User Experience Manager (Digital Innovation for Student Success)

Job id: 089494. Salary: £43,205 - £50,585 per annum, including London Weighting Allowance.

Posted: 13 May 2024. Closing date: 02 June 2024.

Business unit: Students & Education. Department: Student Services Online (CRM).

Contact details:Amin Ech-Chadli (Head of Digital Innovation for Student Success). [email protected]

Location: Strand Campus. Category: Professional & Support Services.

The King’s community is dedicated to the service of society. King’s Strategic Vision 2029 sets out our vision for the future, shaped around five priority areas: educate to inspire and improve; research to inform and innovate; serve to shape and transform; a civic university at the heart of London; and an international community that services the world. Our ambitious Education Strategy sets out the actions that we must take to transform how we teach, how and where our students learn and how we support them during their time with us. 

The Student Knowledge & Information department brings together colleagues who are focussed on helping students to get the information they need quickly and easily and also to engage with their programme and university life more broadly, through management of inbound enquiries and service requests, static and dynamic digital content, and outbound communications. Our remit covers all King’s students, from enrolment to graduation.

The Digital Innovation for Student Success (DISS) team leverages the capabilities of modern technologies to enhance the King's student experience, from customer relationship management (CRM) software to mobile apps. Focused on enhancing the systems King's uses to communicate and manage relationships with our students, the team helps ensure delivery of new projects and provides ongoing operational support to colleagues in faculties and other teams.

We are part of the Students & Education Directorate, a collection of wide-ranging professional services in place to support King’s students and their education. As a directorate we manage the student lifecycle from application to graduation and beyond, to ensure a coherent and seamless student experience and effective administrative processes, working closely with King’s faculties to do so. 

The User Experience (UX) Manager (Digital Innovation for Student Success) supports the implementation of UX strategies for student support services and helps a wide range of teams adopt a user-centric approach to their digital products and platforms, including mobile apps and web portals. With a deep understanding of the student journey, they work towards creating a more seamless end-to-end digital experience and continuously enhancing systems to better meet the needs of our staff and students.

Key responsibilities include:

• Utilise product thinking and data analytics to create and implement user-centred designs for university digital platforms – including mobile apps and web portals – focusing on delivering value to students and aligning with strategic goals.
• Collaborate with student services teams to integrate UX best practices into their digital offerings, working towards ensuring digital platforms are intuitive, engaging, accessible, on brand, seamlessly connected across student lifecycle touchpoints and tailored to student and staff needs.
• Conduct user research and usability testing within the student and staff community to understand their needs and preferences, particularly in relation to support services, embedding findings in an iterative cycle of continuous delivery.
• Stay on top of emerging trends in UX and education technology, seeking out and acting on opportunities to innovate.
• Advocate for UX priorities within cross-functional agile teams, effectively communicating the value of user experience in the context of product management and a SAFe (Scaled Agile Framework) development environment.
• Build and manage effective relationships with stakeholders across the university to advocate for user-centric design and promote the importance of UX in achieving strategic goals.

This is an exciting opportunity for candidates looking to gain experience in supporting students and enabling their success, and who wish to utilise their skills and expertise in UX design. This is an opportunity to grow your skills in a cross-functional environment within a complex organisation.

We encourage applications from candidates who have experience from both within and outside of the Higher Education sector where they can demonstrate the skills needed to succeed in this role.

This is a full time (35 hours per week), and you will be offered an indefinite contract.

To be successful in this role, we are looking for candidates to have the following skills and experience:

Essential criteria

Desirable criteria

 Full details of the role and the skills and experience required can be found in the attached job description which is provided on the next page.

We pride ourselves on being inclusive and welcoming. We embrace diversity and want everyone to feel that they belong and are connected to others in our community.

We are committed to working with our staff and unions on these and other issues, to continue to support our people and to develop a diverse and inclusive culture at King's. We ask all candidates to submit a copy of their CV, and a supporting statement, detailing how they meet the essential criteria listed in the advert. If we receive a strong field of candidates, we may use the desirable criteria to choose our final shortlist, so please include your evidence against these where possible.

To find out how our managers review your application, please take a look at our ‘How we Recruit ’ pages.