Where I’ve worked
Ten organisations, from defence data to the national weather service.
- Ministry of DefenceData services & analytics
- Royal NavyDigital service standard
- Met OfficeNational weather website
- Dept for Business & TradeTrade & business services
- MoJ / Legal Aid AgencyAccess to legal aid
- Dept for EducationTeacher training service
- BEISBusiness & industrial strategy
- United NationsInternational missions
- GoogleClient-side research
- AcasWorkplace relations
Selected work
Click a case to explore. Full case studies happily walked through on a call.
MOD Data Services — research across security tiers
Ten months setting research strategy for a defence data portfolio.
The work
Ten months leading research for the MOD’s data services portfolio, including its data and analytics platform. I ran multi-method programmes — depth interviews, a diary study, moderated sessions — with analysts, data scientists and RAF users, and set the portfolio’s research strategy.
What it changed
The work surfaced how tooling and workflows break across classification tiers, published as interactive evidence packs that informed platform and investment decisions. I also built the portfolio’s user-needs repository and brought user evidence into the department’s AI adoption work.
Ministry of Justice / Legal Aid Agency — “Means & Match” alpha
The evidence behind a provider-escalation model and a client front door.
The work
Provider-facing research shaping digital solutions for controlled legal-aid work. Interviews, usability testing and thematic analysis across legal providers, Citizens Advice and contract managers.
What it changed
Delivered the evidence behind a provider-escalation model and a client front door for self-initiated legal aid.
Met Office — national website discovery
Strategic discovery that drove a national site’s new information architecture.
The work
Strategic discovery for the national Met Office website. Stakeholder and professional-user interviews, card sorting and prototype testing.
What it changed
Synthesised into the journey maps, personas and thematic insights that drove the new information-architecture strategy.
Royal Navy & Defence Digital — embedding the standard
Introduced the GDS research standard, then delivered it across defence.
The work
Introduced GDS service-standard research within the Royal Navy, then delivered discoveries, alphas and betas across Defence Support, Fleet Maintenance and Supplier Cyber Protection — including research for the Defence Support Hub’s single sign-on and data-integration capability.
What it changed
Ethnographic studies with engineers grounded the services in real working practice, and a generation of junior researchers were mentored into the standard.
What people say
Real words from the people I’ve worked with.
I would thoroughly recommend working with James and adding his skills and experience to your team.
His passionate commitment to user-centred design has been invaluable to our team.
I highly recommend James to any organisation looking to elevate their product through deep understanding of user needs.
James was great to work with — he made my life easy during a high-intensity workload by being very proactive.
How I work
Evidence first
GDS-aligned, multi-method — interviews, diary studies, ethnography, usability — synthesised into artefacts teams use, not decks that get filed.
At home in hard places
Secure, regulated, mission-critical settings; comfortable earning access and trust where research is hardest to do.
UCD × AI
I bring AI into the research workflow where it earns its place — and research how organisations adopt it.
Available from 15 September 2026
Contract user research in public services · outside IR35 · remote or hybrid (London / Kent).
The fastest route is email — I reply the same day.