Policy Adviser - Securities and Markets

If you’re interested in making a difference to people’s lives, the Treasury can offer you an exciting opportunity to influence decision making that affects the whole of the UK. Working at the heart of government, we collaborate across government to promote responsible public spending and drive strong and sustainable economic growth.

About the Team

We are advertising for an SEO to join our settlement and innovation branch within our Financial Market Infrastructure (FMI) Unit.

The FMI unit are a friendly and encouraging branch of 6 people (1 E2 (Grade 6), 2 Es (Grade 7) and 2-3 Ds (HEO/SEO)). FMIs are often described as the ‘plumbing’ of the financial system – without them, most transactions that take place across financial markets couldn’t happen. FMIs underpin the overall stability and resilience of markets and help avoid problems at individual firms from translating to a wider systemic collapse. Given the importance of UK FMIs to the global financial system, they generate significant interest from abroad and this has a strong influence on the unit’s work.

FMIs are also at the forefront of the modernisation of markets, particularly with the advent of new and exciting innovations like distributed ledger technology. The postholder would lead much of the unit’s work in this space, particularly as it relates to central securities depositories (a type of market infrastructure where securities are held and transferred) and digital assets.

About the Job

Key Responsibilities include:

1. Planning and delivering a “Digital markets” strategy to help modernise and improve UK markets, accounting for wider governmental aims in this space.
2. Becoming a subject matter expert on settlement and digital assets and independently take forward work to support the government’s agenda in these areas.
3. Overseeing the delivery and implementation of market reforms through secondary legislation – working collaboratively with Treasury lawyers.
4. Preparing advice for and working with Ministers and seniors on decisions, risks or issues pertaining to your policy.
5. Monitoring international/technological developments in the digital assets space and ensuring these are fed through/accounted for in the unit’s work.
6. Lead engagement with the financial services regulators and key financial services industry partners on a variety of important policy issues related to your policy area. The work in the unit therefore combines an exciting focus on the technical detail of financial markets and regulation with a bigger picture appreciation of ongoing political and technological developments. Within this role, you will get the chance to deliver policy that affects thousands of financial institutions as well as the average retail investor.

This role is stretching, intellectually demanding and will give the successful candidate a high level of policy responsibility and independence, as well as the opportunity to develop a specific policy expertise.

About You

The postholder would be jointly responsible for delivering a forward strategy for the digitalisation of financial markets which will help ensure that UK markets remain resilient, innovative and competitive on a global stage. The postholder would be expected to work closely with the Bank of England and Financial Conduct Authority to deliver on this as well as on new or ongoing workstreams to promote digital assets in the UK, such as the recently opened “Digital Securities Sandbox”.

Alongside this more strategic angle, the postholder would also be expected to lead on the reform of certain bits of UK legislation (e.g. our financial collateral regulations) to help enable the use of new technologies and to support the government’s wider mission to foster UK competitiveness and growth. This would involve developing a sophisticated understanding of the complex processes and frameworks that enable financial markets to operate, as well as the technical detail of the legislation that governs these.

Some of the Benefits our people love!

• 25 days annual leave (rising to 30 after 5 years), plus 8 public holidays and the King’s birthday (unless you have a legacy arrangement as an existing Civil Servant). Additionally, we operate flexitime systems, allowing employees to take up to an additional 2 days off each month.
• Flexible working patterns (part-time, job-share, condensed hours).
• Generous parental and adoption leave packages.
• Access to a generous Defined Benefit pension scheme with employer contributions of 28.97%.
• Access to a cycle-to-work salary sacrifice scheme and season ticket advances.
• A range of active staff networks, based around interests (e.g. analysts, music society, sports and social club) and diversity.

For more information about the role and how to apply, please follow the apply link.

If you need any reasonable adjustments to take part in the selection process, please tell us about this in your online application form, or speak to the recruitment team at hrrecruitment@hmtreasury.gov.uk.