Lead UX Researcher

About Us
We are champions of rail, inspired to build a greener, more sustainable future of travel. Trainline enables millions of travellers to find and book the best value tickets across carriers, fares, and journey options through our highly rated mobile app, website, and B2B partner channels.

Great journeys start with Trainline
Now Europe's number 1 downloaded rail app, with over 125 million monthly visits and £5.9 billion in annual ticket sales, we collaborate with 270+ rail and coach companies in over 40 countries. We want to create a world where travel is as simple, seamless, eco-friendly and affordable as it should be.

Today, we're a FTSE 250 company driven by our incredible team of over 1,000 Trainliners from 50+ nationalities, based across London, Paris, Barcelona, Milan, Edinburgh and Madrid. With our focus on growth in the UK and Europe, now is the perfect time to join us on this high-speed journey.

Introducing User Research at Trainline…
User Research is central to how we understand our customers, shape product decisions, and drive business growth. Our Lead User Researcher will be embedded within cross-functional product teams, working closely with product managers, designers, data scientists, and engineers.

User Research at Trainline sits within the wider product and data organisation, collaborating closely with data science, analytics, and UX teams. Our collaborative and autonomous environment offers significant opportunities for personal influence and impact – as the lead researcher, you will drive innovation by shaping research strategy, mentoring other team members, and continuously evolving our approach to understanding customer needs.

We're looking for an experienced
Lead User Researcher
to design and lead a new research program aimed at tracking how well Trainline products support customers in regards to the company's key pillars. This is a high-impact, contract role focused on the creation of a cross-market, long-term program that will enable the company to continuously measure the customer experience, identify and evaluate product improvement opportunities and inform strategic decision-making. Working closely with product, commercial and data teams, you will combine qualitative and quantitative research methods to deliver actionable insights that drive business growth.

As a Lead User Researcher at Trainline, you will...

• Develop and lead a cross-market customer insight program to track and evaluate the Customer Value Proposition, specifically on how the customer experience aligns with Trainline's product vision.
• Critically review existing customer experience trackers to identify optimisation opportunities and design a coordinated and comprehensive Customer-Value Proposition measurement program.
• Lead mixed-methods research projects, triangulating qualitative and quantitative data and contextualising it in the user experience, to provide a holistic view of customers' satisfaction with the product.
• Collaborate cross-functionally with product managers, data scientists and commercial stakeholders to align research objectives with business goals.
• Partner with analytics and data science teams to define customer experience metrics that complement other existing data sources, to craft comprehensive customer insight.
• Independently lead end-to-end research initiatives, ensuring clear alignment, communication of milestones, and measurable business impact.
• Mentor and coach other researchers, within and beyond your main project's scope, fostering a collaborative and supportive team environment.
• Translate complex insight into clear, actionable recommendations that inform and influence decisions across product, commercial, and leadership teams.
• Design scalable research systems and frameworks that elevate research practice.
• Drive continuous improvement by adopting iterative approaches to project planning, defining key success metrics and pro-actively course-correcting if needed.
• Proactively identify new research opportunities emerging from your learning, and participate in roadmap development.

We'd love to hear from you if you have...

• 7+ years of applied, hands-on, UX or product research experience, ideally within complex, fast-paced organisations.
• Expertise in mixed-methods research, with high-proficiency in quantitative methods and how to integrate them with qualitative methods, including applied statistics and thematic analysis of large sets of qualitative data.
• Fluency in interpreting behavioural and attitudinal data.
• Proven ability to design, launch, and deliver research programs that measure customer experience and product effectiveness.
• Proven track of proactively and successfully selling and socialising research at all company levels.
• Strong project management skills with a track record of leading cross-functional initiatives across stakeholders (product management, data science, design, and commercial).
• Experience mentoring and coaching other researchers or stakeholders.
• Excellent communication skills with the ability to clearly present complex research findings to stakeholders at all levels, including senior management.
• Highly proactive, self-driven and comfortable operating with autonomy and accountability, and skilled at bringing stakeholders and teams on board with new initiatives.
• Experience in travel, hospitality, e-commerce or other data-rich complex international products is a plus.

More Information
Enjoy fantastic perks like private healthcare & dental insurance, a generous work from abroad policy, 2-for-1 share purchase plans, an EV Scheme to further reduce carbon emissions, extra festive time off, and excellent family-friendly benefits.

We prioritise career growth with clear career paths, transparent pay bands, personal learning budgets, and regular learning days. Jump on board and supercharge your career from day one

We're operate a hybrid model to work and ask that Trainliners work from the office a minimum of 60% of their time over a 12-week period. We also have a 28-day Work from Abroad policy.

Our Values Represent The Things That Matter Most To Us And What We Live And Breathe Everyday, In Everything We Do

• Think Big - We're building the future of rail
• Own It - We focus on every customer, partner and journey
• Travel Together - We're one team
• Do Good - We make a positive impact

We know that having a diverse team makes us better and helps us succeed. And we mean all forms of diversity - gender, ethnicity, sexuality, disability, nationality and diversity of thought. That's why we're committed to creating inclusive places to work, where everyone belongs and differences are valued and celebrated.

Interested in finding out more about what it's like to work at Trainline? Why not check us out on LinkedIn, Instagram and Glassdoor