Programme Director: Economics & Regulation

Requirements of the role

We are the UK’s aviation and aerospace regulator and recognised as a world leader in its field. Our activities are diverse, enabling the aviation industry to meet the highest safety standards, and we pride ourselves on our ability to adapt to the constantly evolving aviation environment.

The Role

The economic regulation and competition policy team is a vital part of the Civil Aviation Authority’s (CAA) Consumers and Markets Group. It protects consumers by ensuring that airports and air traffic service (ATS) providers do not exploit their market position and has responsibility for the economic regulation of Heathrow Airport Limited (HAL), Gatwick Airport Limited (GAL) and the monopoly air traffic services provider for the UK, NATS (En Route) Plc (NERL). It is also responsible for discharging the CAA’s concurrent competition responsibilities relating to airports and ATS.
Its remit is expanding to provide economic input to the CAA’s wider work, including consumer protection, airport and airline competition issues, promoting resilience and sustainability across the aviation sector, delivering airspace modernisation and shaping new technology markets, such as for remotely piloted aircraft (e.g. drones). Understanding the impact of policy options and our actions is essential in ensuring we protect and promote the interests of consumers while allowing a fair investment opportunity for investors and supporting wider aviation policy.

We are looking for a highly experienced economist to play a critical delivery role as Programme Director in our wider economics role and in the regulation of airports and ATS. Working closely with the Economics Director and Chief Economist, and alongside other Programme Directors, this role will oversee the design and delivery of high-quality economic analysis and regulatory policy input to programmes across the CAA.

Reporting to the Economics Director, the Programme Director will manage delivery and implementation of our work programmes to support the CAA’s strategic priorities and statutory duties. They will oversee the work of Heads and senior regulatory experts in the team, as well as working with subject matter specialists across the CAA, and overseeing the commission and delivery of work by consultants.

As a highly experience economist and Programme Director you will be responsible for the timely delivery of robust, evidence based and assured regulatory analysis and policy to support key decisions that stand up to intense legal and stakeholder scrutiny, applying first principles to solve important economic issues where there is limited precedent and the production of high-quality documents for publication – excellent drafting and editing skills are an essential requirement of the post.

This role is a permanent position and offers the opportunity for professional development, through working within a highly experienced team and directly influencing and engaging with senior leaders. We understand that work life balance is key and would be happy to consider those seeking part time work and/or a job share as well as those seeking a full-time role. We operate (and are committed to) a hybrid working model, with the flexibility to work remotely for part of the week.

Core Accountabilities

The Programme Director: Economics & Regulation will be responsible for:

• Leadership of and driving forward work programmes that inject rigorous economic thinking into the CAA’s strategic policy priorities and regulation of airports and ATS. This requires the production of robust, evidence based and assured regulatory analysis to support key potentially multi-billion-pound decisions on price controls, that can stand up to intense legal and stakeholder scrutiny.
• Developing the strategies and delivery of economic, market and financial analysis to support development of wider aviation policy priorities and the regulatory frameworks for airports and ATS, ensuring that the approaches taken are appropriately robust, given the materiality of the decisions and intense scrutiny from stakeholders.
• Influencing the development of wider policies across the CAA and ensuring that this wider policy development is informed by strong economic analysis and assessment.
• Ensuring key deliverables are clear, on time, produced to a high quality, robust to external challenge and scrutiny, and supported by appropriate quality assurance processes. This includes reviewing and drafting consultation, decision and policy papers that cover difficult technical issues as well as issues with the potential to generate intense media and stakeholder interest. It also includes the drafting and quality assurance of CAA board papers.
• Overseeing the work of a range of Heads, economists and policy advisors, and providing advice to the Economics Director, Chief Economist, the CAA Executive Committee and Board.
• Developing the overall approach to senior engagement with key internal and external stakeholders on the range of policy issues.
• Developing the strategy for using external technical advisors and consultants and ensuring the that their work is fit for purpose, dovetails with requirements and is high-quality.
• Working closely with the Chief Economist, Economics Director and other Programme Directors to ensure work is fully coordinated across the wider ERCP work programmes.
• Development and empowering of team members, through opportunities to develop skills and training, as a senior leader in the team.
• Championing and demonstrating CAA values and D&I policy.

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