Lead Qualitative Design Researcher

Growth comes from solving problems that matter for people. For customers, employees, and society at large. At EY Seren we focus on the ways in which people make decisions. Helping them make better choices and solving their most pressing problems. Working with organisations to create the platforms, products and services for tomorrow. Making the world an easier, more enjoyable and sustainable place to live and work.We don’t yet have all the answers, because that’d be boring. Clients push us every day. We’re privileged to get access to senior client conversations that excite us and challenge us all the time. We’re becoming an increasingly bigger part of an established global business, which throws up challenges and opportunities every day. Our way of thinking and doing business is infectious, and infecting more and more of the world around us, but that challenges us to go further and scale faster than before. Becoming part of EY Seren means getting on to enjoy this ride.The opportunity

We’re a group of world-class researchers, designers, strategists and technologists. We provide full-service business transformation. Building a better working world, by creating new ways to serve people and help them grow – that’s growth re-imagined.This role sits within EY Seren’s Research and Insight team. Everything we do is guided by our purpose: we believe helping humans to continuously understand each other, and become more responsive to one another's needs, is central to successful transformation - whether personal, organisational or global. We appreciate that humans are complex - full of contradictions, dilemmas and irrationality. We believe appreciating human complexity is the key to building empathy and connection, which allows us to unlock growth and human transformation.You’ll be a passionate researcher, with an instinct to lead great research in the teams we put together for clients, to help them improve existing services, invent new ones, and ultimately grow their businesses. Chemistry is what makes us tick. So as well as being be an expert in qualitative research, able to turn your hand to leading design research engagements, your real passion is collaborating across boundaries with other research and design disciplines – finding out how to fuse design research with our quantitative research, data analysis, and futures research teams. Working with our wider service design and build practices to apply your insights into the iterative and agile process, all with the goal of helping our clients provide products and services that help their customers progress in life. We don’t want to create insight reports that sit on shelves. We’re creating a system of applied research that is truly customer-centered.Your Key Responsibilities

• Lead research streams within mixed-practice EY Seren teams, leveraging the power of qualitative design research, and drawing on the wider Research and Insight capability
• Bring to bear your experience in research, providing hands-on leadership guidance and direction throughout the work, coaching individuals and providing leadership to the client, EY and EY Seren team
• Manage your team through the work, in terms of both soft pastoral factors to ensure we maintain EY Seren’s values and high quality of care, as well as hard factors such as issues and risks, escalating to Practice Lead and Director where necessary
• Work collaboratively with other Practices in EY Seren to combine the power of qualitative design research with our company’s design, business and delivery expertise
• Provide teams and clients with a clear view on all research options available, working with sales team to handle pricing and resourcing
• Play a collaborative role in executing on the Practice’s strategy and plan for the year
• Line Manage a group of junior Researchers
  
  

Skills And Attributes For Success

• Extensive applied knowledge of a diverse range of design research methods
• Demonstrable practical experience managing and leading one or more simultaneous design research projects
• Evidence of integrating your work into wider new product and service design methods
• Strong problem-solving skills
• Strong verbal and written communication skills
• Experience in working collaboratively across teams and business functions
• Experience in managing senior stakeholders, both internally and externally
• Extensive experience in working with research in the business context of service organisations and transformational environments
  
  

To qualify for the role you must have

• Extensive work experience in relevant research field
• Types of research: usability testing, ethnography, co-creation, contextual inquiry, cultural probes, foresight workshops, literature reviews, diary studies, multi criteria analysis, mindset / persona development
• Project knowledge of design thinking techniques and the ability to solve complex business problems with simple, industry-leading design solutions.
  
  

Ideally, you’ll also have

• Experience working with behavioural science / economics
• Experience working with systems thinking / theory
• Experience working within agile product development and SCRUM environments
• Background in management consulting or other client facing professional services
  
  

What Working At EY Offers

We offer a competitive remuneration package where you’ll be rewarded for your individual and team performance. Our comprehensive Total Rewards package includes support for flexible working and career development, and with FlexEY you can select benefits that suit your needs, covering holidays, health and well-being, insurance, savings and a wide range of discounts offers and promotions. Plus, we offer:

• Support, coaching and feedback from some of the most engaging colleagues around
• Opportunities to develop new skills and progress your career
• The freedom and flexibility to handle your role in a way that’s right for you
  
  

About EY

As a global leader in assurance, tax, transaction and advisory services, we’re using the finance products, expertise and systems we’ve developed to build a better working world. That starts with a culture that believes in giving you the training, opportunities and creative freedom to make things better. Whenever you join, however long you stay, the exceptional EY experience lasts a lifetime.If you can confidently demonstrate that you meet the criteria above, please contact us as soon as possible.

Make your mark.