Senior Consultant Economist

Overview

Role: Senior Consultant Economist

Location: London, Oxfordshire, Bristol, Manchester, Glasgow, Madrid, Flexible, Hybrid

Role ID: 2022-1647

Our vision is to create a safe and sustainable world

Ricardo plc is a global strategic, environmental, and engineering consulting company, listed on the London Stock Exchange. With over 100 years of engineering excellence and employing close to 3,000 employees in more than 20 countries, we provide exceptional levels of expertise in delivering leading-edge and innovative cross-sector sustainable products and solutions. Every day, we enable our customers to solve the most complex and dynamic challenges to help achieve a safe and sustainable world.

Energy & Environment, one of Ricardo plc’s five operating business units, is a leader in sustainability consultancy, solving complex environmental challenges through industry-leading analysis, advice and data. With more than 40 years of heritage in addressing air quality, environmental and sustainability issues, our customers value us for our deep understanding and breadth of services covering the entire value chain from evidence, policy & strategy to implementation.

We are currently looking for an Senior Consultant Economist to join our Evidence and policy team.

Key responsibilities

Working in international, multi-disciplinary teams, you will help to win, manage and deliver high profile projects that play an integral role in driving regulatory approaches in Europe and worldwide. The role will entail providing leadership and support to medium-sized proposals and projects.

You will especially work in the field of climate change economics and will be actively engaged in issues such as the economics of carbon pricing policy, the social cost of carbon, decarbonisation investment economics and aspects concerning the cost effectiveness of policy approaches for decarbonisation across all sectors.

You will use your technical skills to provide insights to support policy decisions, and to analyse the impact of decisions on the economy, the environment and society. You will be involved in policy impact assessments, requiring skills in cost-benefit analysis, socio-economic analysis, feasibility assessment and evaluation. We expect you to understand the processes for development of public policy and the methods for assessing the social, environmental and economic impacts of policies and measures.

Required competencies and experience

• Qualified to at least Master’s degree level in economics
• At least 5 years of relevant experience within consultancy, government, research or industry
• An understanding of climate change issues, and national/EU/international policy, gained during studies and work experience
• Experience in client facing roles including project management, expert or advisory positions
• Business development experience: generation of new business leads, identification of new service offerings, building client relationships
• Highly numerate, with a track record in carrying out complex quantitative analysis and/or modelling
• Fluency in English and excellent (concise and precise) report writing skills
• Understanding of and track record in forming consortium teams and writing winning proposals
• Can work well in a team, including leading a team of economists and/or policy consultants
• Demonstrable experience in some of the following:
  • Economic theory and policy cycle (ex ante impact assessment of policies and regulations; policy development and implementation, ex post evaluation of policies and programmes)
  • Tools and methods: economic and/or financial modelling, data collection, validation and analysis, qualitative economic analysis, multi-criteria analysis
  • An understanding of structural economic modelling, Input – Output analysis, international trade theory, experience with econometric analysis and optimization techniques, e.g. General Algebraic Modelling such as GAMs. Experience with Python and Stata.

Skills and behaviours

• demonstrate a passion for the drive to create a more sustainable world, and a clear motivation to work for Ricardo and align with its values
• enjoy solving complex analytical problems that feature economic analysis, and actively enjoy working on a wide range of topics that may initially be unfamiliar to them
• demonstrate exceptional critical thinking and creative problem-solving skills
• have excellent communication skills, both written and oral, combined with influencing skills
• come to work with flexibility, resilience and enthusiasm
• be accurate and attentive to detail
• be an effective and proactive team worker, capable of supporting and developing peers and other staff members

Desirable

• Previous experience in leading or working on proposals and projects for international organisations and/or European Commission and/or national governments
• Experience managing large projects
• Fluency in other European languages

Working here

Ricardo is an exciting and rewarding place to work and you have the opportunity to make a difference. You will work with teams of talented, dedicated, and supportive individuals. Alongside having a fantastic opportunity to develop your career with us through our broad range of projects, mentoring opportunities and a personalised approach to your learning and development. We are always keen to hear from people who have driven, ambition and a flair for innovative thinking.

Wellbeing and work life balance

We offer flexible approaches to work, whether that's working from home, being in the office, or as a hybrid worker. We're happy to discuss flexible working arrangements. Wellbeing is at the core to our culture, allowing employees to flourish and to achieve their full potential. Our People are important to us, and we take pride in our wellbeing programmes and policies that support individuals including flexible working, carers policy, mental health first aiders and readily available support through our extensive Employee Assistance programme.

Diversity, Equality and Inclusion statement

We are an Equal Opportunity Employer, we believe in each person's potential, and we'll help you reach yours. We have an ambitious diversity, equality, and inclusion approach as explained here. We value diversity; recognising that a more diverse workforce creates a richer and more varied working environment. Diversity also drives innovation, by allowing us to offer our clients the best consultancy service that we can. As part of our commitment to engage positively and pro-actively with all our employees and ensure an inclusive culture, we are a recognised as a 'disability confident' employer.

Benefits

Our core benefits include 25 days' annual leave, plus 8 flexible bank holidays, a competitive company pension scheme, life assurance and professional subscriptions reimbursement. We also offer a wide range of flexible benefits to suit your lifestyle.

Once you have submitted your application a member of our Recruitment Team will be in touch. Please be aware that the timing can vary dependent on the volume of applications that we receive for each role and in some cases, we may start to review applications prior to the closing date.