Senior User Researcher bei Registers of Scotland

Grade: Senior Executive Officer 
Total remuneration: £50,411 to £59,353  
Pay Supplement: The base salary for this role is £46,677 – £54,957. This job qualifies for Digital, Data and Technology Annual Pay supplement 8% is included in the total remuneration above.     
Pension: 28.97% of base salary (RoS contribution)  
Annual leave: 38 days annual holiday, increasing to 42 days with length of service.  
Duration: Permanent 
Working Pattern: 35 hours per week. We are a flexible employer and will consider a variety of working patterns on a case-by-case basis.  
Location: Hybrid working model. Contractual base either at Meadowbank House, Edinburgh (EH8 7AU), or St Vincent Plaza, Glasgow (G2 5LD). You will be expected to attend one of these locations as required by the role. (discuss with manager to ensure wording and expectation and location).  
Department:  User Centred Design – UX Team 
Directorate:  Digital, Data and Technology   
Role Reports to:  User Experience Lead  
Closing date:  19 October 2025 
Number of vacancies:  3 

Registers of Scotland (RoS)  
Join an award-winning organisation recognised for its technology and innovation. Registers of Scotland is a world-leading pioneer in land and property registration. Our full-stack teams design, architect, and build all our registration products in-house. We work to create digital solutions for the people of Scotland. You will get an opportunity to nurture your creativity and develop with us through access to the latest data, software engineering and product delivery techniques.   

This job is for you if you want…  

• Work with purpose: working for the people of Scotland to set the bar for land and property registration worldwide.  
• Flexible and hybrid working: depending on the role and team requirements, work when and where it’s best for you and your stakeholders.  
• Benefits: enjoy pay progression, pension contributions of up to 28.97%, up to a year’s parental leave, and 38 days annual holiday, increasing to 42 days with length of service. 
• Investment in professional development: we invest in all our people so that they have the right skills to be productive and confident in their job.  
• Diversity and Inclusion: We are an ‘Investor in People’ and a ‘Disability Confident’ employer. We are inclusive, stronger together, and committed to putting our people first.  
• Positive work culture: RoS is an agile, digital organisation using leading-edge technology. Colleagues understand their role in achieving our strategy and have the autonomy to deliver.   

To learn more about RoS and what we offer visit our careers pages or watch this short video.  

Hear from our colleagues about their experience of working within our Digital, Data and Technology teams on our website.  

The Role  
We are looking for an experienced practitioner, you can plan and lead user experience research activities on more complex services. At this level, you will be expected to build customer and colleague centred services and align user research activities with wider plans to inform a service proposition. The role holder will also supervise and develop other user experience researchers to assure and improve research practice. Main core of the role would be to demonstrate and support the demand for a wide range of key user research activities and analysis techniques, In addition to assisting peers in fostering a UX community inside and outside of the organisation. 


On a typical day you will…  
Main duties: 

• Involved in ensuring that service touchpoints during a customer or colleagues’ lifetime with Registers of Scotland (RoS) are part of a coherent, consistent experience 
• Conducting exploratory user research that will bring out customer or colleague needs 
• Ensuring that usability research is undertaken frequently, economically with appropriate users and measures as part of the development cycle 
• Creating low to high fidelity prototypes based on existing design patterns that bring the research to life 
• Delivering UX feedback to Agile delivery teams to compliment sprint cycles  
• Work as part of a multi-disciplined team to design user focussed and successful services by consolidating, building on existing knowledge, desk research and data analysis 
• Support the UX community and coach or pair with other members of the team  
• Manage and support other user researchers across a range of services and products. 
• Build relationships and working effectively with external parties, for example legal firms, public, and Scottish Government  

Key Responsibilities  

Essential Criteria – Skills and Attributes for Success  
Experience/Technical:  
We will assess you against the following Experience and Technical skills during the application and assessment process 

• Experience of Axure/Google Analytics/Hotjar   
• Creation of design standards and practices  
• Experience with customer insights and confident working with metrics and applying evidence for improvements  
• Experience of delivering government services following the Scottish Government Digital First Service Standard  (or similar) 

Collaborating and Partnering

• Able to listen to the needs of the technical and business stakeholders and interpret between them 
• Able to manage stakeholders’ expectations and be flexible, capable of proactive and reactive communication 
• Facilitates difficult discussions within the team or with diverse senior stakeholders  
• Experience working within an agile, multi-disciplinary team environment 
• Experience of working with teams to understand detailed requirements and deliver appropriate research activities that capture user experiences  
• Engages in fostering a UX community within RoS 

