Senior Assistant Economist SEO

Join Defra as a Senior Executive Officer (SEO) Economist and apply your skills to some of the UKs most important environmental and biosecurity challenges. We are recruiting economists into three high‑priority areas Air Quality, Chemicals, and Exotic Animal Disease each offering the opportunity to shape policy using robust, practical analysis.

Across these roles, you will work closely with policy, science and delivery colleagues to ensure that economic evidence is at the heart of decision‑making. You will lead pieces of analysis, contribute to major policy reforms and provide clear, credible advice to a range of audiences, including senior decision‑makers.

These roles span a diverse set of issues: improving the evidence base for air quality interventions; designing and assessing chemicals regulation in a complex domestic and international landscape; and supporting preparedness and response to high‑impact animal disease outbreaks. While the policy contexts differ, all roles require strong analytical skills, careful judgement and the ability to work collaboratively across disciplines.

This is an opportunity to build your experience as an applied economist, influence real‑world outcomes, and contribute to Defras wider analytical community.

Air Quality Economist

The role involves working closely with policy and other analytical colleagues to help identify analytical needs and ensure analysis is used effectively to inform policy development. The postholder works across teams to continually prioritise and focus resources as demands change. The role involves working collaboratively across the science and analysis team, with policy colleagues, and with analysts and policy makers more widely in Defra and other government departments, as well as external/academic experts. The postholder leads analytical projects, proactively produces high-quality and policy-relevant analysis and communicates analysis to a range of audiences. The postholder also plays an important role in the economist profession more widely by developing and championing analytical excellence across the department.

Key responsibilities

• Air quality appraisal - Leading on the development of an evidence strategy to address evidence gaps for the Defra air quality appraisal guidance.
• Wider air quality economics projects - Leading the co-ordination of Defra input into a cross-government project to produce updated, robust values for a Value of a Life Year and representing Defra in wider forums such as the Committee on the Medical Effects of Air Pollutants (COMEAP) to ensure the continuous development of the air quality evidence base.
• Economic case review and assurance - Assuring the economic case of local authority NO2 plans to ensure value for money and distributional impacts have been considered robustly.
• Value for money evaluation of LA plans - Expert economic input includes the provision of economic data, advising on methodology and reviewing evaluation outputs.
• Economic input in air quality/environmental analytical workstreams - Contributing economic input as needed into NO2 and wider air quality/environmental quality analytical workstreams.
• Proactively leading economic projects.- These may include delivering through external contractors, setting clear expectations and holding suppliers to account to deliver robust economic analysis
• Effective communication - Communication of economic evidence/methods to non-economists at all levels

Chemicals Economist

The chemical sector is a major sector to the UK economy, critical to wider manufacturing sectors, with complex European and global supply chains. However, the unsound management of hazardous chemicals is recognised as a cause of human health problems, biodiversity loss and climate change in the UK and globally. Prior to EU Exit, much of chemicals regulation was led at the EU level, but now that the UK has left the EU, chemicals regulation has become a significant area of domestic policy.

You will develop options analysis to support the design and implementation of UK chemicals regulations, centred on policies governed by international agreements. You will work closely with the policy experts, scientists, and colleagues from the Health and Safety Executive and the Environment Agency to understand health and environmental impacts, contributing to policy development. You will design and lead new analysis to support policy development that balances the economic benefits of chemicals with the risks to human health and the environment.

You will apply environmental economics to ensure that the policies developed to meet these commitments provide value for money, and consider impacts to industry and wider society.

The post holder will work in the Chemicals, Infrastructure and Planning Analysis team that sits within a wider multi-disciplinary team of social researchers, statisticians and scientists in the Air Quality, Nuclear and Evidence Division.

The role covers chemicals regulation set domestically through the UK REACH scheme. This scheme is currently undergoing major reform to streamline registration of chemicals produced in or imported into the UK. There is also ongoing work to assess applications for bespoke use of restricted chemicals and to introduce new restrictions on use of certain chemicals, such as PFAS. These work areas are likely to be the main focus over the next 6 12 months.

This role also covers chemicals regulation set internationally that require economic appraisal and advice leading into international negotiations and also for the implementation of international agreements into domestic legislation. Prominent among these is the UN Stockholm Convention that negotiates the bans of Persistent Organic Pollutants(POPs), the toxic chemicals that persist in organisms for a long time, bioaccumulate in animals, travel across borders (can be found in polar bears!), and contribute to biodiversity loss.

The role would require working closely with policy teams, the Environment Agency, industry, OGDs to appraise the business and environmental impacts of banning POPs. This will likely require commissioning research projects to develop evidence and producing de-minimis/impact assessments. POPs are also found in many waste streams which makes it illegal for local authorities and businesses to dispose of them in landfill at the end of their life due to the potential for it to leach into the environment.

Your advice will be needed for designing appropriate regulations and policy responses (i.e. incinerating contaminated waste) to the issues of POPs in waste. Similarly, there are international agreements and domestic controls for mercury and detergents.

Exotic Animal Diseases Economist

The SEO Exotic Animal Disease Economist provides the lead economic function for Defras work on exotic disease preparedness and response. The role sits jointly across the National Biosecurity Centre and the Animal and Plant Health Agency, reflecting the shared analytical needs of these areas. The post holder is responsible for developing, assuring and communicating economic analysis that informs policy and operational decisions on high‑impact exotic diseases, including Foot and Mouth Disease and Avian Influenza.

The role involves designing analytical approaches, building and maintaining economic models, interpreting epidemiological evidence and producing costed policy and operational options. The post holder works closely with epidemiologists, statisticians, operational researchers, social researchers and policy colleagues to ensure that economic evidence is aligned with scientific modelling, operational feasibility and policy intent. There is established team guidance on model validation and updating, but the post holder leads discussions on how models are structured, how assumptions are agreed and how outputs are presented, ensuring that analytical decisions are made collaboratively and transparently.

A key part of the role is providing expert economic advice to the NBC Programme Board, representing the Chief Economist. This includes advising the Senior Responsible Owner on the economic implications of programme choices, the robustness of business case evidence and whether options meet Green Book standards. The post holder also contributes to the long‑term development of the Exotic Disease Framework, including work to bring the five business‑critical disease models up to standard, improve reproducibility and ensure consistency across the portfolio.

During outbreaks, the role provides rapid economic assessments under conditions of uncertainty, working with scientific and operational colleagues to determine appropriate scenarios and assumptions. The post holder identifies analytical gaps, determines how they should be addressed and develops new approaches where existing tools are insufficient.

The role requires strong communication skills, as the post holder must explain complex economic concepts and uncertainties to senior officials, policy teams and external stakeholders, including industry representatives and academic experts. The post offers the opportunity to lead high‑profile analytical work in an area of significant financial, operational and scientific scrutiny, and to shape the evidence base that underpins Defras exotic disease response.