* Please note, you will need to merge your personal statement and CV into one document. When submitting your application Applied will ask you to upload a CV, when doing this you should upload your merged document of your CV and personal statement. If you experience any technical issues, please contact recruitment@levellingup.gov.uk.

Job summary

Here at the Ministry of Housing, Communities & Local Government (MHCLG), we work on things that make a real difference to people’s lives. 

Whether it's through the homes we live in, the work of our local councils, or the communities we’re all part of, our work is at the top of the political agenda. We have ambitious and far-reaching outcomes to achieve this year and, if you’re thinking of joining us, there’s never been a more exciting time. 

We have over 3,500 staff who are based in 20 offices across the UK. 

We are seeking a User Researcher who shares our goal of enabling local government to deliver for their communities to join our growing team.

User researchers in our team draw on digital approaches and apply this to the complex challenge of boosting skills and resources of Local Authority planning teams, tasked with delivering hundreds of thousands of new homes for future generations. Engaging with users within and beyond local government, your work will directly inform an exciting and politically high-profile policy programme.

We design research, monitoring and evaluation to build a deep understanding of what town planners across England need from central government. Embedded within the Planning Capacity and Capability Programme, you will use these insights to inform the design and delivery of policy and funding schemes. You will work alongside policy officials, project managers and other user centred designers, contributing to efforts to better understand the challenges within the sector, ensure that the proposed solutions are delivering impact on the ground, and justify further support to the sector.

We have an active user research and design community in MHCLG, and you’ll be supported by senior colleagues as well as through training and informal opportunities like shadowing. You’ll also work with colleagues in Regeneration, Housing and Planning, Digital and across government to embed user centred policy design approaches across all aspects of our work.

We particularly welcome candidates from an ethnic minority background and other underrepresented groups to apply, as we work to continually improve our ability to represent the places and communities we support through our work. 

Find out more about what it's like to work in a digital, data and technology role at MHCLG  including our culture, ways of working, career progression and staff benefits. You can also read the MHCLG Digital blog to learn about the work we're doing. 

Job description

As a User Researcher, you'll:

• design and deliver research to inform the creation, implementation, monitoring, evaluation and improvement of the Planning Capacity and Capability Programme

• collaborate with policy and project management teams to understand their needs and articulate the importance of taking an evidence-based approach to the delivery of the Programme

• identify appropriate research methods to generate compelling findings that meet the aims of the research, with a focus on qualitative and creative approaches such as workshops and interviews

• analyse and synthesise complex research data to surface clear insights that speak to the needs of users within the planning system, using tools like Dovetail and Mural to collaborate with colleagues

• use insights to advocate for user needs by communicating research insights through visuals, presentations and reports, and proactively engaging internal teams to ensure learnings feed into ongoing work

• support the wider team with papers, commissions and Ministerial submissions by summarising evidence of the challenges and impacts of policy interventions and championing efforts to monitor and evaluate the Programme

• contribute to the team’s research operations, including diverse recruitment to research, cataloguing research data and GDPR compliance

Person specification

We will use the essential criteria below to evaluate you during the recruitment process. Make sure your CV and cover letter details how you meet the criteria.

As a User Researcher, you'll have:

• experience of conducting professional qualitative research, user research and / or user centred design

• knowledge of a range of qualitative research and evaluation methods, knowing how to apply different methods for different projects and include diverse users in research

• an ability to understand the problem the team is trying to solve, aligning research activities in a way that gains relevant insights to inform decision making and evaluation

• confidence to lead research projects independently and engage external professionals in research activities

• a willingness to engage with colleagues within and outside of user centred design disciplines, and translate research findings into actionable insights for policy and project management teams

• experience of presenting clear and compelling research insights to internal and external stakeholders in a range of formats that suit the audience

• an ability to meet ambitious deadlines and deliver high-quality work on time, including research plans, playbacks and reports

Behaviours

We'll assess you against these behaviours during the selection process:

• Seeing the Big Picture

• Making Effective Decisions

• Communicating and Influencing

• Delivering at Pace

Benefits

Alongside your salary of £38,732, Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities contributes £10,457 towards you being a member of the Civil Service Defined Benefit Pension scheme. Find out what benefits a Civil Service Pension provides.

