.
Leadership: Manages managers, or is the principal authority in a discipline.
Accountability: Several services, their staff, and their budgets.

Job evaluation (illustrative)

Factor	Level	Level summary	Points
Communication and relationship skills	5	Gives highly complex or contentious information needing developed persuasion and negotiation, presents to large groups, or communicates where there are significant barriers to acceptance.	45
Knowledge, training, and experience	7	Highly developed specialist knowledge across the range of the specialism (master's level or equivalent).	196
Analytical and judgemental skills	5	Judgements on highly complex facts or situations needing analysis, interpretation, and comparison of options.	60
Planning and organisational skills	4	Plans a broad range of complex activities or strategies, adjusting them as needed.	42
Physical skills	2	Skills gained through practice, such as standard keyboard use or driving.	15
Responsibility for patient and client care	1	Helps patients, clients, or relatives during incidental contact.	4
Responsibility for policy and service development	4	Implements policy and develops policy or services for a service or several areas.	32
Responsibility for financial and physical resources	3	Authorises payments, buys some assets or supplies, monitors or holds a delegated budget, or maintains assets.	21
Responsibility for people	4	Line manages a function or department, designs training programmes as a main duty, or delivers a full range of HR services.	32
Responsibility for information resources	5	Designs and develops major information systems, or runs information systems for several services as the main duty.	34
Responsibility for research and development	4	Coordinates and carries out research and development programmes.	32
Freedom to act	5	Works within general policies, and in most cases decides how to interpret them.	45
Physical effort	1	Sitting, standing, and walking, with little physical effort.	3
Mental effort	3	Frequent concentration on unpredictable work, or occasional prolonged concentration.	12
Emotional effort	2	Occasional exposure, or frequent indirect exposure, to distressing circumstances.	11
Working conditions	2	Occasional unpleasant conditions, frequent travel or outdoor work, or near-continuous screen use on most days.	7
Total (Band 8b: 585 to 629)			591

There is no Band 8a level, because the UK GDaD PCF places lead user researcher at G7 or G6 and this reference follows the suggested Band 8b. Financial resources is level 3 for the research budget, such as participant recruitment and incentives.