Operations delivery lead - Trading Ops in Edinburgh

Hybrid with two days a week in our Bath or Edinburgh office.

Seccl is the Octopus‐owned embedded investment platform that’s on a mission to help more people invest – and invest well. We’re B‐Corp certified with an amazing product‐market fit, impressive early traction and the potential to transform an outdated industry, for the better. We’ve been growing fast and will scale even faster over the next few years.

The Role

We’re looking for an Operations Delivery Lead to join our Trading team to own the operational delivery of the full trade lifecycle – from execution across funds and equities, through matching and settlement, and into post‐trade oversight and reporting for the platform. You’ll lead a team of seven and play a critical role in keeping our trading flows accurate, efficient, resilient and well‐controlled. This role sits between day‐to‐day operations and strategic improvement: perfect for someone who enjoys rolling up their sleeves to solve problems and redesigning processes, so the same problems don’t happen twice.

You’ll help ensure our trading operations are designed and operated in line with FCA requirements, with specific accountability for how we meet CASS, MiFID II and COBS obligations across dealing, settlement, reconciliations, and accurate books and records. You’ll work closely with Risk and Compliance to evidence effective controls – and help us improve them as we grow. If you’re excited by the idea of building and evolving a trading function inside a fast‐growing fintech – and you bring hands‐on experience across multiple asset types, market structures and post‐trade requirements – this is a rare chance to help define how we operate as we scale. You’ll have genuine scope to own, redesign and implement new ways of working, alongside Product, Engineering, Risk and Compliance, so we can deliver a first‐class service to our clients.

On a typical day you will be...

• Owning end-to-end trading operations across funds and equities, ensuring smooth processing from order placement through settlement and reporting.
• Overseeing execution and settlement across key partners (e.g., Calastone, Winterflood Business Services, CREST), managing breaks, rejects and unmatched positions.
• Running exception management, triaging issues quickly, escalating appropriately, and driving problems through to resolution with clear ownership.
• Owning fund conversions; income to accumulation, clean-to-cleaner processes, off‐platform transfers, keeping accuracy high and disruption low for clients and partners.
• Acting as escalation point for trading incidents, coordinating response, communications, root cause analysis and lasting fixes.
• Maintaining oversight of post‐trade reporting and monitoring (transaction reporting, best execution monitoring, financial crime monitoring).
• Leading daily operational readiness across AM/PM cycles, ensuring monitoring, inboxes and dashboards are completed and prioritised.
• Partnering with Product/Engineering to improve workflows, automate where possible, enhance controls and reduce operational risk at scale.
• Coaching and developing the team, setting standards and building a culture of ownership and client‐first delivery.

This role’s for you if...

• You have senior experience leading trading operations teams delivering high‐volume fund and equity trading.
• You have owned trading controls end-to-end across dealing, settlement and post‐trade, with strong risk and escalation judgement.
• You understand how FCA regulation shapes real trading operations – including CASS, MiFID II and COBS, plus strong books & records integrity.
• You thrive in complexity and exceptions: calm, decisive, and client‐focused when issues arise.
• You have a track record of delivering improvements by partnering with Product/Engineering/Risk to strengthen controls and enable scale.
• You bring a process‐driven mindset and genuine love of continuous improvement and operational excellence.
• You communicate confidently and influence stakeholders across teams and external providers.
• You ideally have experience with Calastone fund routing and CREST operational tooling (e.g., CREST GUI).

This role isn’t for you if...

• You rely on a lot of top‐down direction. Here, you’ll have a lot of freedom and ownership of your role, and you’ll be expected to shape your own progression.
• You’re not comfortable working in a fast‐paced environment. Our speed and scalability are what set us apart; you need to be able to act quickly and think on your feet.
• You struggle to follow through on ideas. We value people who do what they say they will. If you care about something, you have the freedom here to make it happen.
• You don’t like change. You’ll get on great here if you relish the ambiguity of rapid growth and are willing to embrace uncertainty.

What’s In It For You...

• A salary between £50,000 and £65,000 – dependant on experience + reviewed annually.
• 27 days holiday + bank holidays (some can be flexible) + day off on your birthday + three days (full time) per year for Dependant leave.
• Two volunteering days per year.
• Option to work abroad for up to six weeks a year.
• Secclbrate – our recognition programme that offers a mix of flexible rewards including extra pay, additional holiday and increased learning budget.
• Length of service award – one month paid sabbatical at eight years.
• 6% employer pension contribution, and life assurance.
• Private medical insurance with AXA Health.
• Enhanced Parental leave.
• MacBook and up to £500 home office set up budget.
• £750 per person learning budget.
• Health and wellbeing initiatives including free therapy via Wellness Cloud, mental health support via Headspace.
• Strong financial wellbeing focus including access to Octopus Money, Octopus Share Incentive Plan and will writing offering via Octopus Legacy.
• Perkbox – Flexi‐points giving you a range of discounts and perks including free weekly coffee, gym and retail discounts.
• Access to initiatives like Cycle to Work and Octopus Electric Vehicle Leasing.

Our culture

We’re proud to put people first, creating a culture where we truly listen to what matters most to them. Our transparent and inclusive environment encourages diversity of thought, challenge and experimentation.

Check out our Glassdoor page for the latest reviews or our LinkedIn for company updates and insights from the team.

Interview process

Interviewing is a two‐way thing, and we want you to have the time and opportunity to get to know us, as much as we are getting to know you. Our interviews are conversational, so come with questions and be curious. In general, you can expect the interview process to look a bit like this, (following an initial chat with one of our talent team).

• First stage – 45‐minute competencies‐based interview with two of our operations leads.
• Second stage – one‐hour technical interview or assessment with the hiring manager.
• Final stage – 45‐minute bar‐raiser culture‐based interview.

We’ll only close this role once we have enough applications for the next stage. Please submit your application as soon as possible to make sure you don’t miss out and you should expect to hear back from us within one to two weeks of applying.

Our aim is to build a diverse and inclusive company of awesome people, with unique skills, passions and experiences. All applicants will be considered for employment without attention to age, ethnicity, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, family or parental status, national origin, or veteran, neurodiversity or disability status.

If this sounds like your kind of thing, we encourage you to apply even if you don’t tick every box. We’d love to hear from you!