User Researcher – Human-Centred Design

Position Description:

At CGI, you’ll shape the decisions behind products and services that make a meaningful difference. Joining Sparck, our UK Centre of Excellence for Human-Centred Design, you’ll lead research from discovery through delivery, turning complex qualitative and quantitative evidence into clear opportunities and better outcomes. You’ll have the ownership to set research direction, the freedom to explore creative approaches and the support of a collaborative community of experts. Working closely with clients, designers and multidisciplinary teams, you’ll challenge assumptions, reduce uncertainty through experimentation and help ensure evidence sits at the heart of strategic decisions, while coaching others and strengthening research practice across our teams. CGI was recognised in the Sunday Times Best Places to Work List 2025 and has been named a UK ‘Best Employer’ by the Financial Times. We offer a competitive salary, excellent pension, private healthcare, plus a share scheme (3.5% + 3.5% matching) which makes you a CGI Partner not just an employee. We are committed to inclusivity, building a genuinely diverse community of tech talent and inspiring everyone to pursue careers in our sector, including our Armed Forces, and are proud to hold a Gold Award in recognition of our support of the Armed Forces Corporate Covenant. Join us and you’ll be part of an open, friendly community of experts. We’ll train and support you in taking your career wherever you want it to go. You will need to hold UK Security Clearance or be eligible to go through this clearance. This is a hybrid position, but you will be expected to travel to CGI offices or client sites 2-3 days per week on average.

Your future duties and responsibilities:

In this role, you will lead research across complex products and services, translating strategic priorities into hypotheses, learning plans and actionable evidence. You’ll take ownership of end-to-end discovery and evaluation, combining qualitative and quantitative approaches to uncover user needs, test assumptions and help clients make well-informed decisions. Working alongside clients and multidisciplinary teams, you’ll bring creativity to research challenges, design experiments that measure behavioural change and turn complex findings into compelling evidence for teams and senior stakeholders. You’ll also support and coach fellow researchers, helping strengthen quality, consistency and research practices within a collaborative HCD community.

• Lead & Shape – Plan and deliver multi-method research across discovery, development and delivery.

• Research & Explore – Conduct contextual, field, diary and longitudinal research, triangulating findings with quantitative and analytics data.

• Synthesise & Influence – Transform evidence into insight frameworks, opportunity maps, journey evidence and clear decision options.

• Experiment & Evaluate – Partner with multidisciplinary teams to design prototype tests, experiments and A/B or multivariate testing where appropriate.

• Measure & Improve – Define leading and lagging indicators and demonstrate how research influences decisions and outcomes.

• Facilitate & Align – Lead complex workshops, using evidence to build stakeholder understanding and consensus.

• Advise & Partner – Work directly with client sponsors, presenting recommendations and identifying and escalating stakeholder challenges.

• Strengthen & Support – Coach researchers, quality-assure research outputs and develop reusable approaches, templates and repositories.

• Champion Responsible Research – Embed appropriate standards for consent, accessibility, ethics and research data management.

Required qualifications to be successful in this role:

You’ll bring significant experience in user research, with a strong track record of leading complex research from discovery through evaluation. You should be comfortable advising clients and senior stakeholders, combining research methods and translating evidence into recommendations that influence product, service and strategic decisions.

• Significant professional experience in user research/UX research, including complex digital products or services.

• Proven ability to lead end-to-end discovery and evaluative research cycles.

• Strong knowledge of qualitative and quantitative research methods and the ability to select and combine approaches appropriately.

• Experience translating strategy, risks and assumptions into hypotheses and structured learning plans.

• Proven ability to synthesise complex evidence into clear, compelling narratives for senior stakeholders and delivery teams.

• Experience designing and evaluating prototypes and experiments to understand user behaviour and outcomes.

• Strong understanding of research ethics, accessibility, consent and data management.

• Confident client-facing, stakeholder management and facilitation skills.

• Experience coaching or supporting other researchers and quality-assuring research outputs.

• Ability to define measures of success and demonstrate the impact of research on decisions and outcomes. #LI-TC1

Skills:

• Communication

• Design Thinking

• Human Centered Design

• Process Management

• Stakeholder management

What you can expect from us:

Together, as owners, let’s turn meaningful insights into action.

Life at CGI is rooted in ownership, teamwork, respect and belonging. Here, you’ll reach your full potential because…

You are invited to be an owner from day 1 as we work together to bring our Dream to life. That’s why we call ourselves CGI Partners rather than employees. We benefit from our collective success and actively shape our company’s strategy and direction.

Your work creates value. You’ll develop innovative solutions and build relationships with teammates and clients while accessing global capabilities to scale your ideas, embrace new opportunities, and benefit from expansive industry and technology expertise.

You’ll shape your career by joining a company built to grow and last. You’ll be supported by leaders who care about your health and well-being and provide you with opportunities to deepen your skills and broaden your horizons.

That same commitment to fairness extends to how we use technology. To support our recruitment team, AI tools may be used to help assess applications though they never replace human judgement. All hiring decisions remain entirely in the hands of our recruitment professionals.

Come join our team—one of the largest IT and business consulting services firms in the world.