UX Research Manager

UX Research Manager

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If you’re looking for a role that will help you stand out and make a difference, join HSBC UK, and fulfil your potential. Whether you want a career that could take you to the top, or simply take you in an exciting new direction.

Come and join an exciting, new Experience Design Team (EXD), focused on designing and delivering the next-generation banking experience for all our customers. We’re seeking a highly capable, enthusiastic and experienced UX Research Manager to be an essential part of one of the most high-impact teams in our organisation. This is a unique opportunity to help influence, shape and define the future of digital banking and deliver better experiences and improved outcomes for millions of customers across the UK, from retail banking, to savings, wealth, and insurance.

You will be part of an integrated strategic design capability, made up of insight-driven Proposition, Service, Behavioural, Product and Content design, tasked with driving exceptional experiences and better outcomes for customers. You will partner and collaborate closely with business, product, and engineering teams, elevate our design vision, and help embed a design-led culture of creativity, quality, and innovation.

About The Role:

The UX Research Manager reports into the Head of Insight, within our Insight, Strategy and Effectiveness Centre of Excellence. Day to day you will be embedded in the Experience Design team in this hands-on role, responsible for leading, planning, organising and delivering user research We are seeking an experienced User Researcher who’s analytical, creative and highly practical. In this role, you’ll go beyond traditional usability studies to deeply understand human behaviour, financial decision-making, cognitive biases, and shape behavioural interventions.

Your role will encompass the full design lifecycle, from pre-discovery, primary 1:1 research and analysis to need-state definition, user-testing, insight-gathering validation and continuous improvement. Operationally, you will be equal-parts quantitative, qualitative and analysis. Strategically, you’ll test and refine hypotheses through to rapid experimentation to shape and influence our approach to experience design. You’ll also help pioneer new research methods within our organisation, helping push boundaries and deliver truly transformative customer experiences.

You will also work closely with your peers in Insight as well as more broadly with product, proposition and design leadership as we develop new future-state products, propositions and experiences. As part of that collaborative team you will also be responsible for helping to support the growth, development and impact of the Insight and EXD teams and promoting an insight-driven, design-led culture across the business.

Full Lifecycle Research

• Understand project and product-specific goals and objectives, in the context of driving business value and meeting customer needs head on.
• Plan, guide and deliver research across all product phases, as required —from early pre-discovery (customer, tech, and market research) through to iterative validation of concepts, features, and usability testing.
• Identify, organise, recruit and conduct customer interviews and expert/stakeholder interviews. Create discussion guides, participant screeners, and other research artifacts.
• Implement rapid experimentation techniques (e.g., “smoke tests,” agile prototyping, A/B testing) to speed up innovation and learn from real customer feedback.
• Utilise behavioural science concepts to interpret user data, highlighting opportunities to influence and enhance user engagement.
• Actively participate in and contribute to design reviews, project rituals and collaboration, team playbacks and continuous improvement within the team.
• Collaborate with stakeholders to translate and refine research findings into actionable outcomes and help prioritise future delivery and investment

Tool & Process

• Identify emerging research methods and experimentation techniques to pioneer new ways of testing and refining concepts. Introduce tools, frameworks and processes to streamline studies and reduce turnaround times.
• Collaborate with internal teams to adopt modern research methods that enhance the speed and the quality of data collection and analysis.
• Lead and mentor other researchers as we grow . Help foster a creative, user-centred culture across the organisation.
• Develop and champion a holistic UX research strategy that integrates behavioural design principles, working closely with product, design, and engineering teams.

Qualifications & Experience:

• 4+ years of hands-on user research experience, ideally in a large organisation or consultancy environment.
• Proven track record of leading complex research projects, from initial scoping to final recommendations.
• A creative mindset that thrives on experimenting and pushing boundaries, with a deep understanding of design thinking, agile methodologies, and rapid prototyping.
• Strong proficiency in qualitative and quantitative research methods (e.g. User interviews, A/B tests, usability studies, ethnography, surveys).
• Proficiency in modern research tools (e.g., UserTesting, Optimal Workshop, Dscout, or similar).
• Strong written and verbal communication skills, able to translate complex findings into clear, impactful insights with the ability to present ideas clearly and persuasively to team members and stakeholders alike.
• Strong ability to lead and deliver user research and testing, project management, and collaboration.
• Ability to influence stakeholders and integrate a user-behaviour and evidence-based perspective at all levels of the organisation.
• Desirable: Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Behavioural Science, Psychology, Sociology, Anthropology, Design, or a related field (or equivalent experience).