The Behavioural Insights Team (BIT) is looking for an exceptional candidate to join as a Senior Advisor leading our work in Financial Behaviour. The successful applicant will lead an exciting area of work focused on designing and testing innovative solutions to encourage positive financial behaviours and improve financial well-being. The major programme of work in the area is our Financial Capability Lab partnership with the Money and Pensions Service. As part of that work you will manage a high performing team to deliver an ambitious portfolio to design and test new ideas to improve financial capability. You will also work with the Head of Effective and Inclusive Markets to develop new areas of work including retirement savings, insurance and retail investing.

About the Behavioural Insights Team

BIT is a global leader in the application of behavioural science to inform public policy and tackle societal challenges. The then Prime Minister created BIT in 2010 and in February 2014 we became a social purpose company, jointly 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 test and 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.

Roles and Responsibilities

The successful candidate will lead BIT’s work in Financial Behaviour. We are looking for someone with extensive knowledge of retail financial services and significant experience in working in the sector. The successful candidate is also expected to have a good understanding of research and evaluation methods and be able to lead a small team to deliver innovative projects in the financial services.

Your main responsibility will be to manage the Financial Capability Lab. Our partners in the Lab range from retail banks to fintech companies to large pension providers. You are expected to have deep expertise in at least one of the specific areas of the financial services sector we are working on (retail banking, fintech, pensions and insurance) and have the foundation to develop the knowledge in the rest. BIT has an excellent track record in designing field trials and is looking for someone to bring in their expertise from the retail financial services sector to build on this foundation.

You will report to the Head of Effective and Inclusive Markets who is leading a wider portfolio centred on improving the way markets work for consumers. You will work with them to develop and deliver the strategy around your area. BIT has built successful partnerships with financial regulators, consumer groups and firms and you will work together to build on and sustain these partnerships. You will also be responsible for scoping and developing new areas to deliver social impact in household finance, particularly around retirement savings, insurance and investment choices.

You will be responsible for managing a small team, currently four people, resourcing it effectively and motivating them to do their best work. You will also be expected to work with colleagues across the organisation to build a positive and collaborative culture and ensure that quality is maintained across the business.

Skills and experience

Essential

All candidates must be able to demonstrate:

• Experience working in the retail financial services sector either in the private sector, a consumer body or in a financial regulator;

• A deep understanding of the behavioural science literature and how it can be applied to help solve complex policy problems in financial behaviour;

• Ability to support the design and implementation of mixed methods research and evaluations;

• Proven leadership and relationship building skills to engage, motivate and challenge a high quality, ambitious team, a demanding, principled management team and diverse, knowledgeable clients and partners;

• A clear focus on collaborative working, including with partners from outside of your organisation, understanding that this is essential to achieving better outcomes;

• Excellent written and verbal communication; and

• High level strategic thinking, challenging existing assumptions and creative problem solving.

Desirable

Finally, it would be desirable if you have:

• Masters in a relevant subject area (including, but not limited to behavioural economics, psychology, design thinking, evaluation methods);

• Qualification in project management (Prince 2, PMP or equivalent); and/or experienced in managing both waterfall and agile projects; and

• Proven success developing or delivering large, evidence based, projects or programmes in a fintech, financial institution, or government.

Please note:

• 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

• To find out more about the organisation and the type of people who work in the team visit: www.bi.team