About us

An exciting opportunity has arisen to join Pro Bono Economics (PBE), an organisation that prides itself on its flexible working environment, culture of learning, focus on employee wellbeing and the strength of our employee relationships. PBE offers a strong benefits package, opportunities for development and a team working at the top of their game.

PBE’s mission is to end low personal wellbeing in the UK. We do this by helping charities and social enterprises understand their economic and social impact, so they can improve their overall effectiveness. We enable professional economists from the private and public sectors as well as academia to volunteer their skills to tackle some of the most pressing issues in society. We have worked with over 500 charities since our inception in 2009.

Having successfully delivered a major programme of ground-breaking work on the condition of the charity sector in the form of the Law Family Commission on Civil Society at the start of 2023, PBE is entering a new phase in its development. Building on its growing research and policy expertise and its strong association with the social sector, the organisation is taking a bottom-up and top-down approach to exploring, understanding, and tackling the causes and consequences of low personal wellbeing in the UK that uses the insights and perspectives of charities and community groups as a unique jumping off point. PBE is focused on delivering high quality research that both translates into real policy and practice impacts for people with low wellbeing and supports a more effective social sector to help deliver that change.

About the role

The Head of Analysis is responsible for the management, delivery and development of all of PBE’s analytical output. They are a source of advice and leadership for members of the Research, Policy & Communications team, serving as the organisation’s data quality assurance backstop and driving analytical skills development across PBE. They will also play a key role in supporting the expansion of PBE’s research work into new areas, helping with the exploration of new data sources and the establishment of new networks across academia and the research community.

The Head of Analysis provides deep experience and expertise in relation to secondary quantitative analysis. They are proficient in a wide range of statistical methods and modelling and fluent in Stata (or similar). They have good familiarity with large UK microdata sets such as Understanding Society and the Labour Force Survey.

They work alongside the Chief Economist and the Director of Research, Policy & Communications to oversee PBE’s overall research programme, and they provide direct line management to several of the organisation’s Economists and Research & Policy Analysts.

Main duties & responsibilities

• Work with the Chief Economist to oversee the analytical work undertaken by PBE’s in-house and volunteer economists designed to help charities across the UK better measure and understand their impact.
• Work with the Director of Research, Policy & Communications and the Chief Economist to establish and deliver an overall research programme that helps PBE to understand the causes and consequences of low personal wellbeing in the UK.
• Work with the Director of Research, Policy & Communications to project manage workstreams within this overall programme. Take full responsibility for the delivery of selected analysis and reports and additionally provide support, leadership and quality assurance for colleagues in their work.
• Establish, manage and develop a PBE data ‘library’ of secondary data sources to provide insight on the low wellbeing challenge facing the UK. This includes: identifying relevant sources; accessing and cleaning microdata as appropriate (including within the Office for National Statistics secure zone); overseeing in-house coding in Stata (or similar) to support repeat analysis; interpreting findings; and communicating results to expert and non-expert audiences.
• Work with the Chief Economist and external partners to provide expertise and advice on econometric and statistical modelling. Additionally manage analytical training and development for the wider Research, Policy & Communications team.
• Manage several economists and analysts within PBE’s Research, Policy & Communications team, supporting them with day-to-day priorities and broader professional development.
• Lead on the exploration and development of innovate approaches to generating insight on low wellbeing in the UK, including the use of administrative data and the opportunities provided by AI and data science approaches.
• Work with the Director of Research, Policy & Communications to complete and win bids for multi-year research funding that provide PBE with the opportunity to take a strategic approach to fulfilling its mission.
• Propose, design and test policy solutions that promote PBE’s aims of using evidence to support social change.
• Where appropriate, communicate PBE’s work in print and broadcast media and represent PBE at our own seminars and at events run by others.
• Work with PBE’s Head of Communications to produce press notices and media campaigns and to organise events
• Any other duties as deemed reasonable by the line manager.

Experience

We are looking for experienced candidates with a high level of proficiency in quantitative analysis. The role would suit someone with

• formal analytical training and ideally some knowledge of the key government and administrative datasets relating to wellbeing, living standards and civil society in the UK. Candidates should be able point to a strong track record of delivering research, the ability to organise complex projects, and interest in developing policy recommendations.
• a passion for using evidence to drive better decisions and how this can contribute to improvements across wider society. You should have practical experience of using analytical techniques such as regression analysis, matching approaches and predictive analytics to analyse real world situations, and of communicating conclusions effectively to a wide range of audiences.

PBE believes that providing equality of opportunity, valuing and embracing diversity, promoting a culture of inclusion, and drawing on the skills, understanding and experience of our employees are vital to the success of our mission. We are guided by our values, and believe that being a diverse and inclusive organisation enables PBE not only to be a better employer, but ensures that PBE better understands society, enabling us to conduct better research and impact evaluations. We aim to ensure that equality is embedded in all of our activities, policies and decisions and will work with our collaborators to share good practice.

We strive to ensure that diversity and inclusion are an integral part of everything we do from the recruitment, retention, development and training of all our staff, and to ensure that we provide our services equitably to a diverse range of organisations.

We are using Be Applied to gather applications, with the aim of minimising bias during the recruitment process. The platform uses research and analytics to ensure we hire the best person for the job, irrespective of background.

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