User Researcher

This is an exciting opportunity for an experienced User Researcher to join the Cyber Improvement Programme (CIP) within the Cyber Operations Directorate. CIP is a nationally significant initiative focused on strengthening cyber resilience across the health and social care sector, helping to create a system that is resilient to cyber attack and improves safety for patients and service users through effective cyber security by 2030.

You will bring a user-centred and inclusive approach to understanding user needs and shaping services that deliver meaningful outcomes. You will work effectively in a fast-paced environment, adapting to new challenges and supporting multidisciplinary teams to make evidence-based decisions. While based in CIP, you will also contribute to a broader portfolio of cyber-related work across the Cyber Operations Directorate, requiring flexibility and the ability to manage competing priorities across multiple teams and programmes.

You will join a collaborative user research community, working closely with colleagues across NHS England. Your work will have visible, real‑world impact, with insights directly informing national cyber security improvements, supporting frontline staff, protecting critical services, and ultimately contributing to safer care for patients and service users across England.

The User Researcher will...

• Conduct end-to-end quantitative and qualitative user research, translating research objectives into robust study designs and delivering the full research lifecycle, including planning, sampling, survey scripting, develop discussion guide, sampling, recruitment, moderation of interviews and workshops, analysis, and insight triangulation.
• Provide specialist user research expertise to support the design, delivery and continuous improvement of digital and non-digital services, working within multidisciplinary teams to lead end-to-end research activities that generate actionable insight for product strategy, service improvement and operational decision‑making.
• Engage with a wide range of stakeholders, including senior clinical, operational and policy colleagues, balancing complex and sometimes competing requirements, and demonstrating professionalism, empathy and clear communication in challenging or sensitive contexts, including research with vulnerable participants.
• Work with a high degree of autonomy, managing competing priorities and occasionally undertaking travel to conduct user research and attend stakeholder, team and programme meetings, seeking appropriate guidance from line managers and senior colleagues where required.
• Maintain accuracy, attention to detail and sustained concentration when reviewing complex documentation, analysing research data, and producing high‑quality outputs and reports.

NHS England has a wide range of statutory functions, responsibilities and regulatory powers. These are focused on supporting the wider NHS to deliver high quality care, as well as doing those things that are best done once for the whole NHS.

Our staff bring expertise across clinical, operational, commissioning, technology, data science, cyber security, software engineering, education, and commercial specialisms – enabling us to design and deliver high-quality NHS services.

In March 2025, the Government announced that NHS England and the Department of Health and Social Care will increasingly merge functions, ultimately leading to NHS England being fully integrated into the department.

If you currently work within the NHS and if successful at interview, we will initiate an Inter Authority Transfer (IAT) via the Electronic Staff Record (ESR). This retrieves key data from your current or previous NHS employer to support onboarding, including competency status, Continuous Service Dates (CSD), and annual leave entitlement. You may opt out at any stage of the process.

Colleagues with a contractual office base are expected to spend, on average, at least 40% of their time working in our offices.

Staff recruited from outside the NHS will usually be appointed at the bottom of the pay band.

We cannot offer visa sponsorship for any vacancies.