Senior Pensions Administrator

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 and Mantle, which reimagines the traditional models of defined benefit pensions administration and actuarial valuation software.

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 hiring a Senior Pensions Administrator who wants the opportunity to carve out a successful role within an award-winning and growing organisation.

We are looking for candidates who are ambitious and enjoy working with people. You should thrive on solving complex problems and be interested in the financial services/pensions industry and areas affecting it. You will be well organised and proactive, calm under pressure and can communicate effectively (written and verbal).

You will enjoy working in a challenging environment in which you can develop both personally and professionally. You will be a conscientious individual with exceptional attention to detail, with a passion for delivering a quality product to our customers. You will have the ability to build strong relationships internally and externally and work to demanding deadlines and targets.

Responsibilities & Criteria

As a Senior Pensions Administrator, you will manage and maintain the administration aspects of defined benefit and defined contribution pension schemes on behalf of the scheme trustees. Acting as point of contact for scheme members, scheme managers/trustees and other third parties and provide mentoring and peer review of less experienced administrators. Our team carry out all types of exercises from winding up schemes and calculating members’ pension benefits to carrying out forensic research for schemes, all the while providing an excellent service to the members of our Schemes. This variation makes Spence an exciting opportunity for anyone interested in a career in pensions.

You will build a portfolio of clients to which you will manage all the transactions needed for their pension schemes, ensuring they are completed to the highest standards, within the service levels. You will become key contact to pension members and your clients answering queries over the phone and via written communication and attending Trustee meetings. You will become effective at providing clear and accurate information to members and beneficiaries.

Key Criteria

• Broad pension's technical knowledge, with at least five years' experience working in a Defined Benefit pension administration environment and with a detailed understanding of defined benefit pensions schemes and UK pensions legislation, regulation and codes of practice.
• Knowledge of systems e.g. Microsoft Office/ Windows applications.
• Experience in managing ad-hoc and annual pension projects.
• Excellent communication skills both written and oral with the ability to articulate and communicate current and relevant issues to scheme members; pension trustees; and other relevant third parties.
• Experience of working pro-actively and using own initiative to complete tasks.
• The ability to perform in a fast-moving environment providing excellent service to clients and third parties with a desire to succeed at accomplishing challenging objectives.

Desirable Criteria

• Knowledge of and experience with GMP Reconciliation / Equalisation calculations.
• Practical knowledge of the Pension Protection Fund (PPF).

Circumstances

Working hours: Monday to Friday, 37.5 hours per week with additional hours as and when required.

Location: UK-wide with opportunity available in Belfast, Manchester or Glasgow.

All roles are subject to a six-month probationary period and all prospective employees are required to complete an Access NI check.

3173 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. As part of this commitment, we guarantee to automatically interview anyone with a disability who meets the minimum criteria.

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 028 9041 2000 and ask to speak to a member of the People & Culture team.