Principal Consultant, Data Science, Research & Evidence Practice

Overview

The Research and Evidence Practice at Oxford Policy Management is currently seeking a Principal Consultant on a full-time,
permanent basis. The position can be located in any of the following offices:
Abuja, Addis Ababa, Berlin, Dar es Salaam, Islamabad, Nairobi, New Delhi
, or Oxford.

We are an international development consultancy working to improve lives through sustainable policy change in low- and middle-income countries. Our vision is for fair public policy that benefits both people and the planet.

Through our global network of offices, we work in partnership with national stakeholders and decision makers to research, design, implement and evaluate impactful public policy. We draw on our local and international sector experts to provide the very best evidence-based support. We deliver projects with expert knowledge and experience, and can be relied upon for excellence in all aspects of project delivery.

We work collaboratively, with ambition, to help deliver impactful public policy that will bring about lasting change.

OPM’s Data Science team seeks to apply modern data science methods to a wide range of challenges in international development. We make use of innovative technology across the data and policy cycles underpinned not only by sector-specific technical expertise and a creative use of new technology, but also a deep understanding of the drivers and obstacles to behaviour change and organisational reform in development environments.

The Data Science team is part of our wider Quantitative Methods and Data Science technical area, within the Research and Evidence Practice. Other methods teams in this technical area focus on quantitative impact evaluations, quantitative primary data collection, third-party monitoring, and MEL systems.

The Principal Consultant will lead the Data Science team in utilising modern data science methods in a wide range of settings, from the use of machine learning to improve existing impact evaluation methodologies or to conduct text analytics for monitoring and evaluation, to the use of Big Data to support the use and analysis of online-generated and disseminated data to support programme implementation.

They will lead the team in business development activities and in shaping an offer for governments, funders and partners that is analytically rigorous, whilst focused on real-life application and delivery.

As a Principal Consultant and leader of our Data Science team you will:

• Lead the technical delivery and quality assurance of projects employing modern data science methods. This might involve projects that rely on survey data, but a particular focus would be on projects where we work with data and methods not traditionally used in the social sciences and policy formulation: text data (NLP and AI/LLM deployment), imagery (satellites, mobile phones, etc.), social media data, geospatial data, mobile phone data, etc.
  
  Analytical techniques should focus on how to derive policy-relevant insights from such data and could relate to both predictive work and inferential analyses, with a focus on causal inference. Given recent developments in the use of AI and LLMs, this area is of particular importance to us.
• Work across the full project cycle including defining analysis plans, leading scoping visits, designing approaches and models, overseeing data production, designing and carrying out data analysis, providing technical quality assurance and disseminating results through written reports, briefing notes, presentations, and dashboards.
• Contribute to the Portfolio’s intellectual capital development activities, including developing technical resources such as standardised approaches and tools that can easily be shared in a collaborative working environment.
• Manage a team of quantitative data analysis specialists, providing support and on-the-job learning for junior team members, and delivering internal training seminars to contribute to the wider company’s technical development in quantitative analysis.
• Lead on business development, including shaping and driving the strategic direction and management of OPM’s Data Science offer and leading proposal…