Lead Associate Lawyer

This role is graded as: Lead Associate - Practising legal.

About the FCA and team:

We regulate financial services firms in the UK, to keep financial markets fair, thriving and effective. By joining us, you’ll play a key part in protecting consumers, driving economic growth and shaping the future of UK finance services. Our Legal Division provides advice and legal services across the full breadth of FCA activity, including regulatory, policy, enforcement and operational work. This Lead Associate position is in the Law and International team, which is part of the Law, Policy and International Department within Enforcement Legal. The department provides strategic, legal and policy advice on enforcement powers and policies and international enforcement engagement. The Law and International team owns the FCA’s strategy on international enforcement matters and is responsible for managing and developing key international enforcement relationships. We advise on, among other matters, the use of FCA investigation powers on behalf of overseas authorities, the disclosure of confidential information and the disclosure of personal data in an international enforcement context. The team also provides policy input on cooperation aspects of domestic legislation and legal advice on MoU work.

Role responsibilities:

• Work with FCA investigation teams to advise on seeking assistance abroad and the use of evidence obtained abroad in civil, criminal and regulatory investigations and proceedings.
• Perform initial reviews of requests for assistance received from overseas regulators. Your role is to identify all key legal issues, determine which FCA stakeholders should be made aware of the request and determine who at the FCA should respond to the request.
• Build experience of managing more junior associates and their work. You will be expected to ensure that this work is managed and progressed effectively and to sign off key decisions for the exercise of legal powers.
• Provide meaningful contributions to the department’s know how and guidance documents and training across the FCA, working together with the manager to ensure that legal risks are appropriately managed and work to become a specialist in agreed areas.
• Have overall responsibility for the relationship management of several key international partners and internal stakeholders, building, maintaining and owning the relationships. This will involve regular discussions and development of a strategy to promote effective engagement, for example arranging visits and engaging others across the FCA.
• Act as representative of Enforcement/Legal Division to senior managers and at international level, where appropriate, to ensure that the FCA’s interests are effectively represented.
• Be accountable for advancing multiple key projects identified in collaboration with the team manager and department head. These are likely to involve complex legal issues and span the breadth of Law and International’s remit.
• Where business need arises, associates in Law and International will work on projects relating to the wider remit of the Law, Policy and International Department.

Skills required:

• Minimum: Qualified lawyer, Solicitor or Barrister of England and Wales or international equivalent.
• Significant post-qualification experience in any of the following areas: contentious financial services or other regulatory investigations or proceedings; financial services or public law advisory work; international cooperation; complex international investigations.
• Essential: Ability to apply sound principled legal and evidential analysis to novel situations and think strategically.
• Well-developed relationship management skills to build and maintain effective working relationships with colleagues, international counterparts and external bodies.
• Robust, self-motivated and a good team player.
• Ability to perform effectively in demanding situations and meet deadlines.
• Effective communication skills to present the outcome of analysis clearly and effectively, orally and in writing.
• Real interest in international work, cross-border cooperation and enforcement policy.

Benefits:

• 25 days annual leave plus bank holidays.
• Non-contributory pension (8–12% depending on age) and life assurance at eight times your salary.
• Private healthcare with Bupa, income protection and 24/7 Employee Assistance.
• 35 hours of paid volunteering annually.
• Hybrid model where employees work a minimum of 40% in the office each month (expectation of 50% for senior leaders). Changing from September to a minimum of 50% in the office each month (expectation of 60% for Directors and Executive Directors).
• A flexible benefits scheme designed around your lifestyle.

Our values and culture:

Our colleagues are the key to our success as a regulator. We are committed to fostering a diverse and inclusive culture: one that’s free from discrimination and bias, celebrates difference and supports colleagues to deliver at their best. 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.

Disability confident: our hiring approach:

We’re proud to be a Disability Confident Employer and therefore, people or individuals with disabilities and long-term conditions who best meet the minimum criteria for a role will go through to the next stage of the recruitment process. In cases of high application volumes we may progress applicants whose experience most closely matches the role’s key requirements.

Useful information and timelines:

Timeline: Job advert closes: Midnight, 21 September 2026. CV Review/Shortlist: 23 September 2026. Interview: 5th-9th October 2026. The interview process might include a case study followed by a video interview. 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.

At the FCA, we’re creating a fair and more resilient financial system. We’re establishing more transparent relationships between financial services and their customers, building trust in financial markets and protecting vulnerable consumers.