Senior UX Research Consultant

Purpose of the role

Working collaboratively with designers, developers, analysts and other digital professionals with-in a product team, you’ll research and support creating world-class products and services that meet the needs of real people, and equally, provide commercially successful solutions for our clients.

Working in partnership with clients and peers, you will lead and facilitate the full product lifecycle by employing a range of research and experimentation methods, qualitative data and quantitative insight to inform your thinking. You will be proficient in explaining why your chosen program of work is suitable in each individual context.

From problem through to solution, you will continue to lead the research through production, experimentation and build ensuring the final product experience is delivered in line with the original vision to the highest standards of craft and utility.

We need you to roll your sleeves up, but also be a natural leader and mentor. Your position in the team means; juniors, peers and clients will be looking to you for guidance and research leadership.

Role Band: 3

(Band Guide: 1:Junior 2:UX Researcher 3:Senior UX Research Consultant 4:UX Research Consultant Lead. 4.5:Head/Principal. 5:Director)

Salary: £40k-£55kThe salary banding for this role is dependant on your experience

We are an equal opportunities employer and are committed to promoting inclusivity and diversity at Code. We are actively encouraging applications from black and ethnic minority groups and women in engineering.

Key Responsibilities

• Planning design research programmes - helping teams to plan and organise research objectives that can be broken down into methods to help the teams gather insight or make decisions
• Research mindset, at code the product is to build, measure, learn - help embed continual research as part of build, measure, learn in product teams
• Joined up research approach, work with other leaders and disciplines to ensure experimentation is part of Code's design research DNA to create and test innovative approaches to user research and experience design.
• Produce tools, from the insight gathered you should help to develop the appropriate design deliverables and structures to inform product thinking, e.g. journey maps, service bluprints and user profiles
• Make effective decisions – use sound judgement, data, evidence and insight to arrive at accurate, expert and professional decisions and advice.
• Collaborative - working with other disciplines and clients in your product team to define research programmes that enable innovative and effective product experiences
• See the big picture – Ensure your research activity is contributing to the wider product strategy and adds customer and commercial value.
• Commercial experience design – balance user goals and business objectives with brand, time, budget, and technology.
• Empathy – always forming and testing ideas, design ideas and solutions with the needs of real people in mind.
• Client centric – creating and maintaining good relationships with clients for the programmes you are working on.

Your skills and experience

Essential

As a Senior UX Research Consultant, you will be comfortable with using different research methods as part of your own research programme. Calling upon a variety of past experience working across multiple clients where you have owned, adapted or pivoted your own research programme.

Consider your experience for the following skills:

• Organising, selecting, planning and running qual and quant design research activities and drawing insight from research findings and creating appropriate research deliverables for your programme of work
• Facilitation: Ability to facilitate a broad range of progressive design research methods. For example, face-to-face interviews, observations, stakeholder workshops, remote sessions, etc.
• Critical thinking: Desire and ability to interrogate a variety of sources when faced with a problem, always looking for answers beyond the obvious and producing analysis to a high standard to support product and service knowledge.
• Communication: Delivering actionable insights in formal and informal settings and creating tools that ensure user needs are considered at all times to inform a product or service strategy.
• Persuasion: Ability to convince stakeholders and team members of the value of user research and articulate how meeting user needs will deliver meaningful business results.
• Peer review and critique projects: throughout design and development for experience quality, usability, and business value
• Strategic thinking: using insights to inform product and service strategies across clients

Desirable

• Plan and conduct stakeholder interviews
• Proficient at creating, planning and facilitating collaborative workshops with peers and clients to progress the product forward eg Prioritisation workshops
• Knowledge of modern product management and development practices
• Propose and test IA, taxonomies, navigation and key product journeys

Good to have

• Specialist in areas like Brand, art direction and motion research
• Survey writing skills
• Leading and facilitating design sprints
• Work with Product Owners to plan project activities and estimate costs

Leadership

Essential

• Self-leadership – be responsible and accountable for your own actions and growth. Ensure you are always seeking to improve your work and the world
• Design activity – be responsible for delegating or conducting appropriate design activity to drive the product forward.
• Programs of work – Select design research methods and lead the definition of appropriate programs of work needed to meet any specific design challenge.
• Insight culture in teams – Create, nurture and champion a continual insight-led approach within your product team. Ensure design has an equal voice to other disciplines.

Desirable

Product direction – Collaborate and lead routines to help the team make strategic recommendations to drive the product forward in accordance to the product vision.

People - management and coaching of junior designers to facilitate their professional development.

A bit about EM Code...

We are EM Code, formerly Code Computerlove, a new kind of digital partner. Since our establishment in 1999, our industry has undergone dramatic changes, and we have continually adapted our attitudes, beliefs, and approaches to stay ahead.

For over 25 years, EM Code has helped shape some of the UK’s leading brands and businesses. We are renowned for our human-centred thinking, digital design excellence, and modern engineering practices. Our eclectic client base includes big organisations like the BBC, fast-moving start-ups like LightSpeed Broadband, and local heroes like Manchester Pride. We even launched a global number-one app, The Higher Lower Game.

Recognising the need for constant evolution, our agency is structured to help our clients and partners adapt to rapidly changing customer and market needs. We focus on what our clients need to achieve, finding ideas that create business impact and making them happen. We start where we can deliver the biggest results, then test, learn, and improve before moving on to the next goal.

Our approach is different from most agencies. It’s agile, collaborative, and flexible. With EM Code’s deep customer insights, brand-led creativity, and world-class engineering support, the time to reinvent is now.

We are officially recognised as a Great Place to Work, with 98% of our team saying the working environment is welcoming, friendly, and fun, and 98% agreeing that people are treated fairly regardless of race, age, or sexual orientation. EM Code is full of talented, passionate individuals who love collaborating and helping each other out, and our client partners trust us to do world-class work.

As an equal opportunities employer, we are committed to promoting inclusivity and diversity at EM Code. We actively encourage applications from black and ethnic minority groups. We’re part of something bigger

Since 2017, we have been proud to be part of EssenceMediacom North. Our collaboration takes place within the vibrant WPP Manchester Campus, located in the heart of Spinningfields, where we work alongside over 500 talented creatives and marketers.

Being part of EssenceMediacom North provides us with access to world-leading enterprise tools and resources. This enhances our extensive capabilities in communications, media, insights, customer experience, AI, and cutting-edge technology, allowing us to craft truly integrated solutions.

What we value...

• We value people who are brilliant in their capability and the things that they make together
• We value people who improve; continually improve themselves and the world around them to make a difference
• We value people who collaborate, who are a joy to work with and who get more from themselves and those around them, by working together effectively

The package

We offer a competitive salary, negotiable depending on qualifications and experience. On top of this we have a generous benefits package, including pension scheme, medical insurance, flexi-start, 25 days holiday growing to 30 days over time, paid social events, bike schemes, child care schemes, etc.

It's not all about work

• Make-Change Friday afternoon – dedicated self-improvement time
• An annual training budget of at least £500 so you can develop your skills
• Medical insurance with eyecare and dental included
• Generous maternity and shared parental leave package
• £25 per month wellbeing budget
• Corporate discounts with the likes of John Lewis and Made.com

• Flexible hours and flexible bank-holidays
• Bike and rail pass scheme
• Your birthday off