Senior Compliance Business Partner - Life in Cheltenham

Working hours: This role is available on a part-time, job-share or full-time basis.

Location: Hybrid – 2 Days/Week in Swindon

Closing date for applications: Wednesday 30th September 2026 (We reserve the right to close this vacancy before the advertised closing date if we receive a high volume of applications.)

The opportunity: Join Us as a Senior Compliance Business Partner! Are you ready to dive into an exciting role where you can make a real difference? As a Senior Compliance Business Partner, you'll be a key player in our dynamic Advisory Services team, working under the leadership of one of our Heads of Compliance. We are looking for an experienced professional who can bring confidence, curiosity and collaborative leadership to help shape decisions, build insight, and ensure a strong Compliance voice within the Life Market Facing Unit (MFU). This role sits at the heart of our shift from a reactive consultancy model to a proactive, insight led Business Partnering approach - helping us make Compliance simple, trusted and integral to every decision. Operating at a more strategic altitude than traditional advisory work, the post holder will shape senior manager decisions, anticipate cross cutting risks and ensure Compliance delivers insight at the moments that matter.

As a Senior Compliance Business Partner, you'll:

• Build trusted, influential relationships with senior managers across your aligned Market Facing Unit, providing proactive insight, constructive challenge and proportionate, commercially literate compliance opinions.
• Shape business solutions and decisions by bringing forward looking Compliance insight, framing trade offs clearly, and ensuring decisions align with FCA regulatory rules and expectations and our agreed risk appetite.
• Orchestrate Compliance engagement across our SME teams, ensuring the business receives clear, decision ready written advice while maintaining clear second line independence and avoiding duplication or drift into first line delivery.
• Promote a culture of accountability, helping the business understand regulatory expectations in practical terms, balancing appropriately between prudence and pragmatism to support confident, well informed decision making.

Many of our employees work flexibly in a variety of different ways, including part-time, flexible hours, job share, an element of working from home or compressed hours. This is because we want the best people for our roles, and we recognise that sometimes those people aren’t available full-time. Please talk to us at interview about the flexibility you may need.

What will you be doing? Reporting into the Head of Compliance, Consulting and Financial Crime, you will:

• Be the Primary Compliance Business Partner: Build trusted, influential relationships with senior managers across the Life MFU, providing proactive insight, constructive challenge and decision-ready guidance.
• Bring Enterprise Insight: Develop a deep understanding of the Life MFU’s strategic priorities, business plan and customer journeys, enabling you to anticipate compliance risks and help shape solutions to support safe, sustainable growth.
• Champion Compliance Standards: Help the Life MFU understand and apply Zurich’s Compliance Risk Universe, and adhere to FCA expectations (including Consumer Duty, Product Governance & Oversight and Third Party Oversight), offering proportionate and commercially aware guidance.
• Shape the ‘House View’ Position: Work with Compliance Assurance, Financial Crime and Data Protection SMEs to develop clear, consistent Compliance positions on emerging issues, thematics and regulatory developments.
• Deliver Decision Ready Compliance Advice: Produce crisp and clear written Advice Notes for senior stakeholders and governance forums that articulate options, frame trade offs and implications, and present clear opinions and recommendations on complex regulatory topics.
• Role Model Collaboration: Demonstrate our Collaborative, Curious and Confident behaviours, supporting peers, coaching junior colleagues and working closely with Group functions to ensure a One Compliance approach.
• Drive Continuous Improvement: Identify and implement opportunities to improve methodologies, processes, and ways of working that increase the efficiency and effectiveness of how we deliver Compliance advisory services to the business.

What are we looking for? We are looking for an experienced financial services professional with a strong understanding of, and exposure to, managing compliance and regulatory risk. You will already demonstrate strong expertise in advisory or compliance roles, and be ready to evolve into a more strategic, insight-led Business Partnering position.

You will need to demonstrate:

• Influence and Constructive Challenge: Ability to shape decisions through trusted relationships, clear reasoning, and credible challenge, while maintaining clear, principled second line independence.
• Enterprise Insight: Ability to connect the dots between themes, data, and risks across products, channels, and functions to produce forward looking, evidence based insights.
• Judgement: Ability to make timely, proportionate, and defensible compliance risk decisions by balancing regulatory expectations, customer outcomes, and commercial realities.
• Outcome Accountability: Ability to ensure compliance advice is translated into clear actions, tracked to completion, and embedded, without stepping into first line delivery.
• Strategic Communication: Ability to frame compliance risks with clarity in writing and verbally, tailoring tone appropriate for audiences – including Executive and Board Directors - to enable confident and timely decisions.
• Regulatory & Business Acumen: Ability to translate both regulatory intent and business mechanics, enabling compliance advice that is proportionate, defensible, and commercially literate.
• Sustainable Performance & Personal Effectiveness: Ability to maintain consistent, high quality performance through effective prioritisation, healthy boundaries, and resilient working habits. You will evidence an ability to balance regulatory expectations, customer outcomes and commercial realities — and to communicate these confidently and clearly to senior managers.

What will you get in return? Everyone’s different. That’s why at Zurich, we offer a wide range of employee benefits so our people can choose what fits them and their life. Our benefits provide real flexibility so our people can make considered choices and tailor their benefits throughout the year. Our benefits include 12% defined non-contributory pension scheme, annual company bonus, private medical insurance and the option to buy up to an additional 20 days or sell some of your holiday, alongside a range of other flexible benefits.

Who we are: At Zurich we aspire to be one of the most responsible and impactful businesses in the world. Together, we’re creating a brighter future for our customers, our people and our planet. With over 65,000 employees, you’ll feel the support of being part of a strong and stable company that is a long-standing player in the insurance industry.

Our culture: At Zurich, our strength comes from the diverse experiences, perspectives and talents of our people. Our goal is to create a workplace where every employee can flourish and where everyone feels valued, heard and respected. Over a quarter of our employees are members of at least one of our inclusion communities (Employee Resource Groups), with groups focused on areas such as social mobility and cultural awareness. We’re proud to have received numerous industry awards recognising our diversity and inclusion policies and initiatives.

Your application: We’re committed to treating all applicants fairly and with respect, irrespective of their actual or assumed background, sexual orientation, disability or any other protected characteristic. As an inclusive employer we also want to ensure that all candidates feel comfortable and are able to perform at their best during the interview. You’ll have the opportunity to let us know of any reasonable adjustment or practical support needed when you apply.