Governance Senior Lawyer - Legal Division

Governance Senior Lawyer, Legal Division

Salary: London ranging from £65,800 to £85,000 and National ranging from £59,900 to £80,000

The team/department

Are you interested in advising at the heart of an organisation that makes a difference to the lives of the millions of people who use financial services?

The Governance Team undertakes a wide range of regulatory, governance and public law work.

The areas the team leads on include information law (freedom of information, data protection and the FCA’s statutory confidentiality regime), complaints, whistleblowing, fees, corporate governance, inquiries, and litigation (both judicial review and other civil litigation). 

The team often advises senior stakeholders on high profile and sensitive issues.

The team liaises with external stakeholders including the Bank of England and HM Treasury.

What will you be doing?

As a Senior Lawyer you would be advising on key elements of the FCA’s decision making that are central to the FCA’s role as a public body.

Work will include:

• Using strong analytical skills and judgment on matters of some complexity to provide support and clear, practical, well-reasoned and timely analysis of legal risk

• Working effectively in a team and contributing to the promotion of a positive and inclusive culture

• Making a positive contribution to the Department and the wider Division, including regularly delivering training and contributing to knowledge management

• Building and maintaining strong relationships across the Legal Division and with internal and external stakeholders such as colleagues in the Information Disclosure Team, Risk & Compliance, Whistleblowing and Corporate Governance, the Bank of England and HM Treasury

• Being aware of your own learning needs and taking ownership to develop your skills and experience

What you will get from the role 

• Experience stimulating, impactful work at the heart of an organisation that is becoming more innovative, assertive and adaptive, data-led and outcomes-focused

• Be part of a supportive, collegiate team in an inclusive and diverse environment

• Advise on significant, high profile and sensitive projects

• Work with and influence stakeholders across the FCA and externally, including FCA Senior Management

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. 

• You must be a qualified Lawyer (solicitor, barrister or Chartered Legal Executive); we would normally expect applicants to have at least 3 years’ relevant PQE (in house, public sector or private practice) or equivalent experience

• You must have experience of advising on public law. This may include, but is not limited to, public law litigation experience

Essential

You must be able to demonstrate an ability or potential to perform the skills and behaviours described below in a way that is in accordance with FCA values:

• Strong analytical skills and the ability to deliver good and clear analysis of issues

• Ability to learn about new or novel legal issues quickly and with enthusiasm, with the necessary oversight and support of colleagues

• Ability to create solutions and deliver pragmatic outcome-focused judgements

• Ability to advise in a confident and reasoned manner, and to challenge appropriately

• Ability to build and sustain positive relationships and good communication skills

About the FCA  

The FCA regulates the conduct of nearly 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 this Senior Associate role, as well as those who are returning from a career break.  

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, this vacancy is 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 23.59 (UK time) on Sunday 14th July.

This role is graded as Senior Associate – Practising Legal.

For more details on these roles and to hear from some of our lawyers:

visit www.fca.org.uk/careers and search for LD jobs check out our LD Life page on LinkedIn #lifeatgcd #jobsatgcd

Got a question?   

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

For internal applicants, please contact Katie Ayling at katie.ayling@fca.org.uk

For external applicants, please contact Chhavi Bartari at chhavi.bartari@fca.org.uk

How to apply and what to expect from our recruitment process 

To apply, please submit your CV (maximum 3 sides) and answers to the following questions:

What is it about the role that interests you the most and why do you consider you are suitable? (maximum 300 words) Give an example of a time when you have effectively managed a difficult piece of legal work (maximum 300 words)

Please ensure that your responses demonstrate how you meet the key criteria. We suggest using the STAR method to help you draw out your experience and skills. Guidance on the STAR method is available at a number of websites.

The CV and answer to the questions can be in a single or separate documents for upload to the FCA Careers Portal.  All applications must be submitted through our online portal, applications sent via email will not be accepted. 

The assessment process consists of an initial screening call with one of our Recruitment Partners and a sift. If successful in the sift, you will be invited to attend an interview that will include a technical case study and competency-based questions. Your Recruiter will discuss the process in detail with you during screening for the role. 

Recruitment Timeline:

• Closing Date: 23.59 (UK time) on Sunday 14th July

• Interviews: 24th July to 9th August

Please make the recruiter aware if you are going to be unavailable for any date during this time. 

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.