Senior Consultant – Energy Impact Assessment & Evaluation (EU Policy)

Our vision is to create a safe and sustainable world. Ricardo, member of WSP, is a global strategic, environmental, and engineering consulting company. With over 100 years of engineering excellence and employing close to 3,000 employees in more than 20 countries, we provide exceptional levels of expertise in delivering leading-edge and innovative cross-sector sustainable products and solutions. Every day, we enable our customers to solve the most complex and dynamic challenges to help achieve a safe and sustainable world.

The Role

We are seeking a highly skilled Senior Impact Assessment and Evaluation Specialist to support the European Commission in the design, appraisal, and evaluation of EU energy and climate policies. This role is ideal for an expert with deep knowledge of EU Better Regulation principles and strong experience applying evidence-based methodologies to energy, climate, and industrial transition topics. The successful candidate will lead and contribute to Impact Assessments, evaluations and analytical studies underpinning EU legislation and funding interventions across the energy system, including electricity, gas, hydrogen, CCUS and industrial decarbonisation.

Key focus areas

• Working primarily at the policy appraisal and decision-support end of the policy cycle, with particular focus on:

• EU Impact Assessment and Evaluation
• Application of Better Regulation Guidelines and Toolbox
• Problem definition, objectives, policy options and intervention logic
• Quantitative and qualitative impact assessment across economic, social and environmental dimensions
• Evaluation of EU legislation, programmes and funding instruments

• EU energy and climate legislation and initiatives (e.g. Fit for 55, Clean Industrial Deal, Electricity Market Design, EU ETS, NZIA)
• Energy infrastructure, markets and system transformation
• Industrial decarbonisation pathways, including hydrogen and CCUS as policy cases

• Cost-benefit analysis (CBA)
• Multi-criteria analysis (MCA)
• Distributional and competitiveness impacts
• Assessment of proportionality, effectiveness, efficiency and coherence

Key Responsibilities

• Leading or co-leading EU-level Impact Assessments and evaluations in the energy and climate domain for the European Commission and international institutions
• Designing and delivering analytical frameworks aligned with Better Regulation requirements, including intervention logic and theory of change, CBA, MCA and qualitative assessment
• Assessment of regulatory and non-regulatory options
• Providing economic and policy analysis to support decision-making on energy market and infrastructure regulation, industrial decarbonisation measures and public support schemes, EU funding instruments and State Aid interventions
• Managing and synthesising evidence from desk research, data analysis, modelling inputs and stakeholder engagement
• Engaging directly with EU institutions, Member State authorities and stakeholders through interviews, workshops and consultations
• Contributing to business development, including proposal writing, methodological design and technical leadership

Key Competencies and Experience

Essential

• A Master’s degree or PhD in economics, public policy, energy policy, environmental economics or a closely related discipline.
• Strong, hands-on experience with EU Impact Assessments and/or evaluations, including direct application of the Better Regulation Guidelines and Toolbox.
• Proven track record performing stakeholder engagement activities, including the design of consultation tools such as interviews, workshops, surveys.
• Proven experience working with EU institutions, in particular the European Commission (DG ENER, CLIMA, MOVE, GROW, etc.)
• Solid understanding of EU energy and climate policy frameworks, including energy market design and infrastructure policy, industrial and energy transition initiatives.
• Demonstrated experience applying economic appraisal tools, including CBA, MCA, distributional and competitiveness analysis.
• Experience in consultancy or policy advisory environments, including project delivery, client interaction and proposal development.
• Experience leading formal Impact Assessments or evaluations for EU institutions.

Desirable

• Familiarity with State Aid assessment and public funding evaluation.
• Knowledge of hydrogen, CCUS or industrial decarbonisation as policy case studies.
• Knowledge of EU grid package, the citizen energy package, the affordable energy package.
• Additional European languages (French, German, Italian, Spanish).

Working here

You will be warmly welcomed into our workplace where every voice matters. We are diverse thinkers and doers, coming together to create a culture of inclusion. We will support you to find your place. We will encourage you to use your passion and expertise to make a positive impact through the projects you work on. Your knowledge and desire to bring about change will be invaluable in helping deliver innovative solutions that support communities across the globe in becoming safer and more sustainable.

Work life balance

We offer flexible approaches to work, whether that is working from home, being in the office, or as a hybrid worker. We’re happy to discuss flexible working arrangements. Wellbeing is at the core to our culture, allowing employees to flourish and to achieve their full potential.

Diversity, Equality and Inclusion statement

We are an Equal Opportunity Employer, we believe in each person’s potential, and we’ll help you reach yours. We have an ambitious diversity, equality, and inclusion approach. We value diversity; recognising that a more diverse workforce creates a richer and more varied working environment. Diversity also drives innovation, by allowing us to offer our clients the best consultancy service that we can. As part of our commitment to engage positively and pro-actively with all our employees to ensure an inclusive culture, we are recognised as a ‘disability confident’ employer.

Benefits

We want you to know how much you are valued. Your remuneration and benefits package will reflect that. You will receive a range of benefits which include support for your physical and mental health.

Next steps

Once you have submitted your application a member of our Recruitment Team will be in touch. Please be aware that the timing can vary dependent on the volume of applications that we receive for each role and in some cases, we may start to review applications prior to the closing date. Ricardo is a Disability confident employer please advise the recruitment team via recruit@ricardo.com if you require any adjustments to support you throughout the recruitment process.