Pensions Consultant in Belfast

About Us

3173 is a privately owned UK firm of pensions experts with clients throughout the UK, serviced from offices in London, Belfast, Glasgow, Manchester, Birmingham, Bristol and Leeds. The 3173 Group of companies includes Dalriada Trustees Limited (Dalriada), one of the UK’s largest professional pension scheme trustee companies. Spence & Partners provides full pension actuarial, consulting, investment consulting and administration services that provide simply smarter solutions for trustees, employers and members.

The 3173 Culture

Our primary aim is to provide interesting, worthwhile and healthy careers for all our people; we believe that this emphasis sets us apart from our competitors. We are defined by our ethos and by our goal: Our ethos is an individual and collective commitment achieved through carefully balancing responsibility with freedom and flexibility, all of which is underpinned by a willingness to work interdependently. When we get this balance right, it is how we do our best work. Our goal is to provide interesting, worthwhile, and healthy careers for our people. Our graduate development programmes offer the opportunity to build a career in the pensions industry. You’ll get direct exposure to working with the directors of our business and the opportunity to really make your mark in a growing business. We will support you every step of the way through our accelerated learning and development scheme.

About You

We are looking to hire a Pensions Consultant who wants the opportunity to continue their career within an award-winning and growing organisation. To make an impact in this role, you will be a highly motivated individual who is looking to take increased responsibility in the management of a portfolio of Defined Benefit (DB) pension schemes, acting as a day-to-day contact for our clients and supporting the management of the delivery of services through our cross-function client teams. Delivery of client projects will also be key to the role. Over time, you will also have the opportunity to positively contribute to our drive to win new business writing tender responses and participating in pitch activity. We would also be looking for you to use your experience to help us drive continuous improvement in our processes in order to enhance the effectiveness and efficiency of the Business.

Working in a flexible environment, you will be prepared to stay ahead of developments within the pensions industry, and the broader business environment, to support our Business in its commitment to excellent client service and our objectives for significant financial growth. You have the ability to share your technical knowledge efficiently and purposefully with clients and colleagues and understand the importance of building and maintaining relationships with clients, networking contacts and your colleagues. This role will be attractive to an existing Pensions Consultant who wants to grow their experience or an individual with a background in DB pensions administration that would like to use their knowledge and experience and client management skills to develop as a Pensions Consultant. Proven client and project management skills, as well as evidence of the ability to build and manage relationships, will be key to your success in the role. Previous experience and knowledge of the PPF assessment process is also desirable.

Responsibilities & Criteria

The Pensions Consultant will be a key part of our professional team, which includes actuaries, investment consultants and administration colleagues, in providing strategic and compliance-based pension advice to trustee and corporate clients. The Pensions Consultant is responsible for a defined portfolio of clients, ensuring appropriate governance controls are followed, relationships are positively managed and scheme secretarial activities (where provided) are delivered effectively. Depending on your experience, you can expect to be managing a portfolio of clients on your own, or have a mix of your own clients and clients you support others on while you develop your skills and experience as a Consultant. The successful candidate will be used to providing effective communication with clients and other third parties involved in the services we provide. This includes preparation of reports and communication material for trustees, client company and scheme members, and corresponding and liaising with pension scheme members and their dependants; pension scheme regulatory bodies; the PPF; HMRC; pension scheme auditors and other professional bodies and advisors.

Core responsibilities:

• Own and/or support in the management of a group of relationships with Trustees and Sponsors of DB pension schemes.
• Management of specific projects, e.g. GMP equalisation, ORAs.
• Oversee delivery of all aspects of pension scheme governance to ensure full compliance and no breaches.
• Act as day-to-day contact for clients and attend client meetings.
• Maintain services in line with the client contract and internal quality standards, manage the scheme business plan and agreed actions and maintain key governance documents.
• Where relevant, carry out scheme secretarial activity, including arranging meetings, setting agendas, compiling meeting packs.
• Lead and/or support on client issues, being solution focused and working closely with the client team as required.
• Monitor budgets and ensure defined financial metrics are achieved.
• Business growth responsibilities.
• Build a growing network of professional contacts at a regional level.
• Support in tender activity including pitches.
• Regularly contribute to our marketing collateral.
• Identify and share opportunities for product and service enhancements through client proposition and revenue generating opportunities.

Personal Growth Responsibilities:

• Actively build skills and experience towards your own defined development goals.
• Keep abreast of all regulatory and governance changes.
• Attend training, both technical and other business skills as required.

Essential Criteria:

• Experienced DB pension industry background with minimum 3 years experience in similar role or managing clients in a DB pensions administration context.
• Able to demonstrate good technical understanding of pension legislation, regulations and other relevant guidance, codes of practice, including scheme management and compliance, best practice guides and a knowledge of defined benefit and defined contribution schemes.
• Evidence of client management responsibility and ability to progress with multiple strands of activity.
• Excellent communication skills, both written and oral, with the ability to articulate technical points into lay terms.
• Use of computerised systems e.g. Microsoft Office products; in particular Excel, Word and PowerPoint; and the ability to learn and utilise bespoke systems and procedures.

Desirable Criteria:

• Working towards or successfully completed as Associate or Fellow member of the Pensions Management Institute (APMI/FPMI) or considered equivalent post qualification.
• Track record of delivering in a client management role, including project management exposure.
• Experience of new business activity including new business pitches, networking and attending industry events.

Circumstances:

• Location: One of our offices in London, Manchester, Glasgow or Belfast.
• Working hours: Monday to Friday, 37.5 hours per week with additional hours as and when required.
• All roles are subject to a six-month probationary period and all prospective employees are required to complete an Access NI check.
• As part of the pre-hire process the successful candidate will be subject to reference checking security vetting.

Spence & Partners is an Equal Opportunity Employer. Applying with a disability or long-term health condition? As part of our belief that we benefit from the differences among us we are committed to increasing the representation of disabled colleagues and want to remove any barriers or challenges that get in the way of candidates with a disability or long-term health condition from applying to work with us. If there is support or an adjustment that we can provide to enable you to be at your best during the recruitment and selection process, we encourage you to advise us in good time so that we may make suitable arrangements. We understand that being open with us may feel uncomfortable so please only share with us the information that you are comfortable to share, and rest assured that we will use this only to provide you with the right support. Any information you give us will be treated completely confidentially. To discuss this further please call and ask to speak to a member of the HR team.

Due to the changing nature of our business the role profile will inevitably change. We therefore recognise that from time to time, you will be required to undertake other activities of a similar nature that fall within your capabilities, as directed by the board.