Senior User Researcher, Product & Market Insights

South China Morning Post; Portsmouth; On-site; GBP 50,000 - 70,000; Full time

Job summary

A leading news organization in Portsmouth is seeking a Senior User Researcher for its Data Science & Insights team. This role is crucial for shaping product strategy and subscription growth based on user and market insights. Responsibilities include leading product research, collaborating with Product Managers, and translating findings into strategic recommendations. The ideal candidate will have a strong foundation in user research and proven experience influencing product strategies in subscription-based environments.

Qualifications

• Minimum 5 years of experience in user and market research roles.
• Strong grounding in product research methods.
• Clear, structured communication skills tailored for senior stakeholders.

Responsibilities

• Lead end-to-end product research across discovery and post-launch.
• Conduct generative research to identify user needs.
• Translate research findings into actionable insights.

Skills

User research

Market research

Product strategy

Quantitative analysis

Qualitative research

Education

Bachelor's or Master's degree in a related field

Job description

About the team:

The Data Science & Insights team brings together Data Scientists, Data Analysts, and User Researchers to build a deep, shared understanding of SCMP’s readers and subscribers. We operate at the intersection of behavioural data, human insight, and business strategy. Our role is to turn complex quantitative and qualitative signals into clear direction for Product, Editorial, Marketing, and Leadership. In short, the Data Science & Insights team helps SCMP decide where to focus, what to prioritise, and what to stop doing, based on evidence that leaders trust.

Purpose of the Position:

The Senior User Researcher – Product & Market Insights plays a key role in shaping product strategy and subscription growth by grounding decisions in a deep understanding of users, readers, and the broader market. Reporting into the Data Science & Insights function and working closely with Product and Audience teams, this role ensures that SCMP’s products are built on real user needs, competitive context, and willingness to pay—not assumptions.

This is a product-first research role, with responsibility for both user research and market research.

In this role, you will:

• Lead end-to-end product research across discovery, concept validation, and post-launch learning.
• Partner with Product Managers to inform roadmaps, prioritisation, and trade-offs using evidence.
• Conduct generative research to uncover unmet user needs, motivations, and subscription drivers.
• Design and execute market research to understand audience segments, competitive positioning, brand perceptions, and value propositions.
• Run quantitative studies (data analysis, surveys, segmentation, pricing and value perception research) alongside qualitative methods.
• Translate research findings into clear, decision-ready insights for Product, Audience, and Leadership teams.
• Collaborate closely with Data Scientists to triangulate market and attitudinal data with behavioural data.
• Support experimentation and feature launches by validating concepts before build and evaluating impact after release.
• Build shared research frameworks (needs, segments, jobs-to-be-done) used consistently across teams.

Skills and Experience that will lead to success:

• Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Human-Computer Interaction, Psychology, Sociology, Marketing Research, or a related field.
• Minimum 5 years of experience in user research, market research, or mixed research roles.
• Strong grounding in product research methods (e.g., a/b testing, heuristic evaluation, usability testing, interviews, card sorting, and standardised surveys).
• Solid understanding of market research fundamentals: sampling, survey design, segmentation, brand and value research.
• Proven ability to influence product strategy and business decisions, not just design execution.
• Clear, structured communication skills, tailored to senior and cross-functional stakeholders.
• Comfortable working in fast-paced, ambiguous environments with competing priorities.
• Experience conducting research in subscription-based or content-driven products is a strong advantage.

Work location will be at Causeway Bay office.

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