Senior Lawyers in Birmingham

Contract: 1 x permanent and 1 x fixed-term contract for 12 months for a short-term piece of work

Hours: Full-time (37 hours per week)

Salary: £70,000 per annum

Grade: 13

Working Pattern: Flexible hybrid working arrangements. You will be expected to attend the office and travel to court as required to meet business needs.

The Gambling Commission is expanding its Legal team and is seeking 2 Senior Lawyers to provide practical, solution-focused advice across a diverse range of complex and high-profile matters. Working closely with colleagues across the organisation, you will play a key role in supporting the Commission’s regulatory and criminal objectives and helping to ensure that gambling is fair, safe and free from crime.

Our offer to you:

• Market-leading Civil Service pension with a 28.97% employer contribution rate
• Our central Birmingham city centre office is just a stone's throw from New Street train station
• 26 days’ holiday, increasing to 29 days after 2 years, with an option to buy up to 5 additional days
• Join one of the Best Places to Work as highlighted in the Times

As part of our Legal team, you will advise on criminal, licensing, regulatory and public law matters.

As a Senior Lawyer, you will lead the Commission’s most complex, high-risk and high-profile legal matters. You will be responsible for advising on legal strategy, overseeing the delivery of legal advice across cases, and ensuring the provision of high-quality, consistent and risk-based legal support aligned with organisational objectives.

Key Responsibilities:

The role requires significant experience in both regulatory, public law and criminal prosecutions. You will provide advice on a broad range of complex issues, including regulatory decision-making, investigations, evidential requirements, enforcement powers, and criminal proceedings, including litigation.

You will lead and take ownership of the complex, novel and sensitive matters across criminal, regulatory, and public law matters dealt with by the Commission, including those with significant legal, reputational or policy implications.

Your responsibilities will include:

• Setting legal strategy on investigations, enforcement action, litigation and regulatory decision-making
• Leading and advising on the development of policy, consultation responses and legislative proposals, with a clear understanding of legal, regulatory and public law implications
• Providing authoritative, risk-based advice to senior leadership, including at executive and board level
• Supervising, mentoring and developing lawyers, including quality assurance of legal advice and outputs
• Making strategic decisions on enforcement approach, evidential issues and legal risk
• Leading engagement with external counsel, law enforcement partners and other regulators

About you:

Essential criteria:

• Qualified Solicitor holding a current practising certificate, or a Chartered Legal Executive (CILEX Fellow with litigation rights) with, or working towards, advocacy and litigation rights in criminal law.
• Minimum five years’ PQE or equivalent experience.
• Significant senior-level experience advising on complex public law and regulatory matters, including the interpretation and application of statutory powers and regulatory frameworks, the application of public law principles, regulatory decision-making, and the assessment and mitigation of judicial review risk.
• Proven ability to build credibility and trusted relationships with senior colleagues, stakeholders and decision-makers.
• Extensive prosecutorial experience leading and advising on complex criminal investigations and prosecutions, including the strategic use of enforcement powers, such as the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 (PACE) and the Criminal Procedure and Investigations Act 1996 (CPIA).
• Excellent intellectual, analytical, strategic and communication skills, with proven experience leading complex, high-profile and sensitive matters involving significant legal, regulatory and reputational risk, and the ability to provide clear, persuasive and authoritative legal advice both orally and in writing.
• Strong leadership and people management skills, with proven ability to supervise, mentor, and quality assure the work of other lawyers.

Selection Process:

As part of the application process, you will be asked to provide an anonymised CV and a cover letter. Further details on these can be found when you click apply. The closing date for this role is 11:59pm on 18 October 2026. We reserve the right to change the closing date depending on the number of responses received.

Candidate shortlisting will take place in the weeks commencing 19 and 26 October 2026, with remote interviews taking place during the week commencing 9 November 2026. All shortlisted candidates will be given a minimum of 5 working days’ notice ahead of their interview date.

The interview process for this vacancy will comprise a remote presentation on a designated topic, followed by a question-and-answer session. Candidates will then attend a remote interview consisting of competency-based and technical questions. To prepare for your interview, please familiarise yourself with the STAR technique for answering interview questions.

Please ensure you have the right to work in the UK before applying, as we are unable to provide visa sponsorship. This role requires you to have lived in the UK for the last 5 years and obtain SC level security clearance.

As the regulator of the National Lottery, there are some roles within the Commission that are prohibited from playing the National Lottery. This does not affect your family playing. We will let you know at the interview if the role you have applied for is on the Prohibited List.