SEO Economist - Investment Analysis
| Posting date: | 26 June 2025 |
|---|---|
| Salary: | £41,156 to £48,817 per year |
| Additional salary information: | National: £41,156 - £45,112 London: £44,942 - £48,817 Additional analyst allowance of £4,245 annually |
| Hours: | Full time |
| Closing date: | 29 June 2025 |
| Location: | Salford |
| Company: | Government Recruitment Service |
| Job type: | Permanent |
| Job reference: | 413141/7 |
Summary
Foreign investment
This is an exciting time to work on foreign investment promotion and policy in government. Foreign investment plays a vital role in the UK economy.
Foreign investment drives growth across the UK, making significant contributions to government objectives such as the Industrial Strategy, Net Zero and regional growth. DBT plays a crucial role through programmes delivered by staff in the UK and globally, working closely with foreign investors to land investment projects across the UK and in all sectors.
With the creation of the expanded Office for Investment (OfI), there is an increasing recognition that evidence and analysis can underpin a faster paced and flexible offering to foreign businesses seeking to invest, while also allowing for a more rigorous and well-formed view of how the OfI should be targeting there offerings so as to maximise the benefit to wider society.
Investment Analysis
We are an inter-disciplinary team of analysts that undertake projects to inform and influence HMG investment promotion/facilitation activities and policy-making in both foreign and domestic investment. We are a world-leading team in our field, collaborating with international partners such as UNCTAD and the OECD, delivering ground-breaking analysis to improve the evidence base on investment and influence senior decision-making.
We work within the OfI to inform, appraise, monitor and evaluate DBT’s activities and contribute to the global understanding of investment impacts and best practice to influence these.
We are hiring 3 SEO economist roles within the Investment Analysis Team.
The postholder will work across multiple stakeholders, working collaboratively across the wider Investment Analysis division, as well as across department and organisational boundaries with relevant policy, operational and analytical specialists to influence both operational and strategic guidance. This includes working specifically with the Overseas Network of Investment Officers, the central Investment Delivery and Marketing divisions within OFL and the Digital, Data and Technology team within DBT.
The role may require occasional travel abroad to engage with DIT staff and external stakeholders.
Role 1 -
A Senior Assistant Economist in the FDI Regional Impacts branch. The postholder will work as part of a team to develop several products/tools through exploring a range of novel and developed datasets. The team aims to use the latest economic/data science methods coupled to understand and assess the regional impacts of foreign direct investment.
As a SEO Analyst within the team, you will be responsible for:
- Lead a programme of economic analysis to build our understanding and capability on the causes, drivers and impacts of investment at a sub-national level in the UK, including providing advice on the implications and implementation of recent Productivity Institute research on ‘transformational FDI’. You will draw upon your strong analytical skills to carry out analysis across teams across DBT and new research that addresses key evidence gaps in this space, and provide analytical insights to inform and influence DBT and HMG seniors and Ministers.
- The post-holder will work collaboratively across the wider Investment Analysis division, as well as across department and organisational boundaries with relevant policy, operational and analytical specialists. In the Regional investment Impact’s team, you will be working closely with OfI place teams, OfI product teams and with the director who leads on regional Growth.
- Undertake Green Book appraisal of DBT’s interventions at a sub-national level, including estimating impacts, value for money and identifying lessons learnt from programmes to attract foreign investment to the north and midlands in England. You will effectively communicate this analysis to senior DBT decision-makers and HMT officials, including during fiscal events.
- Apply technical skills to analyse large datasets. There are several datasets we have access to, and you would need to robustly model and analyse the various data and bring out key insights, including potentially through econometric analysis.
- Work closely and collaborate with policy and senior stakeholders so that your analysis is best targeted, well understood and used effectively to inform decision-making.
- Communicate and engage a range of important stakeholders, providing advice to senior leaders and Ministers and ensuring analytical projects and insights are understood and explained to achieve successful outcomes. You will engage and build relationships across DBT’s Analysis Group and Whitehall to share expertise on analytical approaches, facilitating mutual learning on techniques on investment policy.
- Where appropriate, leading on the commissioning and procurement of external research and monitoring and evaluation projects and managing contractors to deliver high quality evidence to challenging timelines.
- Contributing to wider team development, including task management and support for more junior analysts in the team and in making a wider corporate contribution to DBT.
Role 2 -
A SEO Analyst in the Impact Analysis – National branch. The postholder will work as part of a team to deliver a programme of work and lead economic analysis on the development of the investment evidence base, as well as supporting the operationalisation of said evidence.
As a SEO analyst within the team, you will be responsible for:
- Working collaboratively across the wider Investment Analysis division, as well as across department and organisational boundaries with relevant policy, operational and analytical specialists to influence a high-profile policy area. This includes working with teams across OfI, DBT Analysis Group and the wider Investment Promotion network as appropriate.
- Developing the overall evidence underpinning both day-to-day and strategic decision making across the department to maximise the impact of investment. Using technical skills to apply a range of methodologies including econometric modelling and data science techniques, while dealing with large scale datasets. This will include supporting the development of our forecasting capability, undertaking econometric modelling for wider investment analysis and potentially forthcoming publications on Greenfield FDI performance.
- Leading on Green Book economic appraisal for DBT’s interventions, providing advice on value for money, impacts and additionality of programmes to inform DBT senior officials and returns to HMT for fiscal events such as spending reviews.
- Reviewing, updating, synthesising and providing briefing on the latest trends in investment data to support investment strategies and planning, effectively communicating data and analysis to seniors and the wider Investment Promotion network.
- Work across the wider analytical community to synthesise investment analysis and ensure the key analytical insights from projects are distilled for non-technical audiences.
- Where appropriate, leading on the commissioning and procurement of external research and monitoring and evaluation projects and managing contractors to deliver high quality evidence to challenging timelines.
- Contributing to wider team development, including support for more junior analysts in the team and in making a wider corporate contribution to DBT.
Role 3 -
A Senior Assistant Economist in Investment Policy Analysis. The postholder will work as part of a multi-disciplinary team to deliver a programme of work and lead economic analysis on the development of the investment evidence base to support FDI policy and strategic development. Some examples of recent analysis are analysing FDI relationships between the UK and third countries, analysing the interaction between trade tariffs and FDI and impact of economic uncertainty on FDI. The postholder will work collaboratively across the department and organisational boundaries with relevant policy, operational and analytical specialists to influence a high-profile policy area.
As a Senior Assistant Economist within the team you will be responsible for:
- Developing the overall evidence underpinning both day-to-day and strategic decision making across the department to maximise the impact of investment. Using economic theory to explain existing FDI relationships and the potential impact on FDI from changes in economic policy in the UK and major overseas markets.
- Drawing on academic literature and academic expertise to enhance the Investment Promotion and Policy Analysis (IPPA) evidence base on economic events and their expected impact on inward and outward FDI.
- Leading on Green Book economic appraisal for DBT’s interventions, providing advice on value for money, impacts and additionality of programmes to inform DBT senior officials and returns to HMT for fiscal events such as spending reviews.
- Reviewing, updating, synthesising and providing upwards briefing on the latest trends in investment data to support investment strategies and planning, effectively communicating data and analysis to seniors.
- Work across the wider analytical community to synthesise investment analysis and ensure the key analytical insights from projects are distilled for non-technical audiences.
- Where appropriate, leading on the commissioning and procurement of external research and monitoring and evaluation projects and managing contractors to deliver high quality evidence to challenging timelines.
- Contributing to wider team development, including support for more junior analysts in the team and in making a wider corporate contribution to DBT.
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