Principal Consultant, Data Science, Research & Evidence Practice

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.

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.
• 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 development in support of new business.
• Contribute to the portfolio's intellectual reputation, through external engagement activities to promote OPM's high-quality, high-impact use of data science and AI.

Key Qualifications / Experience / Skills / Behaviours:

• Degree and post-graduate qualification (master’s degree or PhD) in a relevant discipline: data science or economics, development economics or other social science discipline with significant data science training and application in social sciences.
• At least 12 years’ experience of applied quantitative social science research or policy advice, with a focus on policies in low- and middle-income countries.
• An in-depth understanding of the data landscape in low- and middle-income countries, including traditional (survey, census) and non-traditional data.
• Significant experience in using and applying innovative data science techniques in areas relevant to OPM’s work, such as machine learning methods for predictive analytics, wrangling and analysis of large datasets, geospatial mapping, text analytics, AI in evaluations, and creating interactive and shareable dashboards for data visualisation.
• Experience of developing and applying AI pipelines (i.e. via local deployment of LLMs) in contexts relevant to OPM’s work.
• Fluency working in R, Python, or other statistical programming packages used for quantitative social science research.
• Team management experience.
• Ability to travel overseas for short-term assignments.

Desirable Qualifications/Experience/Skills/Behaviours:

• Experience with big data handling, parallel computing.
• Ability to work in at least one relevant language, other than English.
• Experience in designing and implementing experiments or quasi-experiments in the social sciences.
• Experience of combining survey data with other non-traditional data for the purposes of evaluating policies.

Our Offer:

We enable colleagues’ capacity to grow professionally through enhanced learning resources, opportunities to work cross-functionally, and space to engage with a range of internal and external industry events. Our non-hierarchical culture values support, collaboration, intellectual curiosity, and a rich diversity of perspectives. We provide an exceptionally generous annual leave entitlement and a hybrid working model to encourage and enable healthy work/life balance. Wellbeing resources including a global Employee Assistance Programme and access to the UnMind app. Competitive salary and contributory pension scheme.

We are strengthened by the diversity of colleagues across our global business and are committed to being an equal opportunities employer, promoting a diverse and inclusive workplace for all. Our recruitment practices reflect our ambition to make the international development sector more inclusive and firm belief that our work delivers the best outcomes when we actively include a diversity of perspectives and experiences.

If you share our vision for fair public policy that benefits both people and planet, we would love to hear from you. Please submit your application through our careers’ site by the advertised closing date. Unfortunately, we are unable to provide visa sponsorship for this role and candidates must have a pre-existing right to work in one of the countries in which the position could be based (Germany, Ethiopia, India, Kenya, Nigeria, Pakistan, Tanzania, United Kingdom) for their application to be considered. Oxford Policy Management is committed to promoting equity, diversity, and inclusion at every level of the business. Should you require adjustments to make the application process more accessible please inform us.