Economic Advisor: Transport Cost Benefit Analysis Lead
| Posting date: | 11 March 2026 |
|---|---|
| Salary: | £57,515 per year |
| Additional salary information: | National Minimum Salary: £57,515; London Minimum Salary: £62,034 |
| Hours: | Full time |
| Closing date: | 29 March 2026 |
| Location: | London |
| Company: | Government Recruitment Service |
| Job type: | Permanent |
| Job reference: | 448283/3 |
Summary
Have you managed research or analytical projects that build robust evidence bases or improve appraisal methods?
Do you enjoy working with a wide range of stakeholders to provide clear, high‑quality analytical insight?
If so, we’d love to hear from you!
DfT is a high-profile department at the heart of UK government. We work with agencies and partners to support the transport network that helps businesses and gets people and goods travelling around the country. We plan and invest to make journeys better.
Joining our department comes with many benefits, including:
- Employer pension contribution of 28.97% of your salary. Read more about Civil Service Pensions here
- 25 days annual leave, increasing by 1 day each year of service (up to a maximum of 30 days annual leave), plus 8 bank holidays a privilege day for the King’s birthday
- Flexible working options where we encourage a great work-life balance.
Read more in the Benefits section below!
Find out more about what it's like working at DFT.
This is an exciting opportunity for an economist to join the Department for Transport’s Transport Appraisal & Strategic Modelling (TASM) Division—our centre of excellence for transport appraisal and modelling. Working within the Transport Economics and Appraisal team, you’ll contribute to cutting‑edge research, provide high‑quality economic insight for major investment decisions, and collaborate with experts across government, industry and academia. You will manage significant research programmes, support junior analysts, and help shape nationally important transport appraisal and policy development.
Your responsibilities will include, but aren’t limited to:
- Taking a lead role in developing and taking forward the Department’s Appraisal and Modelling Strategy, working closely with embedded analytical and policy teams to anticipate future analytical requirements, specify & deliver enhancements to the evidence base and influence policy development.
- Being the Department’s lead on appraisal accounting in cost-benefit analysis, understanding how issues such as discounting, rule of half and appraisal period may affect different modes and investments in different ways, so that the best appraisal advice can be given to decision-makers.
- Maintaining and developing the Department’s evidence on how travellers value improvements in transport (e.g. quicker and more reliable journeys), the distributional impacts of investment on social welfare, and exploring emerging sources of evidence to support the analysis of transport investments, including how transport impacts on economic growth.
- Developing and maintaining the team’s suite of appraisal software tools, including the TAG data book and TUBA (Transport User Benefit Analysis).
- Supporting the development of proposals for a range of high profile transformational schemes (e.g. HS2, Northern Powerhouse Rail, EWR, any many more) by providing expert advice and critical challenge, and working to ensure the development of the evidence base is relevant and robust and coordinated across the Department.
- Collaborating with colleagues in HMT, DESNZ, DEFRA and the Department of Health to ensure a consistent basis for decisions across Government.
Great line management is important to us as an organisation, and we will equip and support line managers to develop the skills they need. We aim to empower line managers to create teams where people can flourish and deliver excellent outcomes for the public.
For further information on the role, please read the role profile. Please note that the role profile is for information purposes only - whilst all elements are relevant to the role, they may not all be assessed during the recruitment process. This job advert will detail exactly what will be assessed during the recruitment process.
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