Digital Forensic Practitioner

Division – Enforcement & Market Oversight

Department – Digital Forensic Unit

Salary - London only £47,300 to £55,000 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.

Enforcement & Market Oversight (EMO) is responsible for overseeing the FCA’s primary market functions, including market monitoring, investigating misconduct, and taking action against firms and individuals. The division employs a full range of criminal, civil, and administrative sanctions to ensure the integrity of financial services and hold firms and individuals accountable. Our goal is to be a world-leading function, staffed by skilled professionals who focus on impactful cases, promoting ethical conduct and maintaining orderly, efficient markets.

Within EMO, the Enforcement team conducts forensic investigations into suspected misconduct. Where necessary, the team pursues and remedies wrongdoing through various legal actions, including criminal prosecutions, penalties to deter misconduct, civil orders to safeguard consumers, and compensation to address the consequences of misconduct.

What will you be doing?

• Undertaking digital forensic investigations on devices including desktops, laptops, storage media and mobile phones.
• Collection of digital evidence during offsite visits, including attending search warrants, triaging devices and making recommendations on digital evidence matters.
• Working closely with investigation case teams to provide the strategic direction for digital forensic techniques used in the recovery, processing and reporting of evidence.
• Building, maintaining and taking ownership of strong stakeholder relationships with colleagues across various business areas within the FCA and with external bodies.
• Preparing witness statements and technical reports for use in criminal and regulatory proceedings and attending court to give evidence as required.

What will you get from the role?

• Exposure to interesting, varied work in a priority area for the FCA with the opportunity to provide significant technical and strategic input.
• Engage and get involved in compelling cases, important regulatory tasks and in-depth investigative work.
• Benefit from outstanding learning, training and personal development opportunities within the Digital Forensic Unit.
• As an Academy business, we prioritise learning and professional growth, providing development opportunities to support your career aspirations. Our Academy offers a variety of programmes, including an MSc in Financial Regulation, the Advanced Managers Programme, sponsored study and more.

Which skills are required?

• Minimum previous experience in digital forensic examinations, including imaging and analysing various forms of electronic media such as phones, laptops, desktops and hard drives.
• Experience with forensic tools such as Cellebrite, AXIOM, X-Ways Forensics and Nuix.
• Proven experience in statement and report writing to a UK criminal court standard.
• Strong verbal and written communication skills, with experience in presenting technical concepts to a diverse audience, both orally and in writing.
• Experience in any of the following areas: regulatory investigations or litigation, investigations involving serious fraud or other complex financial crime and criminal case investigations.
• Experience of giving evidence in court or tribunal.
• Thorough understanding of the ACPO Good Practice Guide for Digital Evidence.
• Good interpersonal skills with the ability to form and maintain effective working relationships with peers, management, internal and external stakeholders across the organisation and external agencies.
• Whilst not essential, an understanding of Legal Professional Privilege (LPP) and the requirements for handling LPP material is desirable.

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.

Benefits of working at the FCA

• 25 days holiday per year plus bank holidays.
• Hybrid working (work from home up to 20% 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.

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

• SC Clearance is required for this role.
• The successful candidate will hold or will be required to obtain Security Clearance (SC) level vetting.
• This role is graded as Associate Level.
• Advert Closing Date: 15th June 2025.
• CV Review/Shortlist: 20th June 2025.
• First Round Case Study Assessment & Competency Based Interview: WC 30th June 2025.
• The role will be 80% Lab based at the FCA Offices at 12 Endeavour Square, Stratford, London.

If you are interested in learning more about the role, please contact Rumana Hussain at Rumana.Hussain@fca.org.uk. Applications must be submitted through our online portal. Applications sent via email will not be accepted.