Principal Economist

Job Title: Principal Economist

Salary: £55,031 - £75,000

Contract: Permanent

Working pattern: Hybrid

Office location: either Birmingham (B54UA) or London (E14 4HD)

Are you passionate about leading ground-breaking economic strategies and ensuring sustainable water infrastructure for future generations? Look no further! Ofwat, the Water Services Regulation Authority, is seeking a Principal Economist to join our dynamic economics hub with the RAPID and Environmental Planning directorate.

About us

We’re Ofwat – a non-ministerial government department responsible for regulating the water sector in England and Wales. We are at the source of everyday life. We help the sector build trust and confidence with customers, the environment and wider society: keeping water flowing, bills affordable and helping ensure the health of our rivers and waterways.

Our work is high-profile and fast-moving, within a dynamic and agile environment. The work that you’ll be involved in every day will help us to deliver our strategy, to make us the regulator we want to be and help the sector to deliver for customers and society.

The role

This is a unique and exciting, once in a career, opportunity to work on some of the most important capital projects in the water sector. You will join the team at an exciting time as we have just completed an important consultation on commercial structures / arrangements required for major infrastructure. Ofwat will shortly be setting out its PR24 draft determinations which will set out funding for development work as projects transition towards delivery.

You will have the opportunity to work collaboratively with other directorates across Ofwat, including the Price Review directorate in setting cost allowances and incentives, and the Major Projects and Markets Directorate, which project manages the major infrastructure solutions in the RAPID programme to completion from the procurement stage. You will also work closely with other regulatory partners, with the opportunity to develop knowledge and experience outside of economics.

Ultimately, this role provides a chance to create a lasting impact for customers for generations to come and create a legacy.

Why Join Us

Meaningful Impact: Your work will play plays a crucial role in providing economic advice and recommendations to address possible regulatory and commercial barriers for the delivery of new major water infrastructure.

Innovative Work Environment: From becoming the first Civil Service organisation to achieve ‘Smarter Working’ status, to gaining our prestigious ‘Smarter Working Maturity’ award, we’ve consistently demonstrated our commitment to embracing innovative ways of working. . Ours is a culture of trust, flexibility, autonomy, collaboration, and innovation.

Development Opportunities: We are a learning organisation, and you will have opportunities to develop your knowledge and experience, and to consolidate your skills set. We have a well-supported, agile working environment, and have a trust-based culture intended to help empower you and enable and support you to succeed within Ofwat.

Work-Life Balance and Flexible Working: Based in either our London or Birmingham Office, our people do their best work when given freedom over where, when, and how they work. Which is why we trust our teams to balance meaningful collaboration in the office with the flexibility of working from home.

Other Benefits

• Excellent employer pension contribution ranging from £10,695 to £12,746 per annum.
• 25 days’ annual leave, increasing to 30 with each year of service, plus bank holidays and an extra 2.5 days of privilege leave.
• Access to exclusive discounts on a variety of goods and services, including retail outlets, theatre tickets, holidays, insurance, and a gym membership.
• Fees paid for membership of relevant professional bodies
• Up to 3 volunteering days per year.
• Recognition vouchers scheme rewarding your hard work.
• Generous shared parental leave and pay supporting your family life.

What you bring

Experience, skills and knowledge

• Experience of developing and delivering economic advice in a regulatory or commercial setting to deliver long-term outcomes.
• Experience of solving complex problems, managing trade-offs, and influencing stakeholders to deliver strategic outcomes.
• Excellent written and oral communication skills, including the ability to explain policy issues and policy options, as well as work with internal and external stakeholders, particularly communicating complex or technical information to a non-technical audience.
• Experience of working under pressure - planning, prioritising and managing a varied and changing work programme / workload to meet different, and often tight, deadlines.
• Experience of managing and supporting a team in developing quickly evolving policy areas.
• Ability to work independently, and as part of a team, using creativity and innovative approaches.

Attributes

• Adaptable Thinker
• Delivers Outcomes
• Committed Learner
• Promotes Collaboration

Attributes as per Ofwat’s Framework for Success for Principal Grade. You can read more about our attributes here.

To find out more about the role, team and selection process, please follow the link to apply.

Closing Date: 23:55 on 07 July 2024