• Learning and development tailored to your role

• An environment with flexible working options

• A culture encouraging inclusion and diversity

• A Civil Service pension with an average employer contribution of 27%

Things you need to know

Selection process details

This vacancy is using Success Profiles (opens in a new window), and will assess your Behaviours and Experience.

MHCLG want to bring in a diverse workforce at all levels.

Our application system is designed to remove as much bias as possible from the recruitment system – this means that a hiring manager does not know your name, your details, see your whole application in one go (or have your CV at review stage unless stated otherwise).

Your answers are randomised and chunked up. This means that each assessor views sets of responses to questions for example all candidates’ responses to ‘Seeing the Big Picture’ rather than seeing a candidate’s full application. The science behind this is that recruitment can be subject to ordering and fatigue effects and we want to reduce this as much as possible.

Most of our campaigns utilise multiple assessors and so it is possible that each of your answers would be viewed by different assessors.

When writing your application, remember:

• The assessor won’t be reading your answers sequentially.

• Do not assume that the same assessors will have read all of your answers.

• If talking about something in your first answer, make sure that you write the second answer as if you had not written the first (and so on!)

CV and Cover Letter Declaration

We recruit based on your knowledge and skills, and not background, gender or ethnicity - this is called name blind recruitment.

Please remove references to your:

• name/title

• educational institutions

• age

• gender

• email address

• postal address

• phone number

• nationality/immigration status

You will need to merge your CV and covering letter into one document. When submitting your application Applied will ask you to upload a CV, when doing this you should upload your merged document of your CV and covering letter.

Most of our campaigns utilise multiple assessors and so it is possible that your application would be viewed by different assessors.

At sift, through your CV and covering letter we will be assessing:

Experience

Technical

In your CV and covering letter, please include why you are interested in the role and how you meet the essential skills and experience required. Your covering letter should be no more than one page.

The interview will be of a blended nature consisting of the following success profiles elements:

Behaviour: Seeing The Big Picture, Making Effective Decisions, Communicating and Influencing, Delivering at Pace

Technical: Technical questions will be based around the essential skills and criteria as listed in the person specification

In full the campaign will test the below Success Profile Elements:

Experience: Experience will be tested at sift around the essential skills and criteria as listed in the person specification

Technical: Technical will be tested at sift and through interview questions which will be based around the essential skills and criteria as listed in the person specification

Behaviours: Seeing The Big Picture, Making Effective Decisions, Communicating and Influencing, Delivering at Pace

We do not consider direct CV applications – you must apply for this role via the application link on Civil Service Jobs:

Please note that near miss offers may be made at the lower grade to candidates who do not meet the grade criteria for this campaign.

SEO salary

• The salary for this role is £38,732 - £46,199 (National). 

• For existing civil servants, the usual policy on level transfer and promotion will apply and is non-negotiable. If you apply for a role that requires a transfer of location, for example if you are transferring from London to a National location, your salary will be adjusted in accordance with our policy on transfer between HQ pay ranges. 

Please note that the average employer pension contribution is based upon the National minimum salary for this role. Should your agreed starting salary for this role be different, the average employer pension contribution will be calculated accordingly. If you are a Secondee, this will not apply as you will remain on your home organisation’s terms and conditions.   

Benefits

Transfers across the Civil Service on or after 4 October 2018:

Any move to MHCLG from another employer will mean you can no longer access childcare vouchers. This includes moves between government departments. You may however be eligible for other government schemes, including Tax-Free Childcare. Determine your eligibility at https://www.childcarechoices.gov.uk.

For further information about the benefits available to MHCLG employees, please see the attached Candidate Pack.

Geographical Location:

• Wolverhampton

• Darlington*

• Manchester

• Leeds

• Bristol

• Birmingham

There may be opportunities for candidates to work flexibly depending on the business needs. This will be discussed with the vacancy manager on a case-by-case basis if you are successful for the role.

