Investigation Manager (hybrid)

Solicitors Regulation Authority; West Midlands; Hybrid; GBP 59,000 - 65,000; Full time

Job summary

Solicitors Regulation Authority is recruiting Investigation Managers for its Birmingham, Cardiff and London offices in a hybrid full-time arrangement. The role sits in the General Investigations Team, handling high-stakes regulatory investigations and leading a team of Investigation Officers.

The role emphasizes delivering high professional standards, guiding investigations, and developing staff capability within a dynamic regulatory environment.

Qualifications

• Significant leadership experience with regulators or law firms, or equivalent role leading investigations.
• Technical excellence in investigations and risk management.
• Ability to motivate and coach staff and implement formal improvement processes.

Responsibilities

• Lead and manage a team of Investigation Officers, delivering high-quality investigations.
• Provide case direction and strategy across investigations and regulatory breaches.
• Develop your team’s performance, coaching, and development plans.
• Collaborate with senior management to implement changes and improvements to working practices.
• Ensure investigations are timely, thorough and meet the required standards.

Skills

Leadership

Regulatory experience

Investigation management

Stakeholder management

Change management

Job description

Are you an excellent leader who has experience of managing a team of Investigators, Lawyers or Case Workers within another Regulator, a Law Firm or similar organisation? We are recruiting Investigation Managers in our Birmingham, Cardiff and London offices. These are hybrid full-time roles.

These roles are available in our General Investigations Team.

We receive thousands of reports every year raising allegations of misconduct and regulatory breaches against those we regulate.

Assessment and Early Resolution Team (AERT)

AERT consider these reports first and decide whether the SRA should investigate further. They make enquiries and gather any further information we need for our assessment, identify any potential breach of our rules and prioritise high-risk matters. They then consider the strength and quality of the evidence so far and whether the matter is capable of being evidenced. Sometimes we can guide the firm/solicitor to become compliant or change their processes for the future. Taking everything into account, AERT will decide to close the matter or pass it on for a full investigation.

General Investigations Team

Matters assessed as serious are passed to our Investigation teams. The Investigation teams manage caseloads of varying complexity, across various areas of law. They will analyse detailed information to get to the heart of the matter and identify and promptly obtain a range of documentary evidence, which will usually include legal and financial documents, transactional correspondence and witness statements. The Investigation teams will make use of formal powers to control risk and impose sanctions where the conduct is serious. The most serious cases will result in enforcement action being taken to the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal.

At the heart of what we do through this important work is:

• upholding public trust and confidence in legal services and


• delivering work that is timely, efficient, high quality and customer focused.

You can read more about our approach to enforcement here.

What's in it for me?

• Lead a team of Investigation Officers in delivering the SRA's mission of enhancing confidence in legal services.


• Provide quality technical advice, investigation strategy and case direction on a variety of investigations about alleged breaches of our Standards and Regulations.


• Showcase your people management skills by supporting and developing your team to become excellent stakeholder-engaged Investigators who work to the highest standards within a dynamic regulatory environment.


• Be part of the Investigations leadership team working with other managers and senior management to develop and implement changes and improvements to the way we work.


• Work collaboratively with other areas of our organisation to take action to protect the public.

Your role

As an Investigation Manager, you will have an integral role in leading and managing a team of Investigation Officers, playing a vital role in helping to deliver high professional standards in the legal profession. Investigation Officers investigate reports about alleged misconduct and breaches of our Standards and Regulations.

As part of a team of around fifteen Investigation Managers, you will provide support, development, technical expertise and case direction to a team of five Investigation Officers. Importantly, you will be a role model of our values and a leading figure in our journey to operational excellence within a high-performing team.

This is a leadership position which will require you to inspire and develop people to deliver high performance, in line with our values which shape everything we do.

You will give support and guidance to your team to focus on the big issues that impact public trust and confidence in legal services, making sure investigations are of the highest quality, delivered in a timely way and to stretching performance objectives.

Working with senior management, you will successfully deliver organisational change programmes within your team and proactively pursue improvements to the way we work.

Your team

Working closely with your team, you will develop an understanding of their individual needs. You will have a strategic yet pragmatic input into your team's work, demonstrating excellent performance and management skills to inspire the best from your team.

You will have accountability for and oversight of the progression and quality of investigations handled by your team and you will make sure that cases are managed on time and that quality standards are consistently high.

Excellent interpersonal skills with a proven ability to challenge and influence key stakeholders at every level are key to being successful in this role.

What we're looking for

• Significant leadership experience with another regulator or law firm, or in an equivalent role where you have led teams carrying out investigations.


• Technical excellence gained from practical experience, to provide sound advice on case direction as well as an understanding of regulatory and operational risk.


• Ability to motivate your team, manage performance through coaching to improve standards, engage staff in their own development and implement formal improvement processes where needed.


• Ability to lead teams effectively through change using the opportunity to create value for your team and the business.


• A proactive decision maker on complex and challenging investigations and matters of public interest.


• A flexible and tenacious individual who can adjust priorities at short notice and work effectively in a dynamic environment.

Useful and additional information

There is a Role Profile attached at the bottom of the advert on our website.

The starting salary for this role is £59,449 per annum for Birmingham and Cardiff and £65,394 for London. We are recruiting for this role working on a hybrid basis from our Birmingham, Cardiff, and London offices. You will be based in the office nearest to your location, with the expectation of working 1-2 days a week in the office and the remainder of the week from home. This is a full-time role working 35 hours per week. Working hours are normally Monday to Friday and will be scheduled between our core business hours of 8:00 am and 6:00 pm.

Occasional travel to offices other than your normal base will be required for stakeholder meetings, events or other business needs. If you are based in the Cardiff or London office, you will also be expected to travel to our Birmingham office:

• Every two months for in-person collaborative days with the wider leadership team and


• Once every quarter for collaborative days with teams across General Investigations.

Closing date for applications: Tuesday 10 November 2026 at 9 am; however, we may choose to close this at an earlier date. If you are interested, we encourage you to apply as soon as possible.

If you have applied for a Development Investigation Manager or Investigation Manager role within the past ten months, your application will not be considered.