UCAS is at the heart of connecting people to higher education.

UCAS is the world’s leading shared admissions service for higher education. We provide application services for UK universities and colleges as well as delivering a wide range of research, consultancy and advisory services to schools, colleges, careers services, professional bodies and employers.

We’re a successful and fast-growing organisation, which helps hundreds of thousands of people every year. We're committed to delivering a first-class service to all of our customers — they're at the heart of everything we do.

The Customer Operations business unit at UCAS was formed to deliver and enhance the support and product & services provided to students, advisers, providers and other stakeholders involved in the higher education admissions process. This department focuses on improving the efficiency and effectiveness of customer interactions, ensuring that applicants and the providers they consider, and apply to, receive timely and accurate information, assistance, and guidance throughout the application cycle. It’s also the unit where we anticipate, respond to and define customer change to ensure UCAS can meet the needs of its customers and stakeholders going forward. Working in cross-company multi-disciplinary teams comprising; Customer Service and Relationships, Product Management, International, Policy, Admissions Reform and Fair Access.

We are looking for a UX researcher to conduct research activities across a wide range of products that serve multiple customer groups, all with different user needs and goals. You will need to apply the relevant UX research activities to ensure that we are delivering intuitive user experiences. You will champion good UX design and research principles, challenge design solutions and project objectives to ensure we are following a user centered design approach.

Key accountabilities:

· Work with key stakeholders to define the research objectives based on user needs and business objectives and ensure research is embedded into product roadmaps and sprint planning.

· Collaborate on research projects closely with Product Managers and multi-disciplined teams to promote UX research and communicate insights.

· Support research planning and execution across the entire digital estate and multiple service touch points (including but not limited to UCAS.com, Course Search, Application services, Provider and Adviser tools, mobile apps, and data services). 

· Support the development and management of customer personas and embed the voice of the customer into our digital products and services.
Conduct appropriate research to gain qualitative and quantitative user research insight, applying methods such as usability testing, workshops, surveys, user interviews, card sorting, tree testing

For a full job description see attached role profile.

· Lead and direct research projects 

· Responsible for the scoping, shaping the approach to research 

· Collect qualitative and quantitative user research using the following: 

o   Usability testing 

o   Workshops 

o   Surveys 

o   User interviews 

o   Card sorting 

o   Tree testing 

o   AB testing 

o   Personas 

o   User journeys 

· Analyse and summarise research outputs to generate strategic and tactical insights. 

· Develop and maintain a deep understanding of users of UCAS services and their behaviour to inform decision making. 

· Degree in a human behaviour related field (human-computer interaction, psychology, social science, information science, etc), or a degree in marketing and content strategy, or demonstrated experience at an equivalent level.

· No direct financial accountability, but need to work within agreed budgets.

Salary - up to - £35,000

· 30 days annual leave (plus 3 concessionary days over Christmas and your bank holidays!)

·  Flexibility – UCAS positively supports Hybrid working for its employees, meaning you can work between home and the office in a way that suits you and the business and also has a comprehensive Flexible Working Policy

·  A generous pension scheme

·  Hundreds of high street discounts and offers with Perkbox

·  Internal training and development

·  Subsidised gym and café

· Be rewarded for going above and beyond with our ex-gratia bonus scheme and Celebrating U, our quarterly employee recognition scheme

· Dedicated volunteer employee networks promoting wellbeing, awareness and inclusion

Studies have shown that some groups of people are less likely to apply to a role unless they tick every box. At UCAS we recognise that talent comes in various forms and we are committed to delivering a fair and equitable recruitment process where applicants have an equal opportunity to demonstrate their skills. So, if you are interested in this vacancy, but don't necessarily meet every single point on the job description, please still apply.

If you have any questions and would like to find out more about the role before applying please email the Talent Acquisition team via careers@ucas.ac.uk and one of us will be in touch.