Senior Trading Policy Associate

Division - Infrastructure & Exchanges

Department - Market Intervention – Trading Venues

Salary - National (Edinburgh and Leeds) 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)

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. Follow this link to find out more About the FCA.

The Market Intervention – Trading Venues department is at the heart of the FCA strategy to seek to ensure that UK market infrastructures are resilient, transparent and operate in a fair and orderly way. The department sits in the Infrastructure & Exchanges directorate. It is responsible, among other things, for supervising trading venues and for developing the policy that applies to them and to the investment firms dealing on those venues or OTC. We develop smart and early policy interventions to address emerging risks we see in the market and to influence global and UK policy. 

The Trading Policy team is responsible for shaping and implementing the policy for trading venues - such as investment exchanges – and for firms dealing in wholesale markets like broker-dealers, proprietary trading firms and commodity derivatives trading firms. We cover a broad range of issues such as the organisational and transparency requirements of trading venues, algorithmic and high frequency trading, commodity derivatives and market data.

We do this in a number of ways:

• Driving the development of domestic rules and international standards for trading venues and trading firms

• Working with HM Treasury and the Bank of England on the broader UK policy on market infrastructures

• Providing ongoing policy support to FCA teams supervising trading venues and trading firms

• Identifying and mitigating future areas of risk in the trading and conduct landscape

We place a high priority on open and collaborative working, both with our internal stakeholders (International, Legal, Secondary Markets Oversight, Competition) and externally with other markets authorities such as HM Treasury, the Bank of England and IOSCO.

What will you be doing?
The team is responsible for delivering the Wholesale Markets Review (WMR), the review of UK wholesale financial markets we have been conducting with the Treasury. The WMR has a broad scope. It includes transparency in equity, bonds and derivatives markets, market data and data consolidation and commodity derivatives. You will:

• Horizon scan the relevant markets to identify issues and risks to our objectives. This includes extracting, analysing and interpreting quantitative information to support policy development (advanced Excel knowledge such as pivot tables and lookups and/or ability to extract data from databases using SQL).

• Develop policy reforms end to end including by drafting consultation documents and public statements

• Work with internal and external stakeholders, especially our newly formed secondary markets advisory committee to help support and deliver our policy reforms

• Provide policy advice, also in the form of policy papers and briefs, to internal stakeholders

The specific responsibilities of the post will depend on the skills and experience of the successful candidate. However, they are likely to include policy on algo and quantitative trading, transparency and market data and commodity derivatives.

What will you get from the role?

• Make your contribution to delivering our ambitious objective of improving UK secondary markets

• Represent FCA externally. You and your outputs will have a high exposure across the FCA and outside

• Develop in-depth expertise on the functioning of wholesale financial markets and their regulation

Which skills are required?

We are a Disability Confident Employer; therefore, disabled people or individuals with long-term conditions who best meet the minimum criteria for a role will go through to the next stage of the recruitment process. (To learn more about the Disability Confident Scheme Click Here).

Minimum

• Experience of working in wholesale markets, or prior regulatory roles providing exposure to wholesale market participants

• Experience of managing a wide range of stakeholders

• Excellent written communication skills

Essential

• Experience of representing an organisation externally on technically demanding issues

• Knowledge of the operation of trading venues and their members

• Demonstrable ability to acquire knowledge, including by sourcing, manipulating and reviewing data quickly and independently

• Good understanding of the UK and EU regulatory architecture

• Ability to review complex issues and make judgements supported by evidence, including where only partial information is available

• Ability to explain, orally or verbally, complex issues in a clear and structured way to diverse audiences

• Strong commitment to collaborative working, including willingness to respond positively to challenge from others

Our Values & Diversity

We are proud to be an inclusive employer and our ambition is to cultivate a culture 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.

Within the workplace you will have access to various employee resource groups which aim to promote and achieve a healthy work / life balance and support our diversity ambitions.

Did you know? 50% of our Executive Committee were the first in their family to attend university.

The FCA is committed to achieving greater diversity across all levels of the organisation. Given this, we particularly welcome applications from women, minority ethnic, disabled, and neurodivergent candidates for our senior associate role.

Benefits of working at the FCA

• 25 days holiday per year plus bank holidays

• Hybrid working (work from home up to 60% of your time)

• Private healthcare with Bupa 

• A non-contributory Pension of at least 8%

• Life assurance

• Income protection

We also have a competitive flexible benefits scheme which gives you the opportunity to create a personalised benefits package, tailored to suit your lifestyle.

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 can explore what might work best for both sides.

Follow this link to see what life is like at the FCA - Life at the FCA

Application Support

We are dedicated to removing barriers and ensuring our application process is accessible to everyone. We offer a range of adjustments to make your application experience as comfortable and straightforward as possible.

If you have an accessibility need, disability, or condition requiring changes to the recruitment process, please contact your recruiter using the details below and they will be happy to discuss this further with you.

Useful Information and Timeline

• This role is graded as: Senior Associate - Regulatory

• Advert Closing Date: 23rd February

• Case study & competency-based interviews: W/C 3rd March

Your Recruiter will discuss the process in detail with you during screening for the role, therefore, please make them aware if you are going to be unavailable for any date during this time. 

Got a question?

If you are interested in learning more about the role, please contact: 

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

• For internal applicants, please contact Lucy Matthews at [email protected]

Applications must be submitted through our online portal. Applications sent via email will not be accepted.