Credit Rating Agency Associate - Capital Markets

Salary: National ranging from £41,800 to £55,000 and London £46,000 to £60,000 per annum – Salary offered will be based on skills and experience

Are you interested in joining a team supervising and writing policy for the UK’s wholesale markets?

The team/department

We are looking for an Associate to join the Capital Markets department within the Supervision, Policy and Competition (SPC) Division at the FCA. SPC has a vital role to play in enabling the FCA to act early and decisively when market issues appear on the horizon, in making smart policy proposals and in delivering the FCA's mandate to promote effective competition. The Capital Markets Department focuses on supervision and policy relating to key aspects of wholesale financial markets, including primary markets, credit ratings and benchmark providers, trading conduct and transparency, and wholesale cryptoasset markets.

You will be formally located in the Credit Rating Agency (CRA) team where you will contribute to both supervisory and policy work related to that portfolio. The CRA team is responsible for the supervision of UK regulated credit rating agencies and the policy making for this portfolio. CRAs play a key role in providing an assessment of the creditworthiness of governments, corporates and other issuers of securities. Where they perform this role effectively, investors are well-informed on the risks of investing in these assets and hence, capital is more efficiently allocated.

Further, you will have cross-team working opportunities across the Capital Markets department including but not limited to working on primary markets, post-trade, market conduct, ESG rating and well as both benchmark policy and supervision. Further, there will be opportunities on cross-departmental initiatives.

What you will be doing

As part of the CRA team, you will be supporting both supervisory strategy and considering policy issues for the portfolio

The successful candidate will be able to:

• Assist on specific supervisory work for the CRA Supervision team, working closely with the Benchmarks Supervision team on common areas of risk

• Identify cross-team data needs to enable the processing of market intelligence to form a basis for supervisory judgement

• Assist in ensuring consistency on our policy and supervisory approaches and helping to ensure the Capital Markets department works well

What will you get from the role?

• Exposure across both supervision and policy professions and seeing how they interact

• Opportunity to develop an understanding of the credit rating agencies market and how it functions

• Opportunity to contribute significantly on a wide range of topics in capital markets

• Experience of working with multiple levels of management and seeing how the FCA operates

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

• Private healthcare with Bupa 

• A non-contributory Pension of at least 8% of your basic salary each month (there are several contribution levels that increase depending on your age – up to 12% a month once you reach the age of 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’ll have 

We're a signatory to the Government's Disability Confident scheme. This means that we will offer an interview to any disabled candidates entering under the scheme, who best meet the minimum criteria for a role. 

Minimum 

• Prior experience working in a regulatory and/or financial services sector

• Good written communication skills with experience of presenting both qualitative and quantitative information in a clear and concise manner

• Prior experience with gathering and/or analysing large volumes of data and presenting your findings

Essential 

• Understanding of, and curiosity about, wholesale financial markets

• Strong analytical capability with a proven ability to quickly and clearly draw out key implications from a broad and varied range of information sources

• Ability to prioritise competing objectives and to collaborate in a team

• Experience of engaging with a diverse range of stakeholders

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 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 midnight on 23rd September 

This role is graded as Associate – Level 8 - Regulatory

What to expect from our interview process

The process will involve the below stages:

• Candidates will be asked to complete a timed case study

• If successful in passing the case study you will be invited to a competency interview

Your Recruiter will discuss the process in detail with you during screening for the role.

Recruitment Timetable

Advert closing Date: 23rd September 

Case studies: 3rd & 4th October

Competency based interviews: 10th – 14th October

Please make the recruiter aware if you are going to be unavailable for any date during this time.

Got a question?

If you are an external candidate and you are interested in learning more about the role, please contact Aaron Ward on [email protected]

If you are an internal candidate and you are interested in learning more about the role, please contact Lucy Matthews on [email protected]

Please note that all applications must be submitted through our online portal before the closing date, applications sent via email will not be accepted.

Application support

We want to remove any possible barriers and are committed to providing a wide range of reasonable adjustments so that you can keep the focus on your conversations and be at your best.

If you have an accessibility requirement, disability, or condition that means you might require changes to the recruitment process, please contact your recruiter to discuss this further. Our aim is to make your application as easy and comfortable as possible, and your recruiter will be happy to work with you to make any necessary arrangements where possible.