This role can be based at any of our office locations: London, Birmingham, Bristol, Manchester, York, Glasgow.

This economist role will be responsible for all economic assessment and economic policy advice for the Access, Licensing & International team. This includes leading our economic assessment of applications for use of the railway, supporting our international policy work and leading analytical work within the team.At ORR we have adopted hybrid working and are currently expected to work from a workplace location for a minimum of two days per week.

Team information

The team deals with all ORR’s statutory access and licensing casework and policy. This includes approving contracts to access track, stations and depots, connection contracts, and issuing licences and exemptions needed by all operators.

Job Purpose

This economist role will be responsible for all economic assessment and economic policy advice for the Access, Licensing & International team. This includes leading our economic assessment of applications for use of the railway, supporting our international policy work and leading analytical work within the team. The role will provide expert economic and analytical advice on policy proposals and contribute to the assessment of impact of different policy options.

This role may also have the opportunity to support analytical and wider economics projects within ORR, such as our reviews of access charges.

This role requires an economics professional who is able to draw on a strong background in economic assessment and analytical approaches. This role is part of the Economics profession and will have a dotted line to Head of Incentives and Reform in the Rail Economics team who will provide professional support.

Key Responsibilities

Your key responsibilities, although not exhaustive, will include:

• Deliver high quality economic analysis, including the economic assessment of the impact of open access applications (i.e. Not Primarily Abstractive test) and assessment of the costs and benefits of competing proposals for use of the railway. This will draw on tools such as MOIRA, WebTAG, and Green Book. This will need to be coordinated with the Rail Economics team.
• Identify opportunities to develop and improve our tools and evidence base for assessing applications for use of the rail network. This includes undertaking analysis, anticipating evidence gaps and future evidence needs, scoping work projects, collaborating with colleagues across ORR and where necessary managing consultancy projects.
• Provide expert economic assessment and advice on the impact and implementation of policy proposals, for example, arising out of the government rail reform programme.
• Provide analytical support to our policy work (including international policy work), for example, coordinating expertise from across ORR to assess and evaluate different options for access charging regimes.
• Apply and support others to apply economic tools, techniques, and methods to a range of policy areas. This will make use of the role holder’s economic knowledge, specialist knowledge within the Access, Licensing and International team and draw on wider expertise in the Rail Economics team and other colleagues as required.
• Promote and support analysis and evidence-based policy making within the Access, Licensing & International team. This could include improving our post-implementation evaluation of access decisions and more generally identifying objective analytical methods, resources required and potential delivery risks.
• You may also have the opportunity to lead and contribute to wider economics projects across ORR, and the Rail economics team in particular.

Colleagues at this level are expected to:

• Operate with credibility and inclusiveness;
• Produce written reports, briefing notes and committee papers to a high standard;
• Develop proposals and projects;
• Present analysis, proposals and recommendations to internal and external audiences, including non-specialists;
• Commission and oversee consultancy projects; and
• Contribute to your own and wider team development through knowledge dissemination.

You will be encouraged to develop your economic and other professional skills: ORR is committed to personal development, and you will have attractive training opportunities to help you develop your career.

Essential Criteria

When assessing your application, these are the criteria that you are assessed against:

This job description provides an overview of key duties and responsibilities and is not exhaustive. You may be expected to undertake other duties and responsibilities within the scope of your role and as appropriate for your grade.

Application deadline: Monday, 20 May 2024