Senior Economist (Cost Benefit Analysis)
Salary: National – ranging from £51,200 – £70,000 and London from £56,400 – £75,000 per annum
Do you want to join a high performing, diverse team which will give you the opportunity to apply your economic expertise to meaningful work that makes a real difference?
The team/department
Economics is at the heart of what the FCA does. Economic thinking and analysis inform our regulatory decisions and shape how we tackle some of the biggest issues in financial services.
We are recruiting a Senior Economist to help us develop our Cost Benefit Analysis (CBA) methods and to lead or support the delivery of CBAs for proposed interventions and their evaluations. This is a particularly exciting time to take on this role as we have recently established a new independent expert CBA Panel to advise us on CBA and we have an expanding research portfolio.
We are looking for individuals with a passion for using economic appraisal to help inform proactive and evidence-based policy, who will work closely with policymakers to shape the future of financial services and its regulation.
What you will be doing (the role)
• Leading the development and improvement of our CBA methodology to ensure appropriate analytical rigour, using the latest academic literature, developments from government or other regulators in the UK or overseas, and taking advice from the CBA Panel
• Planning and delivering CBA of market interventions, ensuring the analysis can stand up to the rigours of intense external scrutiny and taking account of advice from the new CBA Panel
• Managing and continuously improving our processes, including managing the pipeline of CBA on which we consult the CBA Panel, ensuring plans are properly reviewed and challenged and working with the CBA Panel Secretariat to manage engagement with the CBA Panel
• Providing methodological advice and guidance to other CBA practitioners in the FCA, including advising CBA teams on how to deal with particular methodological challenges and delivering CBA training to policy professionals
• Measuring the benefits from our policy interventions, and developing the way we report on the benefits and costs of our activities in our annual Positive Impact report
What you will get from the role
You will have the opportunity to learn about, understand and shape the workings of the financial sector at a time of considerable change. You will have the opportunity to influence policy and deliver meaningful work that makes a real difference to consumers and markets.
You will be part of a thriving economics profession, with links to the Government Economic Service and other professional organisations.
You will be joining a multicultural community of economists, econometricians, behavioural scientists and data scientists, with opportunities to attend academic and industry conferences. We provide a stimulating, collaborative environment with a range of opportunities for professional and personal development. This includes the opportunity to develop new skills (for instance coding or causal inference techniques) and build up knowledge of different wholesale or retail financial markets.
We also provide opportunities to work on other economics projects outside your core role, depending on the skills and interest of the job holder. This provides variety to your work and allows you to develop or make use of existing skills through working with colleagues in other teams.
Examples of opportunities outside of your core role include:
• Undertake training to develop and/or enhance coding experience (usually in R), with opportunity to work on smaller data analysis projects
• Undertaking more complex data analysis, including having access to large datasets where you can use econometric methods to answer policy questions
• Using quantitative and qualitative methods to evaluate and assess the effectiveness of previous interventions, including the use of cutting edge causal inference methods
• Using first principles economic thinking to provide thinking for our strategy and regulatory approach
• Using a blend of tools and techniques to help the FCA to proactively understand how future trends affect the markets it regulates, providing insights and research to inform the FCA’s approach to new and emerging issues
Our competitive flexible benefits scheme gives you the opportunity to create a personalised benefits package, tailored to suit your lifestyle. You can use this allowance to purchase additional benefits such as dental or cycle to work or you have the option top up your base salary by taking this as cash.
Core benefits that you will receive as standard are:
• 25 days holiday per year plus bank holidays
• Private healthcare with Bupa
• A non-contributory Pension of at least 8% of basic salary each month (there are several contribution levels that increase depending on your age – up to 12% a month once you reach age 35)
• Life assurance of eight times your basic salary
• Income protection
We support hybrid working which means you will be able to work from home up to 60% of the time over a month with the remainder of your time in one of our three office locations.
The skills and experience you will have
Minimum
We are a signatory to the Government’s Disability Confident scheme. This means that we will offer an interview to disabled candidates entering under the scheme, who best meet the minimum criteria for a role.
• A degree in Economics (or related discipline) with relevant professional experience
• Experience of cost benefit analysis, either through regulatory impact assessments or writing business cases for spending proposals
• Experience of providing high-quality economic and/or analytical advice
Essential
• Knowledge of cost benefit analysis methods such as the HMT Green Book, including valuation of non-market impacts
• Experience in communicating and explaining complex issues with clarity, simplicity and precision to both specialist and non-specialist audiences both verbally and in writing
• Working collaboratively and effectively with internal and external stakeholders, developing and maintaining positive working relationships
• Experience in scoping, planning and delivering analytical projects, including understanding, identifying and analysing different sources of information
• Ability to apply economic principles to issues you are not familiar with
• Ability to handle uncertainty and deliver to tight deadlines, being flexible in adjusting your approach to changing demands
• Willingness to be flexible and understand that role responsibilities might evolve over time according to business needs
About the FCA
The FCA regulates the conduct of nearly 45,000 firms in the UK to ensure our financial markets are honest, fair and competitive. We do this to make sure markets work well for individuals, businesses and the economy as a whole. For more information on what we do, our three-year strategy can be found here.
The FCA’s Values & Diversity
Our ambition is to cultivate a culture of inclusion for all employees that respects their individual strengths, views, and experiences. We believe that our differences and similarities enable us to be a better organisation – one that makes better decisions, drives innovation, and delivers better regulation.
The FCA is committed to achieving greater diversity across all levels of the organisations. Given this, we particularly welcome applications from women, disabled and minority ethnic candidates for our role.
Flexible working
We welcome applications from candidates who are looking for flexible arrangements. Many of our staff work flexibly including working part-time, staggered hours, and job shares. We can’t promise to give you exactly what you want but we won’t judge you for asking.
Multi-location
As part of the FCA’s on-going commitment to develop our national presence, most of our vacancies are now open to working in our Edinburgh, Leeds, or London offices. This means that as part of the application process you will be able to select your preference of which office location you would like to work from.
Useful information
Applications for this role close at 23:59 on Sunday 22nd September 2024.
This role is graded as Senior Associate – Regulatory
To support your application, kindly submit a brief cover letter along with your CV (no more than 500 words) highlighting your interest in the role and your motivations for applying. We encourage you to include any relevant information you would like us to consider as part of your application.
Got a question?
If you are interested in learning more about the role please contact:
• For internal applicants, please contact Melanie Dubock at
• For external applicants, please contact Ifrah Azam at
What to expect from our interview process
The interview process is likely to be one stage incorporating a practical case study exercise and an interview to assess technical skills and core competencies.
Application support
We want to remove any possible barriers and are committed to providing a wide range of reasonable adjustments so that you can keep the focus on your conversations and be at your best.
If you have an accessibility requirement, disability, or condition that means you might require changes to the recruitment process, please contact your recruiter to discuss this further. Our aim is to make your application as easy and comfortable as possible, and your recruiter will be happy to work with you to make any necessary arrangements where possible.
Location: London, , GB
Offer Expires: 2024-11-02 20:14:14
Job Posting Language: en
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