About us

University College London (UCL) is the largest of the colleges in the federation that makes up the University of London. It is consistently rated as one of the top multi-faculty universities in the UK and has an annual turnover in excess of £400m. UCL is one of the UK’s premier research institutions encompassing immense research strength across all areas. It is also developing numerous interdisciplinary research centres. UCL has an excellent library and the library resources available in London, such as the British Library, are unrivalled in the UK.
The Department of Economics has an outstanding international reputation in key areas of current research including applied theory, econometrics, game theory, labour economics, development economics, and macroeconomics. The Department of Economics has placed #1 for research environment and outputs in the 2021 REF results and ranked #3 overall.

About the role

Applications are invited for a post-doctoral Research Fellow in the Department of Economics at University College London to work on the research project “Skills Mismatch: Sources and Consequences” (MISMATCH) which has received funding from the United Kingdom Research and Innovation (European Research Council Starting Award) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme.
MISMATCH is a project which has received funding from the European Research Council (ERC) (Starting Award) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme. Its key objective is to advance our understanding on the sources and consequences of skills mismatch, defined by the discrepancy between workers’ abilities and job skill requirements.
Dr. Suphanit Piyapromdee is the sole PI and responsible for leading and executing this exciting research project, which combines approaches of randomized controlled trials (RCT), reduced form, and structural modelling techniques to quantify the relative importance of various sources of skills mismatch (uncertainties about abilities, job characteristics and psychological constraints). The RCT targets final year college students in non-specialised majors in Thailand. The research involves estimating job search models using the panel data collected from the RCT. The data includes various beliefs, preferences, job search behaviour and actual labour market outcomes of participants during their early career.

About you

Dr. Suphanit Piyapromdee, the Principal Investigator, is seeking to appoint a Research Fellow to work on the MISMATCH project. The postholder will be responsible for executing the research project and will be supervised by Dr. Suphanit Piyapromdee and and will work closely with her and her team.
The duties will include:

• The postholder will not be doing any fieldwork nor data collection as this has already been done by the local team in Thailand. He/she will work closely with Dr. Suphanit Piyapromdee and her team. The duties will include:
• Clean the RCT data and produce descriptive statistics.
• Develop and estimate job search models; support the access, management and analysis of the data; contribute to the writing up and dissemination of the results, and to the submission of research papers to peer-reviewed journals.
• To contribute to the overall activities of the department as required.
• As duties and responsibilities change, the job description will be reviewed and amended in consultation with the postholder.
• The postholder will carry out any other duties as are within the scope, spirit and purpose of the job as requested by the line manager or Head of Department/Division.
• The postholder will actively follow UCL policies including Equal Opportunities and Race Equality policies.
• The postholder will maintain an awareness and observation of Fire and Health & Safety Regulations.

What we offer

The researcher will be appointed from June 2025 for two years (with the possibility of one-year extension subject to funding availability).
The Appointment will be on UCL salary scale Grade 7, £42,099 to £50,585 per annum inclusive of London Allowance, dependent upon experience and qualifications.
The UCL full-time working week totals 36.5 hours. Annual leave is 27 days per year. In addition, staff benefit from six College closure days per year. The person appointed will work at the offices of the Department of Economics, Drayton House, 30 Gordon Street, London WC1H 0AX. The postholder will benefit from interactions with colleagues in the Department of Economics and in UCL more broadly, and at the Institute for Fiscal Studies. The postholder will be strongly encouraged and supported to develop her career.

Our commitment to Equality, Diversity and Inclusion

As London’s Global University, we know diversity fosters creativity and innovation, and we want our community to represent the diversity of the world’s talent. We are committed to equality of opportunity, to being fair and inclusive, and to being a place where we all belong. We therefore particularly encourage applications from candidates who are likely to be underrepresented in UCL’s workforce. These include people from Black, Asian and ethnic minority backgrounds; disabled people; LGBTQI+ people; and for our Grade 9 and 10 roles, women. You can read more about our commitment to Equality, Diversity and Inclusion here: https://www.ucl.ac.uk/equality-diversity-inclusion/