Are you looking for a new challenge and want to join a successful and rapidly growing organisation? Do you have a passion for exploring new ways to change people’s lives at a national scale through government policy? If so, we want to hear from you.

What does a Principal Advisor do?

This role is in our International Programme team. As a Principal Advisor, you will oversee projects spanning a wide range of policy areas and countries that could include:

• Online experiments to understand how to promote more sustainable lifestyles or improve financial literacy.
• Interventions to increase young people’s enrollment in technical and vocational training or reduce food waste and electricity consumption.
• Supporting the establishment of Behavioural Insights Units within government.
• Delivering capacity training to senior policy makers in the region.

This role is at Principal Advisor level which means you will be involved in things like:

• Work closely with the cluster director to develop and deliver on the international development strategy and the company’s international expansion in the MENA region. This covers working and developing our pipeline of projects with governments, international agencies, third sector organisations, charities and philanthropies in the MENA region.
• Support the cluster director to oversee the delivery and quality of the cluster’s work in MENA. You will be responsible for the delivery of a range of projects for diverse government, public and private sector partners. Your role is to ensure these projects are high quality, deliver meaningful impact, and are run efficiently and on budget.
• Support the cluster director to manage the international programmes team, including line management and broader coaching and support to the rest of the team.
• Manage key client and stakeholder relationships in MENA, staying close to partners to understand their priorities, developing new relationships, managing issues, and leading client meetings.
• Work with other clusters to bridge gaps between portfolios and leverage opportunities to maximise impact through drawing in the right subject matter expertise.
• Represent the business externally through talks, potential media appearances, and written content.
• Regular international travel will be required for project work.

What makes a great  Principal Advisor at BIT?

We are looking for people who understand what we do, share our values and are keen to learn and develop their expertise. We are looking for candidates with the skills listed below. We expect to provide training and development support in some of the areas.

• A good understanding of the application of behavioural science to real-life policy problems in the MENA region.
• Strong cultural sensitivity and experience adapting and delivering work in different contexts.
• Strong technical skills and the ability to oversee qualitative and quantitative research.
• Exceptional written and verbal communication (for example ability to extract short, to-the-point summaries from complex research findings for Ministers or senior officials).
• A keen sense of personal impact and cultural sensitivity – a courteous, diplomatic yet (when needed) assertive manner when dealing with partners.
• Strong knowledge of priorities and geo-political circumstance in the region.
• Strong project management skills and experience, particularly in projects with a complex research component.
• Strong research leadership skills alongside a clear focus on collaborative working, including supporting team members to develop their own skills and expertise; and
• Experience presenting to large and/or influential audiences and facilitating workshops with research and policy professionals.
• Fluency in Arabic is desirable.

Who are we and what can we offer you?

The Behavioural Insights Team is the world leader in applying behavioural science to public policy challenges in order to strengthen communities and improve lives.

We design and rigorously test new ideas across a range of areas such as health, crime and education, to establish what works and what doesn’t. We have helped Tuberculosis patients take their medicine; reduced police susceptibility to cyberattacks; and helped organisations close their gender pay gap.

We are looking for a passionate and imaginative individual who understands behavioural science and shares our thirst for evidence-based solutions to join our dynamic and growing team.

BIT really is a great place to work:

• We encourage flexible working and have a culture which enables this; for example flexible start and finish times and an IT set up which allows for easy working from home options.
• We offer 25 days of annual leave (in addition to public holidays) for full-time employees, rising to 27 days after 2 years continuous service.
• We have a generous pension scheme with 7% employer contribution.
• We offer enhanced parental leave payments.
• We have regular team lunches with inspirational guest speakers.
• We have a flexible benefits programme which currently includes things like gym memberships, pension top up, cycle to work schemes, Medical and Dental Cash Plans and the ability to buy extra annual leave at the start of the year.
• We’re a social bunch and have a variety of interest groups including Film Club, BIT Kids for our parents & 5-a-side team to name a few.
• We have a great office, which has an amazing  cafeteria with discounted breakfast and lunch, great coffee and snacks.

How to apply

We use a great platform called Applied to reduce bias in the recruitment process. You will need to answer a few work-based questions which will be anonymously marked by members of our team. Our selection is based on performance in these questions, rather than looking at your CV.

Candidates with the top scoring answers will be invited to a structured interview where you get to meet some of the team. At the interview stage you will be asked questions that reflect the role and also to complete a work-based task, so you have the chance to demonstrate your skills. It’s at this stage we first see your CV. We always give all applicants feedback, no matter what stage your application reaches.

Key dates:

• Role closes: Monday 1st April  at 12:00pm BST (midday)
• Interviews and task completion: w/c 8th April 2024
• If necessary, second round interviews: w/c 15th April 2024

Please note that all dates are subject to change (but we’ll do our best not to change them!)

Please note:

You will need to have the right to work in the UK in order to be able to undertake this role. We will ask all applicants short-listed for an interview to provide evidence of their right to work during the recruitment process.  If you do not have the right to work for BIT but are the most suitable person for the role we will explore with you whether sponsorship may be an option. However, this may not be possible for all roles.

Some of the personal data you provide to Applied when you apply for a role with The Behavioural Insights Team will be passed on to The Behavioural Insights Team for the purposes of (a) reviewing your application; (b) inviting you for interview; and/or (c) offering you a job and getting you set up as an employee/contractor. For full details on how BIT collects and uses your personal data please visit our Global Recruitment Privacy Notice.

If your application is not successful, any personal data provided to us by Applied (including any personal data relating to equal opportunities monitoring as set out above) will be retained by The Behavioural Insights Team for no longer than 6 months after the application deadline has passed (other than in exceptional circumstances where we may need to retain your personal data for longer), at which point your personal data will be securely deleted. We only keep your information for that period in order to allow us to comply with relevant legal obligations.