Deputy Chief Economist

Requirements of the role

We have two opportunities for a Deputy Chief Economist to join our Chief Economist Team within the Office of the Chief Executive Directorate.

We are Ofwat, the Water Services Regulation Authority, a non-ministerial government department responsible for regulating the water sector in England and Wales.

The Chief Economist Team (CET) is part of the Office of the Chief Executive Directorate, which is a group of cross cutting teams, also including our legal, communications, corporate governance, secretariat, investor relations and information governance teams that work with teams across the whole of Ofwat.

You can find out more about why you should join Ofwat, our strategy, values and our framework for success in the attached Information for Candidates Pack.

Job description
The Role

Reporting to the Chief Economist, you will have responsibility for overseeing key areas of CET’s work by leading teams to develop rigorous economic thinking and advice to inform our policies, including on how to improve the current regulatory framework so that Ofwat delivers its strategic objectives. You may also be required to lead on international engagement.

The CET reports directly to the Chief Executive of Ofwat and plays an important role across all areas of Ofwat’s work. It leads on the economic input into a number of strategic work programmes, such as developing our future regulatory strategy, mergers and competition work, one-off research/analytical pieces as well as our approach to impact assessments and evaluation.

The CET supports other teams across Ofwat, for example by scrutinising the decisions on price reviews, supporting teams focused on developing markets and supporting regulatory policy development across several areas such as the environment, customers and innovation.

Key deliverables:

As Deputy Chief Economist, you will be involved in and/or lead some of the following areas of work:

The design of regulatory frameworks, such as our approach to price controls.
Check and challenge of work developed across the office.
Assessments of mergers between water companies.
Advising on, or carrying out, ex-ante impact assessment and ex-post evaluation of Ofwat’s work.
Supporting policy development or providing economic advice across the office where skills do not exist within the teams.
Leading our international engagement programme.
In this role you will also be expected to:

Lead a team of approximately 5 members, role modelling, and encouraging others to display Ofwat’s preferred ways of working, behaviours, and values.
Provide economic advice on economic and/or quantitative issues across areas at Ofwat.
Communicate clearly, tailored to suit the needs of the audience, in a strategic, influential, succinct, and persuasive manner.
This is a wide-ranging role and there is a scope for responsibilities to evolve over time.

View on member website