Wealth Management Lead Design Researcher

Lead Design Researcher | Barclays.

We are looking for a Lead Design Researcher to embed client insight at the heart of decision-making across Wealth Management.

You will lead research strategy across complex digital wealth journeys, ensuring that product, proposition, design and strategic decisions are grounded in robust client evidence. Through discovery and evaluative research, you will uncover evolving behaviours, unmet needs and opportunities to make investing and wealth management simpler, more intuitive and more accessible.

Working closely with Product, Proposition, Design, Data Science, Technology and Strategy teams, you will influence roadmaps and help shape the future of our digital wealth experiences. You will also lead and develop a team of researchers, building capability, coaching best practice and creating an environment of continuous learning and professional growth. In addition, you will oversee relationships with external research agencies, ensuring high-quality delivery and value from partner engagements.

You will bring external perspectives into the organisation, identifying market trends, competitor developments and emerging client expectations that could influence our future direction. By translating business strategy into a proactive research roadmap, you will ensure that research activities anticipate future business and client needs rather than simply responding to them.

You will provide leadership to the wider research and design community, strengthening research standards and building a culture of insight-led decision-making.

You will ensure that client evidence has a visible and measurable influence on Wealth Management strategy, propositions and digital experiences. You will build confidence in research across the organisation, surface opportunities before they become obvious and help teams make better decisions for clients.

Key responsibilities:

• Lead and develop the research strategy across digital Wealth Management journeys.
• Build, manage and coach a high-performing team of researchers, supporting their development and elevating research capability across the organisation.
• Plan and deliver end-to-end discovery and evaluative research programmes.
• Manage external research agencies and strategic research partners to ensure high-quality insight generation and effective delivery.
• Apply appropriate qualitative and quantitative methods to understand client behaviours, attitudes, needs and friction points.
• Translate research findings into clear, actionable recommendations for product, proposition, design and strategy.
• Identify unmet client needs, emerging behaviours and opportunities for future capabilities and propositions.
• Bring external perspectives into the business by monitoring market trends, competitor activity and industry best practice.
• Translate business strategy and priorities into a proactive research roadmap that informs future product, proposition and experience development.
• Influence senior stakeholders through compelling evidence, storytelling and practical recommendations.
• Partner with multidisciplinary teams to create insight-led strategies and roadmaps.
• Champion research excellence and foster a culture of insight-led decision-making across Wealth Management.

Essential criteria:

• Extensive experience in UX research, design research, customer insight or service design research.
• Experience leading substantial research programmes across complex digital products or customer journeys.
• Strong knowledge of qualitative and quantitative research methods, including discovery and evaluative approaches.
• A track record of translating research into actionable product, proposition, service or design recommendations.
• Experience influencing senior stakeholders and shaping strategic decisions through client evidence.
• Strong synthesis, communication and storytelling skills, with the ability to make complex findings clear and compelling.
• Experience working collaboratively with Product, Design, Technology, Data and other multidisciplinary teams.
• Ability to operate strategically while remaining close to research planning, delivery and quality.
• Experience establishing or improving research practices, standards or governance.
• A strong commitment to client-centred and evidence-led decision-making.

Desirable criteria:

• Experience within Wealth Management, investments, banking, financial services or another regulated environment.
• Understanding of investing behaviours, digital wealth journeys or financial decision-making.
• Experience researching complex, sensitive or high-consideration products and services.
• Knowledge of inclusive research, accessibility and the needs of vulnerable or underserved clients.
• Experience working with behavioural, analytics or data science teams to combine qualitative and quantitative insight.
• Experience coaching researchers or building research capability across an organisation.
• Familiarity with proposition development, service design or strategic foresight methods.

You may be assessed on the key critical skills relevant for success in role, such as risk and controls, change and transformation, business acumen strategic thinking and digital and technology, as well as job-specific technical skills.

Various locations are available for the successful candidate.

Purpose of the role

To deliver the collection and analysis of research into customer needs, experiences and interactions, to support the creation of beautiful, useful, and innovative experiences and communications for our 20m UK customers. To put the Customer Voice at the heart of everything we do. 

Accountabilities

• Delivery of end to end research programmes which are highly synergistic with other research and analytics activities conducted by the business including Design/UX Research, Colleague research, quantitative research and CX tracking.

• Collaboration with various departments including Design, Product, Channel, Marketing, Transformation and Technology, to brainstorm innovative design concepts, ensuring that research findings are integrated into all stages of the innovation cycle.

• Development and testing of prototypes, mock-ups, or value propositions to support the analysis of concept development and usability feedback from customers and internal stakeholders.

• Monitoring of emerging technologies, industry trends, design best practices, societal changes, and economic trends that may impact the Customer landscape and influence Barclays strategic decisions.

• Utilisation of data analytics tools to extract insights from market research, customer surveys, and feedback sessions to identify new opportunities and understand evolving customer needs.

• Management of all risk relating to the Insight process, (and in particular Data Privacy risk) including identification of potential risks, development of strategies to mitigate those risks, and maintenance of alignment with Chief Controls Office and Data Privacy Compliance.

• Management of all Research programmes, including oversight of colleagues and their performance, implementation of departmental goals and objectives, oversight of department efficiency and effectiveness.

Vice President Expectations

• To contribute or set strategy, drive requirements and make recommendations for change. Plan resources, budgets, and policies; manage and maintain policies/ processes; deliver continuous improvements and escalate breaches of policies/procedures..
• If managing a team, they define jobs and responsibilities, planning for the department’s future needs and operations, counselling employees on performance and contributing to employee pay decisions/changes. They may also lead a number of specialists to influence the operations of a department, in alignment with strategic as well as tactical priorities, while balancing short and long term goals and ensuring that budgets and schedules meet corporate requirements..
• If the position has leadership responsibilities, People Leaders are expected to demonstrate a clear set of leadership behaviours to create an environment for colleagues to thrive and deliver to a consistently excellent standard. The four LEAD behaviours are: L – Listen and be authentic, E – Energise and inspire, A – Align across the enterprise, D – Develop others..
• OR for an individual contributor, they will be a subject matter expert within own discipline and will guide technical direction. They will lead collaborative, multi-year assignments and guide team members through structured assignments, identify the need for the inclusion of other areas of specialisation to complete assignments. They will train, guide and coach less experienced specialists and provide information affecting long term profits, organisational risks and strategic decisions..
• Advise key stakeholders, including functional leadership teams and senior management on functional and cross functional areas of impact and alignment.
• Manage and mitigate risks through assessment, in support of the control and governance agenda.
• Demonstrate leadership and accountability for managing risk and strengthening controls in relation to the work your team does.
• Demonstrate comprehensive understanding of the organisation functions to contribute to achieving the goals of the business.
• Collaborate with other areas of work, for business aligned support areas to keep up to speed with business activity and the business strategies.
• Create solutions based on sophisticated analytical thought comparing and selecting complex alternatives. In-depth analysis with interpretative thinking will be required to define problems and develop innovative solutions.
• Adopt and include the outcomes of extensive research in problem solving processes.
• Seek out, build and maintain trusting relationships and partnerships with internal and external stakeholders in order to accomplish key business objectives, using influencing and negotiating skills to achieve outcomes.

All colleagues will be expected to demonstrate the Barclays Values of Respect, Integrity, Service, Excellence and Stewardship – our moral compass, helping us do what we believe is right. They will also be expected to demonstrate the Barclays Mindset – to Empower, Challenge and Drive – the operating manual for how we behave.