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User Researcher (Infected Blood Compensation Authority)

Job details
Posting date: 01 May 2025
Salary: £42,382 to £45,920 per year
Hours: Full time
Closing date: 16 May 2025
Location: Newcastle-upon-Tyne
Company: Government Recruitment Service
Job type: Permanent
Job reference: 403691/1

Summary

The Infected Blood Compensation Authority (IBCA) is a new arms-length body which is being set up, at unprecedented pace, to administer compensation to people whose lives have been impacted by the infected blood scandal.

Are you driven and ready for an exciting opportunity which will make a real impact? This is a challenging and fulfilling role that requires pace, impact, sensitivity, and compassion.

The multidisciplinary teams within IBCA’s Digital Service Directorate are organised around delivering our mission and priorities:

  • To create a user-centred, empathetic end-to-end service at the heart of IBCA.
  • To provide the means of paying compensation to those eligible.
  • To iterate our service through starting small and scaling fast, through a test and learn approach.

Research is crucial to how we develop the service based on the needs of diverse users. This is a unique opportunity for someone who shares our vision and mission to join as a User Researcher. You’ll deliver user research that will make a real difference, and influence the design of the service to meet the needs of all our users.

Opportunities to move to the new Infected Blood Compensation Authority (IBCA). At the moment all IBCA roles are hosted by Cabinet Office within the Civil Service. However, once IBCA becomes operational, it is anticipated that most of these roles will transfer to IBCA, which is a new Arms Length Body (ALB) separate from the Cabinet Office. Roles that transfer to IBCA from Cabinet Office will maintain the same or substantially the same terms and conditions of employment that are overall no less favourable. It is anticipated that employees who move from Cabinet Office to IBCA will be able to continue to participate in the Civil Service Pension arrangements with no break in their pensionable service. Roles commencing after IBCA has become operational will be with IBCA itself on similar terms and conditions. All successful candidates will receive full details of the terms and conditions of employment for their role with their formal job offer.

Please note that the mission of IBCA means that it is likely to be operational for a period of approximately 5 to 7 years. When IBCA’s work begins to wind down, IBCA employees will receive support and practical guidance to find a new role, whether in the Civil Service, another Arms Length Body (ALB), or an external employer.

As a User Researcher at IBCA, you’ll design and deliver high quality user research that helps us to understand what diverse users need for the service.

You’ll be working in a multidisciplinary team to involve all kinds of users in research, both external and internal to the organisation. You’ll align user research activities with wider plans to inform our service proposition, advocating for users within teams and ensuring that user needs influence our work plans, content and technical designs.

You’ll analyse and synthesise your findings, collaborating with colleagues to surface key insights and ensuring your findings are rigorous and robust. You’ll regularly present your findings to colleagues, telling the stories of our users through clear and compelling outputs and contributing to team activities to help colleagues to identify what the findings mean for our work.

Working with the Senior User Researcher, you’ll be able to identify opportunities where more user research is needed and ensure that all the research we do is meaningful. You'll also contribute to our growing community of practice, where we are continually improving how we do user research.

The user research we do in IBCA follows a trauma-informed approach and demands the highest levels of empathy, sensitivity and rigour. You’ll need emotional resilience to be able to advocate for our users’ stories, and you’ll be supported through a duty of care and a commitment to your wellbeing.

Responsibilities

  • Design and deliver user research to learn from the stories of our users and inform the continued development of the IBCA compensation service;
  • Collaborate with colleagues in multidisciplinary teams, including product managers, designers and analysts, to identify the research that is needed and articulate the importance of designing the service based on user needs;
  • Involve all kinds of users in research, including those with additional needs and who are not digitally confident, and identify appropriate methods to meet the aims of the research;
  • Analyse and synthesise complex research data to generate clear and compelling findings that speak to the needs of different users;
  • Tell the stories of our users by sharing insights through a range of formats, including presentations, visuals and reports, and proactively engage internal colleagues to turn these findings into meaningful design and product outcomes;
  • Contribute to IBCA’s community of practice and research operations, including practices to ensure we recruit diverse users and comply with data protection requirements.

Proud member of the Disability Confident employer scheme

Disability Confident
A Disability Confident employer will generally offer an interview to any applicant that declares they have a disability and meets the minimum criteria for the job as defined by the employer. It is important to note that in certain recruitment situations such as high-volume, seasonal and high-peak times, the employer may wish to limit the overall numbers of interviews offered to both disabled people and non-disabled people. For more details please go to Disability Confident.