Thinking Wider  

• Can identify and understand constraints across the business and is able to communicate these and work within them   
• Able to challenge the validity of constraints ensuring RoS objectives are still met with reasoned research findings 
• Can provide insights and clear advice based on research findings and emerging trends to help shape strategy and direct change  

Analysis and Making Effective Decisions  

• Able to make recommendations characterised by medium levels of risk and complexity that build consensus between services or stakeholders 
• Able to identify issues in the team dynamics and rectify them 
• Able to set the highest standards for user experience research and analysis, utilising both quantitative and qualitative methodologies 
• Comfortable applying measurement frameworks to surface customer and colleague behaviour patterns. 

Demonstrating Commitment and Delivering a Quality Service (Cluster)  

• Manages, supports and stretches self and others to deliver agreed goals and objectives  
• Keeps focused on the goals that really matter, and takes responsibility for delivering outcomes on time and to a high standard  
• Experience of working in a team of UX professionals  
• Experience visualising and implementing strategic user-centred design that supports a wide range of users including those with additional needs and other hard to reach groups.  
• Knowledge of WCAG accessibility standards and principles  
• Good understanding of research ethics and how to keep participants, teams and yourself safe in research.  

Competencies  
At application stage and assessment, you will be scored against all Competencies as outlined below:  

Analysis and Making Effective Decisions   
Collaborating and Partnering  
Thinking Wider  
Demonstrating Commitment and Delivering a Quality Service (Cluster)  

Stage one - Application Process
To apply, click on 'Apply now' and complete the online application form.   
You will need to submit:  

• You will need to submit: A CV outlining your career history and how you meet the technical/experience criteria (max 4 pages). 
• Responses explaining how you meet the required competency aspects of the role (maximum 300 words per answer in the spaces provided).

Please note:  

• If we receive a high volume of applications, we may complete an initial sift on the technical/experience and Analysis and making effective decisions competency
• We reserve the right to invite candidates to participate in a telephone interview prior to being further assessed.   
• Applications that are not accompanied by CVs will not be scored or answers exceeding 300 words will not be considered.   
• We would strongly recommend that your statement is written in the STAR format (Situation, Task, Action & Result) and suggest preparing your answers using software such as MS Word or Google Docs, and then uploading the file.   
• We strongly advise you review our policy on responsible use of AI in the application process. RoS may check answers with an AI detection tool and will contact you for a pre-screening call to verify your responses.   
• Applications and appointments are subject to a strict merit-based assessment process, in line with the Civil Service Recruitment Principles. 

Stage two – assessment  
If successful at application stage, you will be invited to an in-person interview which will include the following:   

• Competency based interview (which will include a question on each of the 4 competencies for the role). 
• Pre-prepared presentation (with full details of the topic being disclosed to candidates who successfully make it past sift stage), followed by a Q&A session.   

Information on our Competency Framework  
For further information on the competencies, visit our Competency Framework.  

Recruitment timeline  

• Closing date:  19 October 
• Application sift: 20 October
• Invites to assessment:  Week Commencing 27 October  
• Interviews: Week commencing 03 November (subject to change)  

Feedback  
Feedback will only be provided if you progress to interview stage.  

Security  
Successful candidates must undergo a Basic Disclosure Scotland check.   
Individuals working with government assets must complete baseline personnel security standard checks.  

Equality, diversity and inclusion   
As a proud member of the Disability Confident Scheme, we welcome applications from disabled candidates. RoS is a diverse and inclusive workplace, and we want to help you demonstrate your full potential whatever type of selection process is used. To learn more about diversity at RoS please see our EDI strategy.   
As part of the application process, we would like to invite you to please complete our diversity monitoring form. This information is not shared with recruitment panels.   
If you require any adjustments to our recruitment process, please let us know via [email protected]. Please see this page for more information on adjustments.  

DDaT supplement   
This post is part of the Digital, Data and Technology profession (DDAT) and attracts a pay supplement.  This is a tool which RoS uses to benchmark our salaries against current market rates. A review of the benchmark is undertaken every two years, this means that the supplement may go up or down depending on market activity. Advance notice will be given of any changes.   

Further information  
For further information relating to RoS, including:  

• Additional details on pay & benefits  
• The Civil Service Code  
• Complaints process   
• Use of AI in the application/recruitment process  

Please view our additional information page online.  
  
If you have any questions, please contact [email protected]