Charles River Associates is a leading global consulting firm that offers economic, financial, and strategic expertise to major law firms, corporations, and governments around the world. Since 1965, CRA experts have combined rigorous cutting-edge research, state-of-the-art methodology, and proven experience to address our clients’ most complex challenges.
CRA's European Competition practice specialises in providing economic advice on matters of competition policy and regulation. We assist firms and their legal advisors in all types of competition proceedings before competition authorities and courts: mergers and acquisitions, abuse of dominance allegations, cartels, restrictive commercial agreements, market investigations, litigation and disputes, intellectual property or state aid. We also provide advice to regulatory authorities in similar matters.
CRA seeks new PhD economists with strong grounding in Applied Microeconomics or Applied Microeconometrics to join CRA’s European Competition practice. Senior Associates have the opportunity to immediately help shape the economic analysis and thinking for some of the largest, high profile and most significant competition cases in Europe. Our European Competition practice office locations are in the UK (London), Belgium (Brussels), Germany (Munich and Dusseldorf) and France (Paris).
Explore how CRA can help you launch your career and learn why PhDs choose CRA.
Senior Associate responsibilities may include:
- Identify and conceptualise issues, specify rigorous economic models to analyse market issues and data, undertake statistical and econometric estimation, and manage the work of research associate staff and colleagues;
- Supervise, train and mentor research associate staff;
- Assist in the development and presentation of client deliverables, including expert reports and white papers summarising opinions, conclusions, and recommendations using market, industry or client-proprietary data;
- Act as a primary point of contact for lawyers and other industry or government clients on a variety of practice-relevant issues;
- Program, build models and/or perform regression analysis in statistical analysis programs (such as Stata, Python, R, SAS, Matlab, and Mathematica) including large data projects requiring use of cloud computing;
- Ensure the integrity and accuracy of analyses and opinions; and
- Participate in practice-building activities (training, recruiting, publication, expertise sharing, etc.).
Desired Qualifications
- PhD degree in economics with a completion date of December 2026/Summer 2027 and an academic focus on quantitative research, with specializations like industrial organization, applied microeconomics, econometrics, labor, health, intellectual property, corporate finance, financial accounting, or other quantitative areas;
- Curious and analytical thinkers who bring creative approaches to non-standard problems;
- Effective written and oral communication skills;
- Eagerness to learn new skills and programming languages;
- Demonstrated high level of initiative and leadership;
- Strong teamwork and collaboration capabilities;
- Excellent time management and task prioritization skills;
- Clear and demonstrated interest in consulting through coursework, work experience, activities, or attendance at CRA recruiting events;
- Demonstrated understanding of, and ability to explain, economic, financial and/or accounting concepts, and quantitative and qualitative analysis methods;
- Experience in Excel, Stata, Python, R, SQL, SAS, ArcGIS/ArcPy, or Cloud computing (Databricks/Spark, Google Cloud, Azure, AWS);
- As most of our work takes place in CRA’s offices, minimal travel is required.
CRA provides immigration assistance to eligible foreign nationals in accordance with the firm’s immigration policy and applicable law.
To Apply
To be considered for a position in the United Kingdom, submit through this job posting:
To be considered for a position in the European Union, submit to this job posting:
- CV – please include current address, email and telephone number;
- Covering letter – please describe your interest in CRA and how this role matches your goals. Also, please note if you have interest in a particular practice and/or a location preference;
- Research/Job market paper – please submit your original research or dissertation.
- Letters of Recommendation – please have two LORs submitted directly to LORSubmission@crai.com
Candidate materials must be submitted by November 6, 2026. Interviews will begin following application close, with first round interviews occurring virtually. Candidates focusing their search on industry and consulting who need to be considered early should indicate that in the CRA online application and submit all materials as early as possible.
Career Growth and Benefits
- CRA’s robust skills development programs encourage you to thrive as an individual and team member. Beginning with project management skills, training continues with team management/development, client presentation skills, internal seminars, and career mentoring and performance coaching from an assigned senior colleague. Additional leadership and collaboration opportunities exist through internal firm development activities.
- We offer a comprehensive total rewards program including a superior benefits package, wellness programming to support physical, mental, emotional and financial well-being, and in-house immigration support for foreign nationals and international business travelers.
Our Commitment to Diversity
Charles River Associates is an equal opportunity employer. As part of our focus on equity and inclusion, we work to ensure a fair and consistent hiring process. We celebrate diversity and we are committed to an inclusive work environment.
Deadline
Interviews will be conducted on a rolling basis, with first round interviews occurring virtually. To be considered, please submit your application no later than 6 November 2026. Candidates who are focusing their search on industry and consulting and would like to be considered early should indicate that in the CRA online application and submit all materials as early as possible.
To apply, visit https://www.crai.com/cra-careers/jobs/. (See posting for details.)