Lead Operational Resilience Associate

Salary ranging from National £57,600 to £88,500 and London from £63,300 to £97,300

Would you like to play a critical role helping the financial services industry become more operationally resilient? Would you relish the opportunity to work on challenging technology and cyber resilience related matters across regulated firms within financial services?

The team/department

We are pleased to be offering an exciting opportunity for a talented, self-starting individual to join the Technology, Resilience and Cyber department (TRC), within the Specialist Supervision Division. At a time of rapid technology change, new regulation to improve operational resilience, and increasing cyber threats, you will have the unique opportunity to influence the FCA’s and industry’s agenda.

The successful candidate will work on technology and cyber resilience related matters across regulated firms within financial services, providing technical expertise and advice to frontline FCA supervisors. TRC’s role is to understand firms’ current and planned use of technology, identify and assess potential harm and risk to the market and promote good practice by clarifying our expectations and acting when necessary. This includes seeking to minimise the impact on consumers and markets when risks crystallise. This role will allow you to demonstrate your specialist expertise in operational resilience, including in service continuity, mapping and testing, change, third party and physical environment management, and to leverage this expertise to support the FCA objectives.

What you will be doing (the role)

• Acting as a subject matter expert for Operational Resilience across the department, the FCA, and externally
• Ensuring delivery of firm assessments for prioritised high impact firms to provide supervisors with a forward-looking evidence and judgement-based assessment, supported by the facts, on whether a firm’s technology, resilience and/or cyber capabilities are sufficient or require further mitigating actions
• Leading strategic evaluation of incidents in your portfolio arising from cyber-attack or technology disruptions
• Leading thematic work, owning delivery of key items and delivering through others
• Taking part in technical engagement with external stakeholders including other Authorities and Senior firm representatives
• Undertaking peer comparison and evaluation of the maturity of firms’ technology and cyberenvironment in relation to other firms in the sector and the wider market; and
• Playing a key part in building the capability of others through coaching and feedback

What you will get from the role

This role will offer a unique insight into cyber, technology and operational resilience risks in the Financial Services sector. With the opportunity to:

• Work on high profile regulatory initiatives
• Work across a number of high impact firms on cross-sector issues
• Gain insight into current thinking on cyber, technology and operational resilience matters
• Build upon your existing skills and knowledge and develop your career
• Work with and influence a wide range of internal and external stakeholders and in doing so, build your network of contacts
• Coach and mentor colleagues within the team
• Engage with senior management across 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, who best meet the minimum criteria for a role. 

• Experience analysing complex information and identifying and presenting recommendations in relation to technology and/or cyber resilience capabilities
• Experience of the Wholesale Markets and banking sector
• Experience of coaching, mentoring and directing others
• The successful candidate will hold or will be required to obtain Security Clearance (SC) level vetting

Essential

• Experience of applying regulatory approach to Operational Resilience, Technology and/or Cyber risks
• Relevant industry qualifications e.g., CRISC (Certified in Risk and Information Systems Control), CISM (Certified Information Security Manager), CISSP (Certified Information Systems Security Professional), IS027001 / 2, Lead Auditor / Implementer, or alternatives
• Understanding of FCA’s approach to operational resilience, including an appreciation for the FCA’s operational resilience policy
• Exposure to and understanding of leading practice technology and cyber standards and guidance
• Good interpersonal skills with evidence of team working, and delivery through others
• Confidence and credibility to interact effectively with a range of stakeholders
• Strong verbal communication skills including clear and effective presentation to both internal and external audiences

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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

• Applications for this role close on Thursday 17th October 2024

• This role is graded as Lead Associate – Regulatory

Got a question

If you are interested in learning more about the role please contact:
For internal applicants, please contact Linda Bradley at linda.bradley@fca.org.uk
For external applicants please contact Chhavi Bartaria at chhavi.bartaria@fca.org.uk

What To Expect From Our Interview Process
If your application is successful you will be invited to complete a case study followed by a 1-hour competency based interview.

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.

Security Clearance/Vetting
The successful candidate will hold or will be required to obtain Security Clearance (SC) level vetting.