Economist Graduate 2024

As the UK’s communications regulator, we’re delivering vital work that helps keep the UK connected and shapes the future of how we’ll stay connected with each other.

Our work covers everything from phones and broadband, through to TV, radio, the postal service, and wireless devices. We’re also taking on the challenge of making the online world a safer place. And we need people of all backgrounds, skill sets, and experiences to help us achieve our goal of making communications work for everyone.

Communications play a crucial role in everyone's lives. As the regulator in this sector, Ofcom wants to make these markets work for everyone, and economics is central to this.

As an Ofcom Economist you will be involved in the issues straight away, formulating policy options and helping to reach robust decisions. You will start a rewarding career in a vital and dynamic sector and have opportunities to learn in a supportive and flexible environment.

The role

Ofcom’s Economics and Analytics Group is a dynamic, international team of around 100 competition and regulatory economists, data analysts and finance experts working on a range of issues relating to TV, radio, telecoms, postal services, spectrum and online safety.

Our work involves many stakeholders and uses a range of skills. For example, you might be working in teams that:

• Use behavioural economics to understand how people buy communication services and make it easier for them to switch provider
• Assess the potential positive and negative impact on the media sector of BBC services such as new TV channels and apps
• Analyse competitive conditions in broadband markets using applied industrial organisation theory, and identify ways to promote competition in the build out of fibre networks
• Adopt some of the principles of game theory and auction theory to inform the best ways to allocate portions of the airwaves over which wireless devices operate
• Design and interpret consumer surveys to understand what people want from their postal service to help design the scope of the postal universal service
• Build a conceptual understanding of the key factors that have facilitated the spread of online false information, and the harms this may generate

As a graduate economist, you will be working collaboratively in multi-disciplinary teams from day one to help ensure our policies have a sound economic foundation and deliver a real, long-term benefit to consumers. Your personal development is also important to us, so you will also receive support and training as you grow in your role. We are also happy to support learning opportunities for candidates with an interest in furthering their quantitative skills.

During your two years on the programme, there will be four six-month placements moving between projects, industry sectors and teams within Ofcom, exposing you to a broad range of competition, consumer and regulatory issues. When allocating you to specific projects, we consider your interests and skill sets to ensure that you can get the most out of the programme.

About you

For this role we are looking for talented economists with:

• An undergraduate degree in economics or a mixed degree that includes economics, or post-graduate qualification. For mixed degrees or post-graduate qualifications at least 50% should be in economics.
• A good understanding of microeconomic theory and its applications.
• Enthusiasm about economic thinking and its application to the real world 
• Strong communication skills
• Team-players
• Must have the Right to Work in the UK for the duration of the programme without requiring sponsorship

Benefits

• Flexible benefits allowance
• Pension allowance
• 25 days’ holiday
• Private medical insurance
• Life assurance
• Annual health check
• Income protection insurance

The application 

The application process consists of three stages:

• Initial application
• Blended Assessment
• Assessment Centre (to be held in Feb-Mar 2024)

For this role, you can be based in either the London, Edinburgh or Manchester offices. We also support flexible ways of working, wherever possible.

Ofcom is a forward-thinking, inclusive employer and recognises the value of diversity to truly make communications work for everyone. Our vision is to ensure Ofcom is a place where our people can work hard and be themselves. We aim to recruit from the widest pool of candidates possible – no matter your social background, ethnicity, sexual orientation, gender or disability. We strive to be representative of the whole of the UK and our aim is to be an employer of choice for everyone.

We champion flexible working patterns including job shares where we can. Discover more about working at Ofcom at careers.ofcom.org.uk

We strive to ensure all our recruitment information and processes are accessible to and useable by everyone. If you would like to receive any information in a different way or would like us to do anything differently to help you apply for our roles, please let our recruitment team know by emailing resourcing@ofcom.org.uk or by telephone on 0330 912 1378.

As a Disability Confident employer, we offer an interview to disabled applicants who meet the essential criteria for our advertised jobs. When you apply, you can let us know if you would like your application to be considered under this scheme (sometimes known as ‘guaranteed interview scheme’). Find out more about the scheme here:  https://www.ofcom.org.uk/about-ofcom/jobs/disability-confident-scheme 

For more information and guidance please visit: https://www.scope.org.uk/advice-and-support/ask-for-adjustments-at-interview

Further Information

When submitting your CV please include the following information (if applicable):

• Course title, predicted degree classification and year of completion
• Dissertation title, or any other relevant research or data projects undertaken
• Any relevant course modules (e.g., microeconomics, competition economics, industrial economics, micro-econometrics, data analytics)
• Any programming languages (and level of expertise) including examples of when you have used them.