Senior Supervisor – Benchmarks Supervision

Salary: National ranging from £51,200 to £64,000 and London £56,400 to £70,400 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 currently looking recruit a senior associate to join the Benchmarks Supervision team within the Capital Markets Department.

The Capital Markets Department within the Supervision, Policy and Competition Division at the FCA is responsible for both benchmarks supervision and policy.

The role is in a team which is responsible for supervising benchmark administrators whose products price trillions of pounds of financial contracts and a significant portion of the allocation of assets through investment funds. We work to protect consumers and investors by ensuring that our firms administer their benchmarks in a transparent way with good governance and controls, avoid and manage conflicts of interest and have robust input data and methodologies. We supervise firms against the requirements of the UK Benchmarks Regulation.

What you will be doing

• As a dedicated benchmarks supervisor, you will be responsible for the FCA’s supervisory relationship with individual benchmark administrators, driving engagement with the view of influencing conduct behaviour

• You will drive, deliver and/or oversee the delivery of projects within the supervision strategy to mitigate or reduce harm to consumers and enhance market integrity

• You will be responsible for exercising expert judgement to reduce and mitigate risks of harm emanating from the benchmark administrator business model and strategy

• The role involves communicating effectively with internal stakeholders, including at a senior level

• You will be asked to present and share knowledge with colleagues, including the wider Capital Markets Department and colleagues within the team

• You will work with others across the FCA to harness expertise and knowledge from other departments, including the General’s Counsel Division, Market Oversight, Policy and Competition division (CD) & Economics

What will you get from the role?

Joining the Benchmark Supervision team, you will have the opportunity to implement and influence the FCA’s supervision strategy for Benchmark Administrators. This role provides exposure to both a breadth and a depth of issues, including with senior management at benchmark administrators.

In this role, you will play an important part in supporting the FCA to achieve its strategic goals through delivering on our supervisory priority to support firms in mitigating risks of harm from poor disclosures and controls in benchmarks.

You will also have the opportunity to work with and learn from FCA colleagues covering wide ranging issues including technology and resilience, CD, benchmarks policy, authorisations and enforcement. You will have the opportunity to engage with a wide variety of stakeholders, including other regulatory authorities. You will enjoy a unique perspective on the financial services industry, with the opportunity to do meaningful work that makes a real difference.

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 to 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’ll have 

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, who best meet the minimum criteria for a role. 

Minimum 

• Proven experience of working in a regulatory and or financial services sector with professional experience related to indices / benchmarks

• Experience of working with/managing the key risks related to indices and the wider financial ecosystem

• Experience in applying diagnostic skills whether gained in industry, legal and/or financial services

Essential

• A collaborative approach and ability to think creatively about new and emerging supervisory issues

• Experience of taking a project-based approach to complex problems

• Ability to manage a broad range of stakeholders: you will need to flex your style to build consensus and influence a range of diverse stakeholders

• Strong written and oral communication skills, including the ability to:

  • Distil complex issues into succinct messages; and

  • Draft findings and present recommendations confidently to a variety of internal and external stakeholders

• Good self-management skills to plan and drive forward work to meet deadlines, while also having the flexibility to change priorities when required

• A problem-solving mind-set and a risk-based approach to decision making and judgements

About the FCA 

The FCA regulates the conduct of 45,000 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 senior 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. 

Multilocation

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 10th November

This role is graded as Senior Associate - Regulatory

What to expect from our interview process

The process will involve the below stages:

• Candidates will be required to complete a case study

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

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

Recruitment Timetable

Advert closing Date: 10th November

Case Studies: 20th-22nd November

Interviews: 27th & 28th November

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.