AMS PSR

On behalf of the Department of Education, we are looking for a Senior User Researcher (Inside IR35) for a 6 month contract based Remote with occasional travel to the Coventry Office.

Our vision is to strengthen the teacher workforce in England with overseas-trained teachers, to help children achieve and thrive at school. Our mission is to provide an accessible pathway to Qualified Teacher Status (QTS) for high-quality and suitably trained overseas teachers to be recognised to teach in schools in England.

The team will continue developing and iterating the AQTS service to improve the user experience and support the Professional Recognition team to improve the assessment process, making efficiency savings and reducing backlog time where possible.

Team goals are dependent on policy changes and/or new requirements needing to be responded to.

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

As a Senior User Researcher your main responsibilities will be to:

• Ensure applicants understand the required evidence for applying for QTS at the earliest opportunity.
• Plan, design and conduct user research using a range of appropriate methods.
• Respond to ministerial priorities and policy steers including identifying options, redesigning functionality and ensuring an understanding of impact on users throughout the process.
• Contribute to evolving the case management system to improve assessment efficiency and reduce backlog, ensuring all changes are GDS compliant.
• Use our knowledge of and learnings from the current service to improve usability and accessibility so eligible teachers can apply fairly and easily.
• Work with other Schools Digital services to increase our understanding of the end-to-end journey for our applicants and create an aligned user journey.
• Improve assessor processes by removing offline activity and explore improving applicant self-serve options.
• Provide clear, actionable playback of findings to stakeholders and support smooth collaboration with commercial teams and suppliers where required.

Essential:

• Strong experience as a User Researcher in government or the wider public sector.
• Ability to work effectively in multidisciplinary teams and collaborate across design, delivery, policy and engineering.
• Experience working to GDS standards and within the Government Digital Service framework (Discovery, Alpha, Beta, Live).
• Experience applying user research methods and knowing when and how to use them.
• Understand the diversity of users and the need to make services usable and accessible for everyone.
• Excellent stakeholder engagement skills and the ability to communicate across different audiences.
• Strong understanding of the social and technological context of the service and how user behaviour changes over time.
• Knowledge of the technologies used to build and operate digital services.
• Experience of user centred practices and continuous user research in multidisciplinary teams.
• Ability to proactively understand policy, delivery and digital strategy, advocate for user research and turn insights into clear, actionable recommendations that influence design, policy and service improvements.

Desirable:

• Experience conducting user research with international users or culturally diverse audiences.
• Familiarity with teacher recruitment, education services or assessment related user journeys.

Please be aware that this role can only be worked within the UK and not Overseas.

Disability Confident 

As a member of the Disability Confident Scheme, DfE guarantees to interview all candidates who have a disability and who meet all the essential criteria for the vacancy. In cases where we have a high volume of candidates who have a disability who meet all the essential criteria, we will interview the best candidates from within that group. This scheme encourages candidates with a disability and/or neurodivergence to apply.

Armed Forces commitment

DfE guarantees to interview veterans or spouses / partners of military personnel who meet all the essential criteria for the vacancy. In cases where we have a high volume of ex-military candidates / military spouses or partners, who meet all of the essential criteria, we will interview the best candidates from within that group. In exceptional circumstances, we may also need to apply the desirable criteria in our shortlisting process which may include holding active security clearance.

In applying for this role, you acknowledge the following "this role falls in scope of the Off Payroll Working in the Public Sector legislation. Any rates of payment quoted will reflect the gross rate per day for the assignment and will be subject to appropriate taxes and statutory costs. As such the payment to the intermediary and your income resulting from this contract will be different".