Quality Assurance Manager in Watford

Location: Watford (5 Days a week Office)

We're partnering with a growing specialist financial services organisation to recruit an experienced Quality Assurance Manager to join their expanding Lending Operations team.

This is an excellent opportunity for someone with a background in quality assurance, lending operations, underwriting or financial services compliance who enjoys improving standards, coaching colleagues, and driving operational excellence.

Working within a fast-paced and highly regulated environment, you'll play a key role in ensuring underwriting decisions, customer due diligence and operational processes consistently meet internal standards and regulatory expectations.

The Opportunity

You'll take ownership of the quality assurance framework across lending operations, carrying out file reviews, identifying trends, providing constructive feedback and supporting continuous improvement initiatives.

This role offers significant exposure across operations, risk and compliance, making it ideal for someone who enjoys influencing standards and helping build a culture of quality.

Key Responsibilities

• Conduct quality assurance reviews across lending and underwriting files.
• Assess compliance with lending policies, credit procedures and internal standards.
• Review AML, KYC and KYB processes to ensure customer due diligence requirements are met.
• Identify trends, risks and recurring issues through QA activity and produce meaningful management information.
• Deliver clear, constructive feedback and coaching to operational teams.
• Support the ongoing development and enhancement of the Quality Assurance framework.
• Respond to day‑to‑day quality and process queries from the wider business.
• Produce regular reporting highlighting performance, risks and opportunities for improvement.
• Support internal audits, external reviews and regulatory inspections.
• Recommend process improvements that enhance efficiency, consistency and customer outcomes.

About You

You'll be an analytical and detail‑focused professional who enjoys improving processes and supporting operational teams to deliver consistently high standards.

You'll ideally have:

• Previous Quality Assurance experience within a financial services environment.
• Experience reviewing lending, underwriting or operational files.
• Good understanding of lending operations, credit assessment processes and regulatory requirements.
• Knowledge of AML, KYC and customer due diligence requirements.
• Strong analytical skills with the ability to identify trends and areas for improvement.
• Experience producing Management Information (MI) and presenting findings to stakeholders.
• Advanced Excel skills and experience using reporting tools such as Power BI, QuickSight or similar.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills with the confidence to provide constructive feedback and coaching.
• Strong Microsoft Office skills, including Word and PowerPoint.

What's On Offer

• Private medical insurance
• 25 days annual leave plus bank holidays
• Ongoing learning and development
• Clear opportunities for career progression within a growing financial services organisation

This is a fantastic opportunity to join an ambitious and growing business where you'll have genuine influence over operational quality, regulatory standards and continuous improvement while developing your own career within a supportive, collaborative environment.