Key information
The School of Social Sciences seeks to recruit a high-quality PhD candidate for the project titled 'AI and Causal Inference for Labour Market Resilience'.
- Funding
- Fully funded (UK students only)
- School
- Social Sciences
- Location
- Edinburgh
- Award
- PhD
- Delivery type
- Full-time
- Supervisor
- Cristina Tealdi
- Start date
- January, September
- Closing date
- Wednesday, 12 August 2026
- Duration
- 42 months
Edinburgh Business School at Heriot-Watt University is offering a full-time PhD studentship funded by the Engineering & Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) to start in the 2026-27 academic year (either September or January entry is possible).
The studentship include a tuition fee waiver for UK fees only, an enhanced annual stipend currently set at £23,985 (10% above the standard UKRI rate), and an expenses allowance of £3,500 for training and research costs. The duration of the studentships is 3.5 years.
Overseas students are eligible to apply, but must be able to demonstrate how they would cover the difference between the UK and overseas fees.
Summary of project
Artificial intelligence is transforming labour markets, yet credible evidence on its long-term economic impact remains limited by the absence of robust measures of AI adoption, diffusion, and labour market adjustment.
This PhD project will develop new empirical approaches to understand how AI-driven technological change reshapes the structure and resilience of labour markets by combining large-scale vacancy data with modern natural language processing, network analysis, and causal inference methods. Rather than focusing solely on task automation, the project will investigate how labour markets adapt (or fail to adapt) to AI-driven shocks, with particular attention to regional resilience, labour market coordination, and inequality.
Specific applications may include constructing geographically granular measures of AI exposure and adaptation capacity at the commuting-zone level to analyse impacts on employment dynamics, wages, worker mobility, and regional divergence, as well as evaluating whether the diffusion of large language models (LLMs) is itself reshaping labour demand by changing hiring behaviour, accelerating skill volatility, and altering the coordination mechanisms through which workers and firms are matched.
By integrating scalable measurement with credible causal designs, the project will generate novel evidence on how AI adoption propagates through labour markets and how economies adjust to rapid technological change, contributing to both methodological advances and policy-relevant insights on labour market resilience and inequality.
Project supervisor
The supervisory team for this project area will consist of Prof. Cristina Tealdi and Dr Yannis Kostas.
Candidates interested in this project area are encouraged to contact Prof. Tealdi (c.tealdi@hw.ac.uk) for an informal discussion about their research proposal prior to submitting their application.
When submitting your application for this project area, please select the option ‘Economics PhD’ from the drop-down list on the online application system. In addition to the standard entry criteria listed below, applicants for this project should note that a Master’s degree in Economics, Statistics, Mathematics or Computer Science is essential.
Entry requirements
Funding information
Annual stipend currently set at £23,985 (10% above the standard UKRI rate), and an expenses allowance of £3,500 for training and research costs.
Why Heriot-Watt
We have been producing career-ready graduates since 1821. With our roots as the world’s first Mechanics Institute, Heriot-Watt is a pioneering university with a global reach.
At Heriot-Watt, learning goes beyond the lecture theatre. We tackle real world challenges through extraordinary research – from climate change to protecting our oceans, to advancing life-saving medical breakthroughs and shaping the next generation of AI. We are also committed to developing forward-thinking design and sustainable business practices that impact industries worldwide. On our campuses you’ll find some of the world’s most advanced facilities, while our strong industry links set you up for career success. This is why almost 90% of our graduates are in employment or further education (Graduate Outcomes Survey 2024).