The Behavioural Insights Team (BIT) is looking for a Research Advisor - Data Science to join us. You will be contributing data science to a range of projects across all of BIT’s policy teams, covering policy areas such as health, social care, economy, and local government. It also involves occasionally working with our affiliate, Nesta, on mission-advancing projects. 

This role offers the opportunity to take part in designing and delivering data science projects for public good. Our work is highly varied, and you will be employing a wide range of techniques, such as clustering and causal machine learning methods to understand how different groups in society respond to different policies, creating synthetic datasets for safe use of research data, social network analysis, and other innovative methods to drive behavioural data science. You will also be instrumental in expanding the application of generative AI to our projects. If you have a strong data background and have a passion for socially impactful, creative data science solutions, then this is the role for you. 

The role will involve working with the data science and wider research and evaluation team, and report to the Head of Data Science. There will be opportunities for mentoring from more senior data scientists in the team at BIT as well as benefits from being a member of Nesta’s Data Science Practice, which is a thriving data science community of more than 20 members. The Data Science Practice offers immense learning and training opportunities in addition to interesting project work. You will also benefit from working alongside research and evaluation experts, making this an ideal position for someone looking to develop their data science credentials in a public policy environment. 

What does a Research Advisor do? 

As a Research Advisor at BIT you will:

• Deliver data-driven projects that have social impact, ranging from research and analysis to creating novel datasets and applying machine learning models.

• Assist in designing, scoping and delivering projects with the support of technical colleagues, domain experts and practitioners from other disciplines.

• Communicate outputs of your work to a wide range of internal and external audiences.

• Help enable our data science methods to stay at the cutting edge by keeping abreast of new techniques and developments in the field and seeking ways to use them

What makes a great Research 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.

Essential

A Bachelor or Masters qualification in a relevant quantitative discipline (e.g. economics, mathematics, statistics or data science)

Or

At least one year of data science experience in industry or the public/third sector

Plus:

• Proficiency in at least one of R and Python for working with data;  

• Experience in preparing, using and analysing data sets, including:

  • data wrangling 

  • exploratory data analysis 

  • data visualisation;

• Advanced analytical skills. Ideally you will have some proficiency with machine learning methods, but other experience is also valued. (N.B. We will provide opportunities to build up your knowledge of ML methods);

• A clear understanding of the strengths and weaknesses of different predictive methodologies (e.g. gradient boosting or neural networks or generalised linear models), including those that you are not an expert in; 

• Excellent written and verbal communication skills (and ability to translate academic work to non-academic audiences);

• Willingness to be an active team member who collaborates with others and contributes to strengthening team connections;

• Ability to design data science approaches that will solve problems and answer questions

• Ability to make decisions and prioritise tasks to keep projects on track and ensure outputs are of a high quality, and communicate these decisions clearly with project members; 

• Ability to communicate with technical and non-technical stakeholders, with evidence of clear and structured written outputs such as blogs, reports or papers

Desirable

• Experience in statistical methods, such as experimental data analysis, statistical explanatory modelling or causal inference;

• Experience programming in both R & Python; 

• Experience using Git and GitHub (or equivalent) for version control;

• Awareness of data engineering methods such as scalable data collection (e.g. APIs, web-scraping) or database management systems (SQL or NoSQL);

• Ability to develop high quality data visualisations using R, Python, or tools such as Flourish. 

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 crime, workplace processes and International Development, to establish what works and what doesn’t. We have helped reduce police susceptibility to cyberattacks, helped organisations close their gender pay gap and help set up behavioural insight units in countries like the UAE.

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, 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. 

Key dates:

• Role closes: 22nd January 2024 at 12pm (midday) GMT

• Interviews and assessment tasks will take place: w/c 29th January 2024

• If necessary, 2nd stage interviews will take place: w/c 5th February 2024

• Start date - ASAP.

All dates are subject to change (but we’ll do our best not to change them!)

If we think that you're suitable for an alternative role at BIT due to your skills and experience - e.g. an Associate Advisor level or Quantitative researcher - we may discuss this during the offer stage.

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.