Associate, Investment Manager

Key Accountabilities and Scope

Portfolio Management & Research

• Maintain and develop the MPS model range, ensuring each portfolio remains consistent with its stated risk profile, objective and target market.
• Conduct fund and ETF due diligence: quantitative screening, factor and style analysis, cost and liquidity assessment, manager due diligence, and ongoing monitoring of holdings.
• Prepare rebalance proposals for the Investment Committee, including rationale, expected impact, risk metrics and cost implications.
• Monitor portfolio risk against mandate constraints (volatility ranges, drawdown expectations, asset class limits, concentration, liquidity) and escalate breaches promptly to the Head of Investment Management.
• Maintain risk-profiling documentation where relevant (for example Dynamic Planner, Defaqto, Oxford Risk mappings) and support ratings submissions and due diligence questionnaires.

Implementation and platform operations

• Run the rebalance cycle to a fixed timetable: pre-trade checks, generation of platform-specific model files, upload, post-trade reconciliation and evidence of completion.
• Manage the technical detail that makes implementation work — share class and platform-specific ISIN mapping, cash and money-market handling, minimum trade sizes and platform dealing constraints.
• Support onboarding of the model range onto new platforms and onto new reporting or data systems.
• Maintain implementation controls and an audit trail so that every model change is traceable from Investment Committee decision through to platform position.

Performance, reporting and communication

• Produce and interrogate performance and attribution analysis; be able to explain returns at asset class, fund and decision level rather than simply describe them.
• Review factsheets, monthly and quarterly commentary, and Investment Committee papers and minutes to a standard requiring minimal editing.
• Respond to adviser and client questions on positioning and performance, and present at adviser meetings, webinars and due diligence sessions.

Governance and compliance

• Contribute to Consumer Duty obligations including target market assessment, fair value assessment and outcomes monitoring.
• Maintain accurate records of research, decisions and rationale sufficient to satisfy internal audit and FCA scrutiny.
• Meet Certification Regime fit-and-proper requirements and complete annual CPD.

Data, automation and AI

• Build and maintain tooling that reduces manual effort in the investment process — reconciliation, upload file generation, performance data pulls, holdings look-through and report production.
• Use AI tooling (LLM assistants, coding agents, document and transcript summarisation) to accelerate research synthesis, drafting, data manipulation and script development.
• Apply that tooling responsibly: verify outputs against primary sources, keep client and commercially sensitive data within approved systems, and document AI-assisted work in line with firm policy. Judgement and accountability remain with you, not the tool.

Required Skills and Experience

Qualifications 

IMC or an equivalent RQF Level 4 qualification appropriate to managing investments, held at the point of application.

Numerate degree or demonstrably equivalent analytical capability.

Professional Qualifications to work to (if not already held): CISI Level 6 Certificate in Private Client Investment Advice & Management (PCIAM), the CISI Level 7 Diploma in Wealth Management (Chartered Wealth Manager) or the CFA Charter.

Experience 

Minimum two years' relevant experience in multi-asset portfolio management, model portfolio management, fund research and selection, or investment implementation and operations in a UK discretionary or MPS environment.

Direct experience of the mechanics of running or supporting model portfolios: rebalancing, trade generation, platform models and reconciliation.

Technical skills 

Advanced Excel: complex formulas, structured data handling, and the discipline to build models others can audit.

Demonstrable data manipulation capability.

Confident use of investment data and analytics platforms (for example Morningstar Direct, FE Analytics, Bloomberg, FactSet).

Practical, current use of AI tooling in a working context, with a clear view of where it adds value, where it fails, and how you validate its output.

Attributes

Precision under deadline. In this role an error reaches client portfolios, so accuracy is not a preference.

Exceptional written and verbal communication skills, including being able to write clearly for adviser and end-client audiences without jargon.

Willing to state a view in front of an Investment Committee and defend it — and to change it when the evidence moves.

Comfortable improving a process rather than inheriting one.

Strong organisational skills with the ability to manage multiple priorities and workstreams simultaneously.

Desirable Skills and Experience

Experience across multiple adviser platforms (for example abrdn / Standard Life, Aviva, Quilter, Transact, AJ Bell, Fidelity Adviser Solutions, Nucleus, M&G Wealth).
Exposure to Consumer Duty fair value assessment work or MPS due diligence processes.