Senior Ux Designer

We offer a genuine alternative to the traditional banks, and we pride ourselves on delivering remarkable service for our members. With over 6 million people using Nationwide’s digital banking channels each month, we are driven by the opportunity to make a real difference in people’s lives, helping them manage their money more effectively via our digital platforms and solutions. 

Whilst we have had great success so far, we obsess about our members and the experience they receive we recognise the need to evolve and improve faster than ever. And we’re now looking for a Principal Design Researchers to join our Service and Experience Design team and contribute to our growing research community. 

We’ll need you to be infectiously passionate about all things related to Design Research and in helping multi-disciplinary teams to create exceptional insight led services. You’re likely to be an experienced Design Researcher or someone who has led and conducted digital and service experience research. 

As Senior Design Researcher, you could find yourself working on an exciting new digital journey, or leading and delivering research for a new service experience. Working with stakeholders from across the business, you’ll scope and shape research plans that support both the needs of our users and the business. You’ll be working collaboratively with key stakeholders to ensure buy-in and understanding of Design Research.  

While this role is aligned within our Chief Operations Office, Digital and Integration division which includes our Banking App and Internet Bank. The scope of projects you may be involved in spans end to end digital journeys and wider service experiences, so there will be no shortage of opportunities for you to develop your research skills across a broad range of experiences.   

One day you may be running discovery research to uncover user needs or conducting ethnography research in one of our branches or contact centres; another day you could be facilitating an ideation session building on insight collected or scoping out a n evaluation study. This is a hands-on research role, and we’ll encourage you to try new techniques and help us to develop new ways of working too.  

At Nationwide we offer hybrid working wherever possible. More rewarding relationships are supported through our hybrid approach, bringing colleagues together across our UK wide estate, whilst also supporting generous access to home working. We value our time in the office to solve problems, to learn, and to feel connected.  

For this job you'll spend at least two days per week, or if part time you'll spend 40% of your working time, at one of our offices. If your application is successful, your hiring manager will provide further details on how this works. You can also find out more about our approach to hybrid working here. 

If we receive a high volume of relevant applications, we may close the advert earlier than the advertised date, so please apply as soon as you can. 

What you’ll be doing

You will work collaboratively with multi-disciplinary design teams, including Designers, Developers, and Delivery Leads and with other Nationwide departments and stakeholders, to discover insights that support the creation of truly great experiences and services that have a positive impact on our members, colleagues and business. 

You will be responsible for Working hand in hand with the product owner and delivery or creative leads of your project, you will be responsible for the scoping and shaping of projects. You will interrogate the objectives of each project and flesh out the requirements to ensure we are designing the right things the right way. You will also have the responsibility for the execution of design tasks, managing dependencies and junior resources as required to deliver the pieces of work. 

Using industry standard software, you will employ design research techniques and practices, undertaking both qualitative and some quantitative activities as appropriate on projects. 

This role will own the design responsibilities that span all experience and service touch points across the Nationwide digital estate (including nationwide.co.uk, mobile, branch screens, ATM, etc.) 

From planning and scoping Design Research to leading and conducting this for multiple projects, both qualitative and quantitative, it’s not just digital you could be working on, so expect your time split between Service Level Design Research and Journey level studies.  

You’ll be able to bring your hands-on experience across a broad range of research methodologies, both generative and evaluative, being comfortable facilitating and creating actionable insights from ideation, co-creation, and concept testing amongst others. 

Ensuring any insights elicited are able to be prioritised and their impact and associated recommendations understood by the wider business, will be key so you’ll need great verbal and written communication skills. 

You’ll also be working as part of a multi-disciplinary team and as part of these be actively coaching and supporting other Design Researchers and Designers as required. 

Even better if you have experience conducting research in an agile environment, experience within Financial Services, or have previously researched for Vulnerability, Access, and Inclusion.  

About you

• Experience of working in a research role as part of a multidisciplinary team. 
• Practical experience of leading and conducting Design Research, ideally across projects that have multiple workstreams.   
• Hands-on experience across a broad range of research methodologies, both generative and evaluative. 
• Experience of facilitation and actioning insight, for example through ideation, co-creation, and concept testing.  
• Delivering research with a focus on business outcomes as well as user needs. 
• Great verbal and written communication skills.  

Our Customer First behaviours are all about putting customers and members at the heart of how we work together. You can strengthen your application by showing the behaviours that resonate with you, and how you might have already demonstrated these.

• Say it straight - This is about being honest and direct with good intent and saying what needs to be said in the room. It’s also about being clear, precise, and using language that we and, importantly, our customers and members can understand.
• Push for better - This is about aiming high and constantly looking for better in how we work together and serve our customers and members.
• Get it done - This is about prioritising what will have the greatest impact, being decisive and taking accountability for delivering on the end-to-end outcome.

We know applying for jobs can sometimes feel like you’re sending an application into a black hole. We review each application individually. So, it’s a good idea to call out your most relevant experience on your application to give yourself the best chance.

The extras you’ll get

There are all sorts of employee benefits available at Nationwide, including:

• A personal pension – if you put in 7% of your salary, we’ll top up by a further 16%
• Up to 2 days of paid volunteering a year
• Life assurance worth 8x your salary
• A great selection of additional benefits through our salary sacrifice scheme
• Gympass – Access to a range of free and paid options for health and wellness.
• Access to an annual performance related bonus
• Access to training to help you develop and progress your career
• 25 days holiday, pro rata

What makes us different

Nationwide is the world’s largest building society. With over 15 million customers, we have a relationship with almost a quarter of the UK’s population. We’ve got the scale to compete with the big banks, but we’re not a bank.  

As a building society, we’re owned by our members – that’s our customers who have their current account, mortgage or savings with us. It means we can do things differently to deliver our Purpose – Banking – but fairer, more rewarding, and for the good of society.  

When you work at Nationwide, you can experience that difference for yourself. You’ll be part of a high-performing, purpose-driven organisation that offers rewarding career experiences and a highly competitive range of benefits to match. You’ll also be joining us at an important time as we seek to reach more and more people in the UK. We want everyone in the UK to know that they don’t have to bank with a bank. They can choose a modern mutual instead.  

What to do next

If this role is for you, please click the ‘Apply Now’ button. You’ll need to attach your up-to-date CV and answer a few quick questions for us.

We respond to everyone, so we will be in contact shortly after the closing date to let you know the outcome of your application. 

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