Salary: National - £41,800 - £52,500

The team/department

This role sits within the User Centred Design Team within the Digital Delivery Hub. We are part of the Data, Technology & Innovation (DTI) Division leading the FCA in harnessing the power of data and advanced analytics to transform financial regulation.   

What you will be doing (the role)

As a Research Operations Associate at the FCA you will work with user researchers in a specialist user-centred design (UCD) team, providing vital support through the sourcing, recruitment and management of internal and external participants to take part in research sessions. These research sessions are key to helping our multi-disciplinary digital product teams design new products and services that help users achieve their goals:

• Responding to user researcher's requests to recruit research participants from a range of sources 
• Working with the user researcher community to improve the efficiency and inclusiveness of participant recruitment practice
• Liaising with internal teams as necessary to comply with information governance and other business processes while recruiting participants 
• Using consistent templates and processes for inviting, scheduling and managing participants for research sessions
• Ensuring participants have given consent prior to sessions using established process and templates
• Supporting the user research Lead and community in other ReOps areas such as Tooling and Knowledge Management as required

What you will get from the role

• Deliver impactful work supporting programmes that help consumers avoid financial harm and ensure fair financial markets 
• Help FCA products and services meet the needs of people in firms, consumers and FCA staff alike
• Benefit from a vibrant and positive community of practice making a difference to the maturity of user-centredness

Our competitive flexible benefits scheme gives you the opportunity to create a personalised benefits package, tailored to suit your lifestyle. You can use this allowance to purchase additional benefits such as dental or cycle to work or you have the option top up your base salary by taking this as cash.  

Core benefits that you will receive as standard are:   

• 25 days holiday per year plus bank holidays
• Private healthcare with Bupa  
• A non-contributory Pension of at least 8% of basic salary each month (there are several contribution levels that increase depending on your age – up to 12% a month once you reach age 35) 
• Life assurance of eight times your basic salary  
• Income protection  

We support hybrid working which means you will be able to work from home up to 60% of the time over a month with the remainder of your time in our Leeds office.

The skills and experience you will have  

Minimum criteria

We are a signatory to the Government’s Disability Confident scheme. This means that we will offer an interview to disabled candidates entering under the scheme, who best meet the minimum criteria for a role.  

• Experience in research operations, user research, or customer relationship management gained within financial services, government/regulatory bodies, technology, or consultancy (preferably IT consultancy)
• Some experience in working in project/programme environments involving business & IT change

Essential criteria

• Strong organisational and information management skills to ensure efficient delivery of participant recruitment across a number of competing priorities
• An understanding of user research or other forms of qualitative research practice 
• An understanding of diversity and inclusion principles and practice
• Experience in ensuring personal sensitive information is protected at all times through protocols and in line with UK data protection law
• Experience of engaging directly with a wide range of stakeholders and potential participants in a professional and engaging manner
• Experience of helping improve business processes and ways of working, ideally in the area of research participant recruitment

About the FCA   

The FCA regulates the conduct of nearly 45,000 firms in the UK to ensure our financial markets are honest, fair and competitive. We do this to make sure markets work well for individuals, businesses and the economy as a whole. For more information on what we do, our three-year strategy can be found here.  

The FCA's Values & Diversity  

Our ambition is to cultivate a culture of inclusion for all employees that respects their individual strengths, views, and experiences. 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.  

The FCA is committed to achieving greater diversity across all levels of the organisations. Given this, we particularly welcome applications from women, disabled and minority ethnic candidates for our Associate role.   

Flexible working

We welcome applications from candidates who are looking for flexible arrangements.  Many of our staff work flexibly including working part-time, staggered hours, and job shares.  We can’t promise to give you exactly what you want but we won’t judge you for asking.

Useful information  

•  Applications for this role close at 23:59 on the 31st October 2024
• This role is graded as Associate - Regulatory  

Got a question?    

If you are interested in learning more about the role please contact: 

For internal applicants, please contact Michael Wood, michael.wood@fca.org.uk 

For external applicants, please contact Asha Gladis, asha.gladis@fca.org.uk 

What to expect from our interview process  

The assessment process consists of an initial screening call with one our Recruitment Partners.  If successful, you will be invited to attend a 30 minute first stage interview to bring your CV and application to life and share your motivations for this role. If a candidate progresses to the final stage there will be a competency based interview, including a case study presentation. 

Application support  

We want to remove any possible barriers and are committed to providing a wide range of reasonable adjustments so that you can keep the focus on your conversations and be at your best.  

If you have an accessibility requirement, disability, or condition that means you might require changes to the recruitment process, please contact your recruiter to discuss this further. Our aim is to make your application as easy and comfortable as possible, and your recruiter will be happy to work with you to make any necessary arrangements where possible.