*Please note: The Darlington Economic Campus is a pioneering new cross-government hub which will bring together people across departments and public organisations to play an active role in the most important economic issues of the day. The work of the Campus will make a real difference to people both across the UK and internationally. There will be substantial career opportunities and exciting prospects - a career at the Campus means you will be working at the heart of Government, with access to the benefits and fantastic opportunities offered by the civil service.  This role is based at MHCLG and we will be joined on the campus by:

• HM Treasury

• Department for International Trade

• Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy

• Office for National Statistics

• Department for Education

For further information on the DEC, please take a look at the attached DEC candidate pack.

Sift and Interview dates

Sifting is envisaged to take place from Thursday 22/08/2024 with interview dates to be confirmed. All interviews are currently being held remotely via videocall.

Reserve List

In the event that we identify more appointable candidates than we currently have posts available, we will hold applicant details on a reserve list for a period of 6 months from which further appointments can be made. This may include roles at a lower grade. Candidates placed on a reserve list will be informed of this. Those candidates who do not wish to remain on the reserve list should contact recruitment@levellingup.gov.uk to be removed from the reserve list.

Candidate Pack Information

Please see attached Candidate pack for further information.

Before starting your application it’s very important to make sure that you are eligible to apply and meet the Civil Service nationality requirements. All candidates are expected to read the information provided in the MHCLG candidate pack regarding nationality requirements and rules

Internal Fraud Database

The Internal Fraud function of the Fraud, Error, Debt and Grants Function at the Cabinet Office processes details of civil servants who have been dismissed for committing internal fraud, or who would have been dismissed had they not resigned. The Cabinet Office receives the details from participating government organisations of civil servants who have been dismissed, or who would have been dismissed had they not resigned, for internal fraud. In instances such as this, civil servants are then banned for 5 years from further employment in the civil service. The Cabinet Office then processes this data and discloses a limited dataset back to MHCLG as a participating government organisations. MHCLG then carry out the pre employment checks so as to detect instances where known fraudsters are attempting to reapply for roles in the civil service. In this way, the policy is ensured and the repetition of internal fraud is prevented.

For more information please see- Internal Fraud Register

Feedback will only be provided if you attend an interview or assessment.

Security

Successful candidates must undergo a criminal record check.

People working with government assets must complete baseline personnel security standard (opens in new window) checks.

Nationality requirements

This job is broadly open to the following groups:

• UK nationals

• nationals of the Republic of Ireland

• nationals of Commonwealth countries who have the right to work in the UK

• nationals of the EU, Switzerland, Norway, Iceland or Liechtenstein and family members of those nationalities with settled or pre-settled status under the European Union Settlement Scheme (EUSS) (opens in a new window)

• nationals of the EU, Switzerland, Norway, Iceland or Liechtenstein and family members of those nationalities who have made a valid application for settled or pre-settled status under the European Union Settlement Scheme (EUSS)

• individuals with limited leave to remain or indefinite leave to remain who were eligible to apply for EUSS on or before 31 December 2020

• Turkish nationals, and certain family members of Turkish nationals, who have accrued the right to work in the Civil Service

Further information on nationality requirements (opens in a new window)

Working for the Civil Service

The Civil Service Code (opens in a new window) sets out the standards of behaviour expected of civil servants. We recruit by merit on the basis of fair and open competition, as outlined in the Civil Service Commission's recruitment principles (opens in a new window).

The Civil Service embraces diversity and promotes equal opportunities. As such, we run a Disability Confident Scheme (DCS) for candidates with disabilities who meet the minimum selection criteria.

The Civil Service also offers a Redeployment Interview Scheme to civil servants who are at risk of redundancy, and who meet the minimum requirements for the advertised vacancy.

Diversity and Inclusion

The Civil Service is committed to attract, retain and invest in talent wherever it is found. To learn more please see the Civil Service People Plan (opens in a new window) and the Civil Service Diversity and Inclusion Strategy (opens in a new window).