Funds Policy Specialist - Funds and Asset Management Policy

Location

London / Leeds / Edinburgh

Salary

National from £70,000 to £109,000 and London from £85,000 to £119,800

The Team

We’re looking for a talented and influential Technical Specialist for our Funds and Asset Management Policy team. The individual will play a key thought leadership role as we transform and build our smarter regulatory framework for the UK’s vibrant and important asset management sector. 

A Technical Specialist within the Funds policy team acts as a policy advisor who has deep technical knowledge and experience of delivering high profile policies and is able to provide in-depth technical advice on a range of regulatory policies affecting funds and asset managers.  

The Wholesale Buy-side Directorate is responsible for the regulation of the UK’s asset management sector, including supervision of firms managing £9.5trn AUM and their funds, authorising new UK funds, and setting policy that leads to successful markets, provides protection to consumers, and promotes competition.    

Within the directorate, the Market Analysis and Policy Department lead on setting, developing, and owning the policy framework for funds and asset managers.   This involves working with internal, and external stakeholders to set and deliver the policy directions, ensuring the regulatory framework furthers market integrity and protects consumers, while ensuring solutions are balanced and are capable of being operationally delivered by firms.  

The successful candidate will be empowered, and expected, to develop and deliver strategic policy positions in the interest of consumers, global markets, the UK economy and FCA.  

What you will be doing

The successful candidate will be responsible for: 

• Developing and refining our regulatory framework for the alternative asset management industry (private equity and hedge funds) in line with the feedback that we received to our Discussion Paper: Updating and Improving the UK regime for Asset Managers; this is in conjunction with our work on the wider Smarter Regulatory Framework process

• Ensuring the regulatory framework is suitable for a sector that is highly varied and complex, ranging from small investment firms to multi- billion fund management houses  

• Ensuring any proposals can work effectively in the context of a global industry and link up with government department as required

• Translating the strategic vision into legal instructions and also organizational change (including system change) 

• Leading on complex external engagements  

• Oversee junior colleagues to ensure strategic decisions are translated into a coherent rules framework

What you will get from the role

• Joining the Asset Management and Funds policy team at the FCA during an exciting time of great change in financial services and its regulation

• Working with talented and committed people to deliver a varied portfolio of high-profile work to prevent potential harm to markets and consumers, whilst delivering on business-as-usual objectives

• Ability to influence critical part of investment market – for consumers, corporates, and the industry

• Opportunity to design and develop new policy approaches

• Exposure to strategic issues and represent the department’s work with a range of senior professionals both within and outside the FCA

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 with different business models of asset managers, hedge funds, private equity firms and other investment firms, and how regulation applies to differing business models in those sectors

• Prior experience of how regulations are operationally implemented in practice and how these entities interact with other regulated entities such as investment banks/ prime brokerage and wider capital markets

• Prior experience of organising and delivering complex and politically sensitive policy development

Essential

• Understanding of the financial services market in the UK and how firms operate within it 

• Excellent communication, verbal and written, including use of evidence and data

• Resilience in the face of challenge, with an ability to adjust course in the light of evidence to make balanced decisions/judgements 

• Ability to deal with a wide range of issues and manage different priorities effectively

• Experience and desire to support the development of colleagues 

• The ability to inclusively lead a group of talented individuals with a wide variety of professional expertise, experience, and backgrounds

• An open and flexible management style and the ability to communicate effectively to a wide-ranging audience with different skills and perspectives  

• Strong understanding of the FCA’s regulatory powers, responsibilities, operations, supervisory and policy frameworks

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 Technical Specialist 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 Technical Specialist – Regulatory

• Applications for this role close on Tuesday 10th September (midnight)

• CVs will be reviewed by the recruiting team from Wednesday 11th September onwards

• First round interviews are likely to be held w/c 16th September

Got a question?

For internal candidates: please speak to Jen Wishart on [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:

• A competency based interview

• A case study (TBC)

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.