Senior Associate Economists – Cost Assessment

Senior Associate Economists – Cost Assessment
* Office

Location:

London (E14 4HD
) or Birmingham (B5 4UA
) with hybrid working
* About Us We are Ofwat, the Water Services Regulation Authority, a non-ministerial government department responsible for regulating the water sector in England and Wales. The water sector is entering a new chapter. The government has set out a bold new direction, bringing together expertise from across the sector to deliver better outcomes for customers and the environment. We are collaborating with fellow regulators to respond to recommendations in The Independent Water Commission Report, the Welsh Government's response to the Green Paper, Shaping the Future of Water Governance in Wales, and the Government's White Paper, A new vision for water.

Ofwat is working with the government and other regulators to help create a new body for England, bringing together our strengths with those of the Drinking Water Inspectorate, the Environment Agency and Natural England. We are also continuing to work with the Welsh Government to support decisions on the future arrangements for Wales. While these changes take shape, our mission remains the same: to hold water companies to account, drive performance, and ensure the sector delivers real value for customers, communities, and the environment.

If you're passionate about making a difference, this is a unique moment to join us and help shape the future of water, and together we can continue to make a positive impact. T he Role We have 2 excellent opportunities for Economists to join our Cost Assessment Team in Price Review at Senior Associate level. These roles are full of influence and exciting challenges.

The cost assessment team plays a pivotal part in shaping price reviews, setting expenditure allowances, and developing policy in areas such as incentive design and improvements to the regulatory framework. As a Senior Associate Economist, you will lead one of several work streams within our cost assessment team:
1.Developing econometric models and related policy development for different segments of the water sector value chain.
2.Managing cross-cutting data that supports high-quality regulatory reporting to inform cost assessment and delivery of funded activities.
3.Designing and reviewing incentive tools to encourage delivery and hold companies to account at the next price review. You will work closely with principals, other senior associates, and graduate associates, and collaborate across teams. Depending on your specialism you will:
• Contribute to policy development in areas such as incentive design, cost benchmarking, and wider improvements to the regulatory framework.
• Support our work to review the price control deliverables (PCDs) framework to address the Independent Water Commission (IWC) recommendations on this subject.
• Contribute to policy development on our supervisory approach and how PCDs and wider delivery incentives will feed into this.
• Work with colleagues to improve our monitoring regime to continue supporting our ability to hold companies to account in a targeted and proportionate way.
• Support the development of our approach to setting expenditure allowances at the next price review, drawing on lessons from PR24 and the recommendations of the IWC.
• Work with colleagues to ensure robust, evidence-based recommendations for expenditure allowances.
• Engage with stakeholders across the sector, including water companies, other regulators, and internal teams.
• Contribute to the robust use of data across the cost assessment team, supporting the entire team with quality assurance, expert knowledge of Ofwat's databases and best-practice modelling tools.
• Providing expert advice to ensure data quality…