Permanent: Available full-time (39 hours)
Flexible working: Options include flexible start and finish times, home working and compressed hours
Location: Manchester or London - We are working remotely in the UK until government guidelines change.

The local government team is split between London and Manchester. The successful applicant will be required to regularly travel to the other office (when Coronavirus restrictions allow).

Are you looking for a new challenge and want to join a successful and rapidly growing organisation? Do you have a passion for exploring new ways to change people's lives at a national scale through government policy? If so, we want to hear from you.

What does a Senior Advisor do?

This role is in our BIT North/Local Government team. You will be working with the team on a very wide range of policy issues, including Children’s and Adult Social Care, housing and homelessness, health and safety, sustainability and many others. We are looking for a candidate with a good knowledge of behavioural science and an interest in a wide range of policy topics. A background knowledge of local government, a good understanding of services delivered at a local level and familiarity with local government structures/priorities is highly desirable. The successful candidate will reflect the culture and values of the Behavioural Insights Team by prioritising social impact in their projects and policy work, being empirically focussed, collaborative, and able to bring fresh and innovative ideas to the team.

Key questions your work may answer are:

• How can behavioural science support unpaid carers?

• How can behavioural science help reduce homelessness?

• How can you demonstrate impact using routinely collected data?

• How can local councils use behavioural science to improve their local area?

If you want to answer these questions, why not apply for this role?

This role is at Senior Advisor level which means you will be involved in things like:

• Delivering a range of projects that seek to demonstrate the value of a behavioural approach in local government, managing multiple projects in our key policy areas, which include Adult Social Care and homelessness and housing. 

• You will interact with senior clients on a regular basis, and work to expand the team's professional networks with key partners across the UK

• Work with other teams in our London office to bridge gaps between portfolios and deliver projects in complementary policy areas, including local transport and sustainability and skills and employment  

• Oversee the design and development of project deliverables and manage resources across projects

• Work closely with the Principal Advisor, Director and other Seniors in the team to deliver on the team strategy by supporting business development. This includes working with local authorities as well as other organisations based in the UK, responding to competitive tenders and preparing bids/proposals

• Ensure that quality is maintained across the business, including by quality assuring outputs from other policy teams

• Represent the business externally through talks, potential media appearances, and written content;

• Manage other members of the team, this is expected to be 2-3 people. You will be responsible for coaching and mentoring the people you manage, and developing their skills and expertise 

What makes a great Senior Advisor at BIT?

We are looking for people who understand what we do, share our values and are keen to learn and develop their expertise. We are looking for candidates with the skills listed below. We expect to provide training and development support in some of the areas.

• Behavioural science. You can explain the implications of theoretical concepts such as defaults, loss aversion and social norms.

• Public policy design. You can see both sides of an argument, for example, on High Speed 2 (HS2) or Universal Basic Income, and you think about what makes some policies effective and others impractical.

• A solid understanding of ‘causality’ and statistical reasoning. You know that just because sales of sunglasses and ice creams increase at the same time, one does not cause the other. You can also describe how to run a test to prove this. A good understanding of research and evaluation methods is desirable. RCTs can’t always be used on local projects, so you’ll need to think creatively about how to measure the impact of our work in projects which often go beyond traditional ‘nudges’ by embedding behavioural science into the design of public services

• Managing projects and clients. You can manage your own time, and where appropriate that of your colleagues, to produce high quality work within a reasonable time frame.

• Supporting and developing others. You can nurture talent and energise people to perform at their best. You care about the success, development and wellbeing of others and can have meaningful (and sometimes difficult!) conversations.

• Scoping projects and winning work. You are able to lead business development by spotting opportunities with new and existing partners and then develop the relationships required to form positive ongoing partnerships.

Who are we and what can we offer you?

The Behavioural Insights Team is the world leader in applying behavioural science to public policy challenges in order to strengthen communities and improve lives. 

We design and rigorously test new ideas across a range of areas such as health, crime and education, to establish what works and what doesn’t. We have helped Tuberculosis patients take their medicine; reduced police susceptibility to cyberattacks; and helped organisations close their gender pay gap.

We are looking for a passionate and imaginative individual who understands behavioural science and shares our thirst for evidence-based solutions to join our dynamic and growing team.

BIT really is a great place to work:

• We encourage flexible working and have a culture which enables this; for example flexible start and finish times and an IT set up which allows for easy working from home options

• Employees have part ownership of the company through membership of the Employee Benefits Trust.

• We have regular team lunches with inspirational guest speakers. 

• We have a flexible benefits programme which currently includes things like gym memberships, cycle to work schemes and the ability to buy extra annual leave at the start of the year.

• We’re a social bunch and have a variety of interest groups including Film Club, BIT Kids for our parents & 5-a-side team to name a few.

• We have a great office in Westminster, which has an amazing coffee machine and fridges stocked full of soft drinks!

How to apply

We use a great platform called Applied to reduce bias in the recruitment process. You will need to answer a few work-based questions which will be anonymously marked by members of our team. Our selection is based on performance in these questions, rather than looking at your CV. 

Candidates with the top scoring answers will be invited to a structured interview where you get to meet some of the team. At the interview stage you will be asked questions that reflect the role and also to complete a work-based task, so you have the chance to demonstrate your skills. It’s at this stage we first see your CV. We always give all applicants feedback, no matter what stage your application reaches.