Senior Associate - Education and Workforce at Busara Center

As a Senior Associate, you will work closely with the Portfolio Lead to design and deliver rigorous behavioural science research and advisory projects across school systems, vocational and skills education, youth employment, and entrepreneurship. The role focuses on generating actionable insights into how students, educators, employers, and other stakeholders make decisions, respond to incentives, and navigate key transition points from education into work.

Key Accountabilities/Responsibilities:

• Senior Associates will work closely with Busara offices and  directly with academic researchers and advisory clients to perform a variety of tasks including, but not limited to:

Technical Expertise

• Lead the design and execution of rigorous mixed-methods research across the education-to-work pipeline, integrating qualitative and quantitative approaches into coherent, decision-ready evidence.
• Ensure methodological robustness across study design, sampling, data collection, and analysis, with strong attention to validity, consistency, and analytical rigor.
• Conduct advanced qualitative and quantitative analysis, and synthesize multiple evidence streams into clear, actionable insights for education, skills, and workforce stakeholders.
• Serve as a technical quality gatekeeper across projects, reviewing research tools, analysis plans, and outputs to ensure adherence to agreed research standards.
• Identify methodological risks and implementation gaps early, and proactively strengthen research design and execution to safeguard output quality.
• Oversee the integrity of data pipelines and analytical processes across concurrent projects, ensuring accuracy, coherence, and traceability of findings.

Project & People Management

• Guide and technically supervise Associates in the execution of research tasks, including data collection, analysis, and reporting, ensuring alignment with protocols and analytical frameworks.
• Own project timelines, budgets, deliverables, and staffing plans; escalate risks early and manage scope proactively.
• Directly manage and mentor Analysts and Project Leads embedded on your engagements; build their research and advisory skills through active coaching.
• Coordinate across Busara's Data, Programming, and Operations teams to ensure smooth execution of field and remote research activities.
• Contribute to onboarding and knowledge management so institutional learning is captured and usable.

Client & Advisory Leadership

• Own the client relationship across the full engagement lifecycle — from scoping and contracting through delivery and dissemination.
• Lead senior-level conversations with donors, implementing partners, ministries, and private sector clients; anticipate needs, navigate complexity, and manage expectations proactively.
• Translate client problems into well-defined research and advisory briefs; push back constructively when questions are ill-formed or scope is misaligned.
• From time to time, develop proposals, concept notes, and pitch decks, and contribute to business development within the education and youth employment space.
• Represent Busara at conferences, technical working groups, and client convenings — presenting findings with clarity and confidence to non-specialist and expert audiences alike.

Knowledge, Skills, and Experience

Minimum Requirements

• At least 5 years of experience in research, advisory, or program design roles with a meaningful focus on education and youth employment in sub-Saharan Africa or comparable contexts.
• Deep expertise in mixed methods research.
• Expertise with quantitative methods and data analysis tools (Stata, R, or Python)
• Demonstrated ability to manage senior client and partner relationships with confidence, clarity, and professional maturity.
• Proven track record leading complex, multi-stakeholder projects from inception to delivery.
• Strong analytical and synthesis skills — you can turn messy data into a crisp, defensible argument.
• Excellent written and verbal communication in English; able to write for both technical and non-technical audiences.
• Bachelor's degree in a relevant field (Social Sciences, Development Studies, Economics, Public Policy, or related).

Desired Qualifications

• Master's degree in a relevant field.
• Experience applying behavioral science — formally or informally — to education and workforce development.
• Experience with experimental or quasi-experimental designs (RCTs, difference-in-differences, etc.) as a research lead or collaborator.