External Affairs Lead

TN United Kingdom; Leeds; Hybrid; GBP 48,000 - 64,000; Full time

Job summary

An exciting opportunity awaits to join a dynamic team responsible for developing stakeholder networks and representing regulatory interests across the UK. This role offers the chance to influence policy, engage with senior stakeholders, and shape financial regulation in the devolved nations. With a focus on relationship management and intelligence gathering, you will play a key role in ensuring the regulator's priorities are effectively communicated and understood. Join a forward-thinking organization that values diversity and offers flexible working arrangements, allowing you to thrive in a supportive environment.

Benefits

25 days holiday plus bank holidays

Private healthcare with Bupa

Non-contributory pension of at least 8%

Life assurance of eight times salary

Income protection

Flexible benefits scheme

Qualifications

• Experience in public affairs consultancy or in-house public affairs.
• Ability to build strong relationships with diverse stakeholders.

Responsibilities

• Lead teams focused on stakeholder networks across devolved nations.
• Gather intelligence and provide guidance to senior management.

Skills

Knowledge of political landscape

Excellent verbal communication

Stakeholder relationship management

Intelligence gathering

Project management

Job description

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Salary: National – ranging from £48,900 – £64,000 and London from £53,700 – £70,000 per annum

Do you want to join a diverse team responsible for developing stakeholder networks with firm and consumer groups and representing the FCA across the devolved nations?

The team/ department
An exciting opportunity has arisen for a Lead Associate to join our External Affairs team, which sits within our Communications Directorate at the FCA.

You will lead our Devolved Nations and Firm and Consumer Groups teams. The Devolved Nations team is responsible for building and maintaining stakeholder networks across Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, relaying key information, and assisting to influence policy. It also promotes the devolved perspective in the FCA’s work across the UK. Our Firm and Consumer Groups team will work with internal and external stakeholders to build deeper relationships with trade associations and consumer groups.

What you will be doing (the role)

Use information from networks across Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, and national in the financial services environment and trade body and consumer landscape, and effectively interpret political developments

Gather intelligence from internal networks, identify emerging risks and opportunities. Provide guidance to the Head of Public Affairs and other senior management, ensuring that risks are considered at an early stage

Act as a briefing function, working closely with colleagues from across the organisation to prepare senior management for Parliamentary meetings / receptions; issue-specific meetings, etc

In all aspects of the role, work closely with devolved nations / public affairs colleagues and, where appropriate, link with other areas of the organisation

Develop and maintain an informed knowledge base on the financial services industry, consumer bodies, and other organisations, across the devolved nations

Build and enhance networks across the political environment and the wider public affairs world to gather intelligence and identify emerging risks and opportunities

Attend external events / round tables / forums etc

Understand the FCA's priorities and key messages; use influencing skills to explain and promote these priorities to stakeholders both in-person and in writing

Relationship-manage a portfolio of influential stakeholders. This will include: developing relationships with politicians, their staff and other stakeholders; explaining FCA policy and action topoliticians, their staff and other public affairs stakeholders; listening to the concerns of stakeholders and ensuring that intelligence is relayed to colleagues in the wider FCA and that the FCA responds appropriately; maintaining accurate records to ensure that we recognise stakeholder priorities

Reporting to the Head of External Affairs, you will manage two teams, our engagement across the devolved nations and with firms and consumer groups

For the Devolved Nations, this consists of three Senior Associates – each accountable for external affairs activities in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland

For the Firms and Consumer Groups team, this consists of managing directly two Senior Associates and indirectly two Associates, you will be accountable for delivery of the team’s work and all aspects of people management

What you will get from the role

An opportunity to take on a high-profile, wide-ranging and interesting role which helps to ensure that the FCA is a regulator for the whole of the UK

A unique chance to help shape financial regulation across the devolved nations through stakeholder management and intelligence gathering

An opportunity to engage with senior stakeholders from across different sectors including financial services, politics, consumer organisations and others

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.

Knowledge of the political landscape and parliamentary procedures (some or all of the devolved nations), gained in a relevant environment such as public affairs consultancy, in-house public affairs function, UK / devolved Parliament etc

Experience in gathering of intelligence from multiple sources to identify risks and trends within the political environment

Excellent verbal communications skills to brief senior colleagues

Strong knowledge of the political landscape and parliamentary procedure

Ability to build strong relationships with a range of stakeholders

Experience of leading project teams to deliver outcomes

Experience in gathering of intelligence from multiple sources to identify risks and trends within the political environment

Experience of working on a number of areas of policy simultaneously

Sound judgment, effective decision making and personal accountability

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.

We particularly welcome applications from men, disabled, and minority ethnic candidates, as under-represented groups.

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 Lead Associate – Corporate.

Applications for this role close at 23:59 on Thursday 4th July 2024.

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

For internal applicants, please contact Melanie Dubock at k

For external applicants, please contact Ifrah Azam at k

What to expect from our interview process

The process will be over two stages where your key competencies will be assessed.

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.