Division – Authorisations
Salary - National (Edinburgh and Leeds) ranging from £72,100 to £87,000 and London £79,300 to £97,000 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.
Authorising firms and individuals is an integral part of the FCA’s overarching system of supervision of firms. Authorisations aims to ensure that firms and individuals understand and attain our standards of conduct in respect of customer treatment, market integrity and competition whilst also seeking to support the international competitiveness and growth of the UK economy. As the gateway for the UK’s financial services industry, Authorisations makes decisions on thousands of applications from firms and individuals a year. We also respond to thousands of calls from consumers and firms each year, seeking to resolve their queries; supervise a number of early and high growth firms and support the Financial Services Register.
We are looking for a Private Secretary to play a key role in assisting with the smooth running of the Executive Director’s (ED) office, reporting directly to the Executive Director of Authorisations.
We are looking for someone proactive and efficient to join the team, you'll have excellent communication and stakeholder management skills along with experience of working with regulatory issues and good understanding of the FCA.
What will you be doing?
- Working closely with, and providing support and advice to ED Authorisations and their senior team on a range of management, business, regulatory and operational issues including having management oversight of the ED Authorisations’ office
- Assisting the ED on a day-to-day basis by managing their collective agenda, priorities, supporting their decision making, and monitoring those decisions to ensure that actions are carried out in a timely and quality manner
- Developing an effective and high performing working relationship with the Authorisations Directors’ offices in order that communication between offices is seamless and ensuring the effective flow of information between the ED’s office, the Division, other EDs and other areas of the FCA
- Using your judgement and understanding of the wider context to support the ED’s work, to add value to the process and substance of decision making
- Represent the Division in a number of FCA working level fora, including key programmes and initiatives, ensuring objectives are aligned and leading on the business planning input from the ED’s perspective
- Liaising with the various business partners to ensure the ED has a complete, updated and accurate view of the head count, budget, financials, TOM, MI and vacancy/recruitment activity and leading on the management of key governance fora for the Division, including those related to the new Strategy noting the EDs role in this
What will you get from the role?
- Unique opportunity to provide support within a division that is at the forefront of the FCA's Strategy and work
- An opportunity to be an important and integral part of a team whose work is high profile
- An insight into senior management and leadership
- The opportunity to work in a busy, challenging and engaging environment with a wide and varied work load
- Interaction with a range of internal and external stakeholders/contacts
- The opportunity to establish and build a good network of working relationships with colleagues at all levels across the FCA
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
- Prior experience and knowledge of the work of the FCA and why it is important
- Prior experience within a large organisation working across different areas, demonstrating an ability to join the dots, and a general understanding of the FCA and its objectives
- Prior experience working in a fast-paced environment which has required excellent communication skills, including the ability to communicate concisely, confidently and credibly, both orally and in writing
Essential
- Experience of working within or very closely with regulatory environments, and/or experience working within a private office environment
- Experience of people management and developing high performing teams
- Ability to make connections between disparate strands of work and to spot and mitigate potential issues before they crystallise
- Ability to think both strategically and critically
- Excellent interpersonal skills, with the ability to establish, develop and maintain good working relationships with stakeholders at all levels internally and externally
- Proven project management experience and ability to lead and direct work outside of the line management relationship
- Calm under pressure and able to prioritise, work to tight deadlines whilst maintaining quality and being flexible in response to conflicting priorities; having excellent organisational skills with the ability to multi-task
- Ability to plan ahead, act on own initiative and exercise sound judgment with high degree of autonomy and the flexibility and the willingness to get things done, supporting others as necessary
- High level of accuracy and a good attention to detail; and ability to handle confidential and sensitive data with a high degree of discretion
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.
Benefits Of Working At The FCA
- 28 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% 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 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 Manager, Regulatory
- The successful candidate will hold or will be required to obtain Security Clearance (SC) level vetting
- Advert Closing Date: Thursday 17th July (midnight)
- First Round Competency Based Interview Dates: w/c 21st July
- Psychometric Assessment: To be completed w/c 28th July
- Final Interview: Start of August 2025
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?
For internal and external candidates: please speak to Jen Wishart on
[email protected]Applications must be submitted through our online portal. Applications sent via email will not be accepted.
