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 the Head of Financial Behaviour do?

We are looking for a colleague to join BIT’s Economic Policy Team to lead an exciting portfolio of work on helping make UK households financially resilient. As the UK economy recovers from COVID-19, there is immense pressure on UK households, with inflation hitting a 40 year high. At the same time, we have a tremendous opportunity to make financial products and services more supportive and accessible for all. 

BIT has been at the cutting edge of applying behavioural science to financial services thanks to our flagship £2.5m Financial Capability Lab with the Money and Pensions Service, and we aim to continue our leadership in the field. Our work is all about using behavioural insights to improve financial products and services for real people and develop new policy ideas to improve financial well-being. 

This role is in the Economic Policy team. Key questions your work may answer are:

• How can we help households through the cost of living crisis?

• How can we help financial institutions design better products and services that allow customers to make smarter choices?

• How can we make it easier to pay down debt?

• How can we help households build up rainy day and pension savings by working with financial institutions and employers?

• How can we help investors shift their funds into more sustainable investments and make it easier to make green investment decisions?

This role is at Principal level which means you be involved in things like:

• Team management and development of at least one senior advisor and two advisors, with an aim to grow the team. You will also work closely with an external expert contractor. 

• Support the team to deliver high quality projects on time and to budget, overseeing the work, coaching junior members of staff and working closely with a project coordinator. Current projects include work on green pensions, payroll savings and affordable credit. They include a mix of qualitative research, impact evaluations (usually randomised controlled trials), and targeted advice to financial institutions. 

• Business development. Working closely with the Economic Policy Director, the BIT CEO and BIT’s Growth Team, you will shape and oversee the business development strategy for our financial behaviour portfolio, setting out priority areas of focus for our next slate of projects and programmes. You will support the team to implement the strategy, and directly lead the most significant opportunities, such as multi-year programmes. 

• Client relationship management. We work with a mix of public and private sector partners. Ongoing & recent partnerships include the Money and Pensions Service, Department for Work & Pensions, Royal London, Yorkshire Building Society, Level Financial Technology, Nationwide Building Society and Scottish Widows. 

• Supporting company and cluster management as needed, for instance on training and development, and staff well-being, working closely with the Economic Policy Director. 

If you want to answer these questions and think you would enjoy the role, why not apply?

What makes a great Principal 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.

• Supporting and developing teams. You can nurture talent and energise people to perform at their best. You can align a team with an overarching vision and mission as well as concrete strategic and tactical goals. You care about the success, development and wellbeing of others and can have meaningful (and sometimes difficult!) conversations.

• Overseeing programmes and client relationships. You can guide and motivate your team to produce high quality work within budgetary and time constraints and are an effective and experienced manager of important client relationships.

• Taking a strategic approach. You know how to align with strategic priorities, can map out concrete action plans to continue developing the portfolio in line with those priorities, and can turn strategic priorities into objectives for team members.

• Leading a business development effort. You understand how to plan and oversee business development. You have experience setting out and meeting clear business development goals and leading business development efforts.

• Understanding and responding to policy priorities. You have a good understanding of public policy priorities related to household and personal finances. You can articulate BIT’s position on some of the key priorities and how BIT could help support those priorities.

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 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

• 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.

Please note:

You will need to have the right to work in the UK in order to be able to undertake this role. We will ask all applicants short-listed for an interview to provide evidence of their right to work during the recruitment process.  If you do not have the right to work for BIT but are the most suitable person for the role we will explore with you whether sponsorship may be an option. However, this may not be possible for all roles.

Some of the personal data you provide to Applied when you apply for a role with The Behavioural Insights Team will be passed on to The Behavioural Insights Team for the purposes of (a) reviewing your application; (b) inviting you for interview; and/or (c) offering you a job and getting you set up as an employee/contractor. For full details on how BIT collects and uses your personal data please visit our website - https://www.bi.team/bit-global-recruitment-privacy-notice/ 

If your application is not successful, any personal data provided to us by Applied (including any personal data relating to equal opportunities monitoring as set out above) will be retained by The Behavioural Insights Team for no longer than 6 months after the application deadline has passed (other than in exceptional circumstances where we may need to retain your personal data for longer), at which point your personal data will be securely deleted. We only keep your information for that period in order to allow us to comply with relevant legal obligations.