Senior Quantitative Investment Strategist, Policy Holder Investment Office

Markets change, customer needs evolve and the future rarely behaves like the past. We’re looking for someone who can think like an investor and build like a quant, combining portfolio construction and optimisation expertise with the modelling, mathematics and coding capability to turn investment ideas into evidence-led strategies.

Job Type:  Permanent
Location: This role can be based in our London / Edinburgh or Birmingham offices, and you can work flexibly between the office (c.2-3 days/week) and home. We will discuss what is important to you and balancing this with business requirements during the recruitment process. You can read more about flexible working here.
Salary and benefits: from £120,000+ (subject to experience) + discretionary competitive bonus, private medical cover, 38 days annual leave, excellent pension, 12x salary life assurance, career breaks, income protection, 3x volunteering days and much more.

Who are we? 

We’re Standard Life, a retirement specialist focused entirely on retirement savings and income. We champion the belief that everyone’s journey to and through retirement can be better, and for more than 200 years, we’ve been helping our customers plan and prepare for their financial futures.

Life today is increasingly complicated, uncertain and unpredictable. People move through different careers, face unexpected moments and navigate important choices. We offer our colleagues flexibility, trust and benefits that work for whatever life brings. In return we expect curiosity, connection, accountability and high standards. We make room for what matters - so you can bring your best, every day.

The Opportunity

Investment Strategy & Fund Design sits at the heart of how we research, design and evolve long-term investment solutions for our policyholders.

We're looking for a Senior Quantitative Investment Strategist to bring deep quantitative and investment expertise into the team, combining sophisticated investment research with hands-on modelling and development capability.

This is a unique role at the intersection of investment strategy, portfolio construction, quantitative research and technology. You'll explore some of the most important questions facing long-term investors: how markets and investment factors could evolve, how portfolios may behave across different environments, how retirement spending and future risks influence investment needs, and ultimately, what that evidence tells us about how we should invest.

Crucially, you won't just commission or interpret the analysis. You'll have the technical capability to build the models and tools that test the thinking, turning investment hypotheses into robust quantitative evidence and ultimately into better investment strategies and customer outcomes.

Reporting to the Head of Investment Strategy & Fund Design, you'll have significant scope to shape our quantitative research agenda, modelling capability and approach to portfolio construction.

What you'll be doing

Quantitative Investment Research

• Lead sophisticated quantitative research across investment strategy, portfolio construction and long-term fund design.
• Develop and challenge capital market assumptions, strategic asset allocation frameworks and investment methodologies.
• Research how economic, market and investment factors could influence future portfolio behaviour and long-term investment outcomes.
• Use historical market, portfolio and investment data to understand previous outcomes, test assumptions and inform future strategy.
• Apply statistical analysis, optimisation, stochastic modelling and scenario techniques to complex investment problems.
• Build research around long-term customer needs, including retirement spending, sequencing risk, changing spending patterns and future investment risk.
• Turn quantitative findings into clear, evidence-led investment recommendations.

Portfolio Construction & Investment Strategy

• Develop quantitative frameworks for strategic asset allocation, portfolio optimisation and long-term portfolio construction.
• Evaluate potential investment strategies across different economic, market and customer scenarios.
• Investigate the interaction between asset classes, investment factors, diversification, risk and expected returns.
• Challenge existing portfolio design and use quantitative evidence to identify where alternative approaches may improve outcomes.
• Translate complex quantitative analysis into practical investment strategies and fund design decisions.

Model Development & Engineering

• Design, build and maintain sophisticated Python-based investment models and analytical tools.
• Take investment research from initial hypothesis and prototype through to robust, repeatable and well-governed modelling capability.
• Build scalable frameworks for portfolio optimisation, scenario modelling, strategic asset allocation and long-term outcome analysis.
• Enhance the team's quantitative infrastructure, automation and analytical capabilities.
• Ensure models are transparent, appropriately documented, validated and capable of standing up to technical and investment challenge.

Technical Leadership

• Act as a senior technical authority across quantitative investment research, modelling and portfolio construction.
• Bring intellectual challenge to existing methodologies and identify where new approaches, techniques or tools could improve investment decision-making.
• Help define and shape the team's longer-term quantitative research agenda.
• Coach colleagues and raise quantitative capability across the wider team.
• Communicate sophisticated investment and quantitative concepts clearly to technical specialists, investment professionals and senior stakeholders.

What we're looking for

At its heart, we're looking for someone who is equally comfortable thinking like an investor and building like a quant.

You'll ideally bring:

• Significant experience within asset management, investment solutions, multi-asset investing, quantitative investment research or a closely related investment environment.
• Deep understanding of portfolio construction, asset allocation, optimisation and investment risk.
• A highly quantitative background, with strong applied mathematics, statistics and modelling capability.
• Strong programming skills, particularly Python, with experience building sophisticated financial models and analytical tools.
• Experience applying techniques such as portfolio optimisation, stochastic modelling, Monte Carlo simulation, statistical modelling, factor analysis and scenario analysis to real investment problems.
• The ability to take an investment question through the complete journey from hypothesis  → research → model → evidence → investment recommendation.
• Strong investment judgement, including an appreciation of the assumptions and limitations behind quantitative models rather than treating model outputs as the answer.
• The credibility to challenge thinking and communicate highly technical concepts to both investment specialists and senior non-technical stakeholders.

Experience particularly relevant to us

Experience in one or more of the following would be especially valuable:

• Strategic asset allocation and capital market assumptions
• Multi-asset investing or investment solutions
• Quantitative portfolio construction and optimisation
• Systematic or factor-based investment research
• Retirement, decumulation or customer outcome modelling
• Scenario and stochastic modelling
• Production-quality investment research tools
• Long-term fund or investment proposition design

Qualifications
A postgraduate qualification in mathematics, statistics, physics, engineering, computer science, quantitative finance or financial engineering would be valuable, although equivalent expertise developed through a highly quantitative investment career is equally relevant.

We want to hire the whole version of you.

We are committed to ensuring that everyone feels accepted and welcome applicants from all backgrounds. If your experience looks different from what we’ve advertised and you believe that you can bring value to the role, we’d love to hear from you. 

 If you require any adjustments to the recruitment process, please let us know so we can help you to be at your best. 

We’re reviewing applications as they come in and may close this role before the closing date, so apply early to avoid missing out.

Find out more about working at Standard Life

• Guide for Candidates: standardlifeplc.pagetiger.com/guideforcandidates

• Find or get answers from our colleagues: www.standardlifeplc.com/careers/talk-to-us  #LI-SC1