Lead Credit Rating Agency Supervisor

Lead Credit Rating Agency Supervisor

Location

London / Leeds / Edinburgh

Salary

National from £57,600 to £74,000 and London from £63,300 - £82,000

The Team

We are looking for a Lead Associate to join the Credit Rating Agency (CRA) team in the Capital Markets Department within the Supervision, Policy and Competition Division. 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 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. These outcomes contribute particularly to the FCA’s statutory objective for market integrity, and also its consumer protection objective. We supervise CRAs according to the UK Credit Rating Agency Regulation and in line with the FCA Approach to Supervision.

What you will be doing

As a senior member of the CRA team, you will help to shape and deliver the FCA’s supervisory strategy for credit rating agencies to mitigate or reduce harm to consumers and enhance market integrity.

The successful candidate will be able to:

• Contribute to shaping the strategy of the team and setting of the team’s objectives and priorities

• Lead the implementation of our strategy to deliver forward-looking supervision of UK regulated CRAs by incorporating findings from firm regulatory reporting, ratings data and general market intelligence and allocating and prioritising workstreams

• Lead and deliver complex and high-profile pieces of work by effective project management, stakeholder management and team collaboration

• Communicate in a compelling way, including leading engagement with internal and external stakeholders

• Build strong networks and work collaboratively with a variety of stakeholders, including internally and externally, in order to deliver on the FCA’s regulatory remit

• Share knowledge and expertise across the team, department and wider FCA, as well as mentoring and developing the skills of others to build and support individual capability

What you will get from the role

This role is an exciting opportunity to work at the heart of Supervision and Policy in the FCA. As part of this role, you will have the opportunity to:

• Develop a deep understanding of the credit rating agencies market and how it functions

• Operate in a fast-paced, flexible environment and apply strong leadership skills and analytical thinking to reduce and mitigate risks of harm arising from the CRA business model

• Get significant exposure to UK capital markets, working closely with a wide array of stakeholders, include market participants and other regulatory and government bodies

• Work with and learn from FCA colleagues covering wide ranging issues including other supervision and policy functions, technology and resilience, competition, authorisations and enforcement

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.  

• Prior experience working in a regulatory and/or financial services sector, preferably related to supervision or the application of our rules in wholesale financial markets

• Prior experience of processing and assessing intelligence on markets to form a basis for supervisory judgement and implementing appropriate mitigation of those risks

• Prior experience of planning, supporting and delivering complex work in a team setting

Essential

• Understanding of the CRA market, ratings process and potential risks posed by CRAs

• Strong self-management and project management skills to plan and drive a multiple range of tasks and projects to demanding deadlines, including delivering through others

• Strong communication skills, both verbal and written

• Capability to mentor and develop colleagues, support the manager of the team, and add value to the wider organisation by sharing knowledge and experience

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

• This role is graded as Lead Associate

• Applications for this role close on Monday 30th September (midnight)

• CVs will be reviewed by the recruiting team from Tuesday 1st October onwards

• Case Study will be completed on w/c 7th October

• Interviews will take place on 16th, 17th and 18th October

Got a question?

For internal candidates: please speak to Lucy Matthews on Lucy Matthews [email protected]

For external applicants, please contact Aaron Ward on [email protected] 

What to expect from our interview process

The process will likely involve two stages:

• Case study

• A competency based interview

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

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.