Financial Economist

Requirements of the role

We have an opportunity for a Financial Economist to join our Risk and Return Team within the Price Review Directorate.

The Risk and Return Team is part of the Price Review (PR24) Directorate. The team plays a crucial part in the delivery of Ofwat’s strategy, which sets agreed, funded deliverables and performance incentives 2025-2030 for water companies.

Our aim for PR24 is to align the interests of companies and investors with those of customers, so that the sector is attractive to investors – and companies can only earn high returns from great performance.

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

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

We are looking for a Financial Economist to join our Risk and Return team. You will initially join the Allowed return on capital workstream, supporting work concerning the allowed return on equity.

In February several companies asked us to refer our PR24 determinations to the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) for a redetermination, a process that could potentially last until March 2026. All companies have challenged our approach to setting the allowed return on equity. The successful candidate will therefore initially support Ofwat in making representations to the CMA to support our position, responding to its enquiries, and in considering its redetermined proposals.

The role will be impactful. The allowed return is responsible for approximately a quarter of the average water bill; thus fractions of a percentage point can have an impact of hundreds of millions of pounds. In addition, the results of the CMA appeals process are likely to have important repercussions to the way the allowed return is set in other economically regulated sectors (e.g. energy, telecoms, and aviation).

Key deliverables:

In this role you will be expected to:

Interpret and present financial arguments and analysis – identify key arguments in submissions and explain them, while having due heed to the technical level of the intended audience.
Interrogate code and models – assess non-Ofwat Excel models and statistical software code that you have experience with; potentially with scope to do modelling/coding to support Ofwat arguments.
Plan and prioritise your time – working to team-level and directorate-level milestones, allowing for new developments to require reprioritisation.
Conduct and commission financial analysis – apply concepts from financial economics to support arguments, drawing on support from Ofwat’s consultants (and other stakeholders) where appropriate.
Plan and prioritise your time – working to team-level and directorate-level milestones, allowing for new developments to require reprioritisation.
Contribute to drafting slide packs and documents – for instance sections of submissions to the CMA or internal slide-packs to identify preferred policy options.
Verbally present findings – for instance briefing the team’s Director on the key findings of review work or analysis.
Oversee junior staff time – while not primarily a management role, it may at points involve managing the time of a more junior colleague or consultant.
Build relationships – in particular with Risk & Return team members, and other Ofwat teams where there is thematic overlap, and external stakeholders such as counterparts in other regulators.
Develop skills – to build on your existing base of financial economics knowledge and skills through taking on structured or unstructured learning opportunities.

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