The Behavioural Insights Team (BIT) is looking for an exceptional candidate to join us as a Research Associate Advisor in our Consumers, Energy & Economic Growth team. The successful applicant will work on a broad range of social and economic challenges across these policy domains, with a focus on consumer and energy projects.

This will include designing and implementing randomised controlled trials, evaluations and online experiments focusing on a range of issues, like: encouraging low to middle income earners to build up savings; encouraging consumers to increase their monthly credit card repayments to reduce interest payments over time; working with Housing Associations to reduce rent arrears; encouraging consumers to switch energy provider; encouraging households to reduce their energy use; and encouraging consumers to consume more sustainably. We are keen to recruit a candidate with a strong background in microeconomics and applied econometrics in particular.

Though embedded in our Consumers, Energy & Economic Growth team, the successful candidate will have a close working relationship with BIT’s Core Research Team, which oversees the design of evaluation and analysis for the whole of BIT. As such, they will have similar responsibilities as members of the core Research team, which include:

• supporting trial design and implementation;
• data management and analysis; and
• reporting and overall dissemination of results.

As a researcher embedded within a policy team, the successful candidate will develop policy expertise and work on projects from start to finish. This involves in particular:

• spending more time interacting with partners;
• contributing to preliminary research (quantitative and qualitative); and
• participating in intervention design. This role will suit a candidate with a quantitative background and a strong interest in generating and using evidence for policy making.

BIT additionally believes in offering opportunities for team members to grow and learn new skills: We offer a large range of both policy and research training sessions to staff of all level, and encourage close collaboration with senior, more experienced, members of the team on all projects.

The then Prime Minister created BIT in 2010 to apply behavioural science to public policy in the UK. In February 2014 we became a social purpose company, owned by the Cabinet Office, Nesta (an innovation charity) and our employees.

BIT works with governments around the world in almost every area of policy. Whilst the subject and output of our projects varies considerably, there are common threads: we try to understand the contexts in which people make decisions; we notice small details; we find out what has and hasn’t worked before; we come up with innovative ideas for solving policy problems and we measure everything we do as robustly as we can. As well as displaying professional excellence, BIT selects staff on the basis of our company values: always prioritising social impact; empiricism and humility; fresh thinking, collaboration; and public service.

The Behavioural Insights Team brings people together with different skills sets. You must be able to demonstrate a balance of skills across those listed below, but we do not expect you to be exceptional in all areas:

• Experience in designing and implementing rigorous evaluations, including Randomised Controlled Trials, difference in differences, regression discontinuity, and propensity score matching, particularly applied to policymaking;
• Experience in using and analysing large data sets (such as administrative data, energy meter readings) for the purposes of evaluation or predictive modelling;
• A clear understanding of the strengths and weaknesses of different evaluations methodologies, including those that you are not an expert in;
• Experience using software packages for either quantitative analysis (e.g.STATA or R), at an expert or competitive level;
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills (and will be able to translate academic work to non-academic audiences);
• Ability to manage a workload of several projects and to deliver to a high standard on deadline;
• Ability to work collaboratively with colleagues and partners;
• A Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in a relevant subject (such as economics, statistics, or another social sciences degree with a strong quantitative element); and
• Willingness to develop new, and improve existing skills, in research methods and behavioural science.

Finally, it would be desirable if you have:

• A Masters or PhD in a relevant subject area (including, in particular economics, with a focus on applied econometrics); and
• Experience in working as a research assistant or in an applied research context.

• If you do not already hold the right to work in the UK and/or require sponsorship in order to continue working here, you should think carefully before applying. This is because we will be unable to sponsor you unless there is no other suitably qualified settled worker available to fill the role or your current immigration status means that the resident labour market test will not apply in your case.
• The Behavioural Insights Team is committed to a policy of Equal Employment Opportunity and is determined to ensure that no applicant or employee receives less favourable treatment on the grounds of gender, age, disability, religion, belief, sexual orientation, marital status, or race, or is disadvantaged by conditions or requirements which cannot be shown to be justifiable.