We’re looking for an experienced User Research Director who has delivered significant results at a company level — defining strategy, overseeing complex processes and organisational challenges, hiring and developing top talent and acting as a user research advisor to senior leadership. Naturally data-driven, you cut  through complexity to identify high impact opportunities and simple solutions. You act decisively on these insights and collaborate with colleagues in ways which inspires and motivates. Above all, you are in touch with the end user, working constantly to understand their pain-points and exceed their expectations.

The goal of our User Research Director is to drive continuous progress toward the team’s vision of delivering user insights that spur major incremental growth and underpin all key product decisions, as well as enabling all teams at Skyscanner to better understand our users and partners.

You will lead, enable, develop and inspire a friendly, collaborative and dynamic team of qualitative, quantitative and mixed methods researchers across our three European offices.

You will partner with senior stakeholders to ensure effective implementation of key insights, represent the voice of our users and partners, and identify white space opportunities for exploration or innovation.

If you’re looking for an opportunity to lead the User Research function and drive impact across the entire company in an entrepreneurial environment, this could be the role for you.

What you will do:

• Lead a team of User and Partner Researchers and actively help them develop into the UR leaders of tomorrow through mentorship and coaching
• Connect the dots across all data, research and otherwise (user / partner / consumer / market / behavioural analytics / financials / etc) to surface and evangelise the most impactful insights for the business across the business, including at CxO level
• Build upon the long-term vision for User Research, ensuring strategies evolve as needed to align with business needs and continuously exceed expectations
• Proactively and autonomously define and solve previously unidentified ambiguous problems across the business.
• Work in a highly collaborative way across the whole organisation, bridging disciplines and levels to continually learn, optimise processes, and drive growth
• Grow the User Research team in a lean way to maximise impact on the product and therefore commercial results
• Identify and shape strategic company-wide initiatives on the mid and long term research roadmap, gaining buy-in from partner disciplines and leadership
• Create the environment for timely delivery of the right research methods and business outcomes.
• Take pride in the craft & teach it

The Person:

• Experience as a User Research Director / Head of Research or equivalent, ideally in a fast-paced tech environment
• Deep, first-hand experience with a range of research methodologies; an expert who is able to coach and teach across a breadth of qualitative and quantitative methods
• Track record of owning large, complex product initiatives to successful completion, resulting in significant business growth
• A self-starter with business savvy, expert storyteller, trusted collaborator, and inspiring leader with a passion for impact and efficiency
• Literacy of the product design process and how to feed insights into the process
• Experience recruiting, mentoring, and developing top talent
• University degree in a relevant field preferred (e.g. Psychology, HCI, Statistics, Business…), but we welcome applicants from all educational backgrounds
• A passion for travel
• Bonus points for experience growing / building a User Research team, working on a two-sided marketplace, or experience in a mid-size tech company