Salary: National ranging from £57,600 to £68,000 and London from £63,300 to £75,000

Are you interested in joining a dynamic team supervising the UK’s wholesale brokers?

The team/department

We are recruiting for a Lead Associate to join the Wholesale Brokers Supervision Team at the FCA, in a department that is at the forefront of the FCA’s work to supervise wholesale intermediaries. Your role will lead the design and delivery of the FCA’s supervisory strategy for this important portfolio of firms.

If you have experience within wholesale financial markets, and can demonstrate strong use of judgement, excellent communication skills and effective delivery of complex work, this could be the role for you!

What will you be doing?

• As lead supervisor in the team you will be responsible for developing the supervisory strategy for the portfolio and supporting its delivery
• Designing workstreams that help to advance the supervisory priorities for the portfolio, seeking senior level agreement for their execution and steering them through to completion, working closely with wider the team and other internal stakeholders
• Recent examples of work by the team include a multi-firm exercise to assess the effectiveness of brokers’ liquidity risk management and an exercise to scrutinise governance and controls brokers have in place to prevent them being used to facilitate financial crime
• You will also directly supervise a range of firms in the sector and as the lead supervisor in the team, take responsibility for the team’s more complex supervisory cases and decisions
• You will support other team members by providing input to their supervision strategies, and develop their supervision skills and technical know-how, using your skills and experience
• You will work closely with internal and external stakeholders, including senior individuals at wholesale broker firms and internal colleagues in Policy, Market Monitoring, Operational Risk, Prudential and Financial Crime Supervision, Enforcement and Legal

What you will get from the role

• The role offers an interesting and varied portfolio of work, collaborating with colleagues from across the FCA
• It will suit someone with wholesale markets and/ or regulatory experience, who is looking for an opportunity to take responsibility for the supervision of an important portfolio
• In the role, you will gain in-depth experience and insight of wholesale brokers and the wholesale financial markets they operate within and you will have significant senior level exposure both across the FCA and with regulated firms
• The department where the role sits forms an integral part of the FCA’s wholesale firm supervision directorates, and provides a supportive environment that continually seeks to develop individuals to perform at their best

Our competitive flexible benefits scheme gives you the opportunity to create a personalised benefits package, tailored to suit your lifecycle. You can use this allowance to purchase additional benefits such as dental or cycle to work or you have the option top up your base salary by taking this as cash.

Core benefits that you will receive as standard are:

• 25 days holiday per year plus bank holidays
• Private healthcare with Bupa
• A non-contributory Pension of at least 8% of basic salary each month (there are several contribution levels that increase depending on your age – up to 12% a month once you reach age 35)
• Life assurance of eight times your basic salary
• Income protection

We support hybrid working which means you will be able to work from home up to 60% of the time over a month with the remainder of your time in one of our three office locations.

The skills and experience you will have

Minimum

We are a signatory to the Government’s Disability Confident scheme. This means that we will offer an interview to disabled candidates entering under the scheme, should they meet the minimum criteria for a role.

• Experience of wholesale financial markets and regulation
• Experience leading on complex pieces of work
• Good written communication skills

Essential

• Knowledge of wholesale brokers, their business models and conduct and prudential risks facing firms involved in trading in the wholesale financial markets
• Good understanding of the UK and EU regulatory framework
• The ability to analyse and challenge complex information and form strong judgements
• The ability to communicate with impact and influence at senior levels (in both verbal and written form)
• The ability to engage confidently with a variety of internal and external stakeholders
• Demonstrable leadership skills and the ability to work collaboratively and act as a role model

About the FCA

The FCA regulates the conduct of 50,000 firms in the UK to ensure our financial markets are honest, fair and competitive. We do this to make sure markets work well for individuals, businesses and the economy as a whole. For more information on what we do, our three-year strategy can be found here.

The FCA's Values & Diversity

Our ambition is to cultivate a culture of inclusion for all employees that respects their individual strengths, views, and experiences. We believe that our differences and similarities enable us to be a better organisation – one that makes better decisions, drives innovation, and delivers better regulation. The FCA is committed to achieving greater diversity across all levels of the organisations. Given this, we particularly welcome applications from women, disabled and minority ethnic candidates for our Lead Associate role.

Flexible working

We welcome applications from candidates who are looking for flexible arrangements. Many of our staff work flexibly including working part-time, staggered hours, and job shares. We can’t promise to give you exactly what you want but we won’t judge you for asking.

Multi-location

As part of the FCA’s on-going commitment to develop our national presence, most of our vacancies are now open to working in our Edinburgh, Leeds, or London offices. This means that as part of the application process you will be able to select your preference of which office location you would like to work from.

Useful information

• Applications for this role close at 23.59 on 2nd April 2024
• This role is graded as Lead Associate - Regulatory
• Interviews will commence 18th April 2024

Got a question?

If you are interested in learning more about the role please contact:

For internal applicants, please contact Linda Bradley at linda.bradley@fca.org.uk

For external applicants, please contact Aaron Ward at Aaron.Ward@fca.org.uk

What to expect from our interview process

If your application is successful you will be invited to complete a Case Study and 1 hour competency based interview.