Principal Economist

Your new role

Principal Economist

We have some exciting opportunities for 3 Principal Economist vacancies within the Customer, Strategy and Communications Division within National Highways.

If you have significant experience working as an economist and are looking for a role which will give you the challenge of working on diverse and high-profile investment proposals from across an organisation which has one of the highest delegated authoritiesoutside of government ministries, then we would love to hear from you

Current post holders have backgrounds working in consultancy, think tanks, universities, and the government.

What you’ll be leading on

The Principal Economist is responsible for developing standards, advising how to realise Value for Money and coordinating the development and use of National Highway’s analytical platform, acting as a business partner on value for money of projects acrossthe business and managing a team of economists to provide an effective service to the organisation.

Lead the creation of an analytical and modelling platform for assessing the impacts of National Highway’s activities on the economy, environment and wider society involving specifying what is required of a large number of analytical modules developed byothers across the business, and tracking progress to ensure they are delivered.
Support the development of capability within National Highways to identify, measure and track the wider economic impact of schemes and programmes, providing expert advice to project teams, ensuring that they understand complex economic modelling and impact
Lead on assessing the value for money of the third Road Investment Period, as part of its business case, providing a coordinating function for other analytical leads and in so doing ensure National Highway’s analytical platform (once developed) is applied appropriately.
Act as an economics Business Partner and provide Value for Money assurance through the Subject Matter Advisor function for all appraisal work that is required to pass through the Investment Decision Committee. This will aid the governance of VfM and help toensure National Highways is meeting its licence commitments on delivering and enhancing our VfM capabilities.
Lead a team of senior and graduate economists; this will include performance management and development. Also, responsible for specifying and periodically reviewing and updating a programme for developing the graduates, to provide them with the breadth of experiencethey need to become professional economists by the end of the programme. This will help to ensure National Highways has a source of high-calibre Senior and Principal Economists in future years, and a reputation in the wider economics profession for qualityanalysis.
Promote the development and sharing of best practice and robust processes and encourage such approaches to be consistently applied, promoting improvements in National Highway’s economic analysis to encourage best practice and drive consistency

To be successful

Degree with a significant economics component or master’s in economics
Significant professional experience of working as an economist
Experience of working in the public sector in economics or working in infrastructure in either public or private sector is preferred but not essential
Excellent communication skills, ability to translate the complex economic language for non-experts

A bit about our Economics Team

Our benefits package

Our total reward package includes basic salary, the potential for a performance related bonus
Contributory pension scheme with employer contribution of up to 10%
Annual Leave starting at 26 days (plus Bank Holidays) rising by 1 day each year up to 31 days (plus Bank Holidays)
Flexible hours and blended working between base location/home
Life assurance of 4 times annual salary
Health and wellbeing support, including an Employee Assistance Programme, available 24/7 365 days and network of mental health first aiders. Plus access to a wellbeing app to enhance your self-care 24/7, Occupational health service and flu vaccines.