Senior Analyst

Pathfinders Consulting Pty (LTD) | Full time

Cape Town, South Africa | Posted on 09/25/2026

South Africa's electricity market is being remade. Our Client helps the country understand what that means.

Our Client, a respected boutique energy economics consultancy and think tank at the centre of South Africa's power sector transition, is looking for an experienced Senior Analyst to lead projects on tariffs, regulation, wholesale market design and the financial analysis that underpins them. The firm publishes a subscription market intelligence product built on its own proprietary modelling suite, advises investors, developers, banks and large energy users, and produces independent research that shapes national energy policy.

With Eskom being unbundled, the South African Wholesale Electricity Market (SAWEM) being established and the sector's tariff and regulatory architecture being redesigned, every market participant needs to understand what these reforms mean for prices, revenues, risk and investment. Much of that understanding is produced by Our Client, and this role will help produce it.

A rigorous regulatory and financial analyst who already knows South Africa's electricity sector: its institutions, tariff structures, regulatory processes and reform agenda. You will have at least a Master's degree in economics, finance, engineering or a related quantitative discipline, and a minimum of five years' relevant professional experience, typically gained in regulatory or economic consulting, the regulatory, tariff or commercial team of a utility or municipality, an energy regulator, an independent power producer or trader, a bank or infrastructure investor, or an energy policy research organisation.

This is a senior technical role, not a management seat. You will take ownership of projects from first framing to final delivery: framing the problem, designing the analysis, building and owning the models, directing the work of analysts, and presenting conclusions to clients, funders, regulators and the public across the firm's advisory and public interest portfolios. You will work with the Head of Advisory Services and the Head of Policy and Public Interest, and directly with the Managing Director, on the firm's most consequential regulatory and market reform work.

As the firm becomes AI-native, you will be expected to put AI tools to work in your own analysis.

Tariff and regulatory economics: analyse and shape the design of electricity tariffs and the regulatory frameworks that govern them, including cost-of-supply and cost-reflectivity, the unbundling of generation, transmission, distribution and retail tariffs, wheeling and network charges, and the NERSA methodologies and determinations that set them, and prepare expert regulatory submissions and evidence.

Wholesale electricity market reform: analyse the design, rules and roll-out of SAWEM and the wider market reform programme, including market structure, transmission unbundling, system operator arrangements, trading and settlement, and the transition from single-buyer contracts to a competitive market, and translate these reforms into concrete implications for clients, subscribers and the public interest.

Financial and tariff modelling: build, own and quality-assure the financial models behind the firm's advice, including tariff and cost-of-supply models, utility and municipal revenue models, PPA and project finance models, and the revenue and risk analysis that connects them to power system modelling. Rigour, transparency and reproducibility are the standard.

Policy and regulatory analysis: research and interpret energy policy and regulation in South Africa and…