The Behavioural Insights Team (BIT) is looking for 3 exceptional candidates to join as Associate Advisors in London. We are looking for one candidate who will specialise in social capital, one who will specialise in education, and one who will work across the three policy areas.

Our work in these areas aims to improve the way that health and social care is provided, to improve quality of life through education, and to increase social capital in communities. If you are passionate about applying behavioural science tin these areas, we want to hear from you!

Social Capital: The Social Capital team works with a variety of organisations to design and implement field trials on issues such as facilitating social connections in the built environment, improving charity effectiveness and increasing community wellbeing. You can read more about some of our recent work here, here and here.[1]

Health: The Health Team works on a broad range of cutting-edge projects including: encouraging uptake of mental health services, addressing burnout of NHS staff, improving efficiency in NHS procurement, as well as national and local obesity policy. You can read more about some of our recent work here, here and here.

Education: The Education team works on innovative projects spanning the early years, schools, further and higher education and lifelong learning. Current projects include parent engagement, teacher wellbeing, and encouraging girls to take STEM A levels. You can read more about our recent work here, here and here.

About the Behavioural Insights Team

The Prime Minister created BIT in 2010 to apply behavioural science to public policy in the UK. In February 2014 we became a social purpose company, owned by the Cabinet Office, Nesta (an innovation charity) and our employees.

The Behavioural Insights Team works with governments around the world in almost every area of Government 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 measure everything we do as robustly as we can.

BIT selects staff on the basis of cultural fit: all our staff believe passionately in our company values: always prioritising social impact; empiricism and humility; fresh thinking, collaboration; and public service.

Roles and Responsibilities

As an Associate Advisor you will support a wide range of projects, providing advice and project management. You will likely lead aspects of projects working to a Senior or Principal Advisor, and will also undertake discrete pieces of work (such as literature reviews or scoping out various aspects of projects). You will help to plan and organise randomised controlled trials, conducting research during explore project phases. You will also develop and suggest workable policy solutions, and prepare deliverables with a clear understanding of the overall project objectives. You will get regular exposure to a range of senior stakeholders and be expected to actively contribute to company development.

Skills and Experience

Essential

• An understanding of the behavioural science literature and how it can be applied to help solve complex policy problems;

• Excellent organisational skills;

• Exceptional written and verbal communication (for example ability to write short, to-the-point policy papers for Government Ministers or senior officials);

• Strategic thinking and creative problem solving;

• Strong teamwork skills - as a part of a small team you will need to be reliable and willing to take responsibility for the small details of projects and meetings.

• Curiosity about, and real interest in, current challenges related to government policy and having a positive social impact.

Desirable

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

• Experience of working with or within the UK health and/or social care system, the education sector, or in social capital;

• Ability to support the design and implementation of rigorous evaluations, including but not limited to randomised controlled trials.

[1] Note that while this team will collaborate closely with our local government team, it does not sit within that team