Senior Associate – Market Research specialist

Job Title: Senior Associate – Market Research specialist

Division: Supervision, Policy and Competition

Directorate: Cross Cutting Policy & Strategy

Department: Cross-Cutting Response, Research & Contracts

• Salary:
  National (Edinburgh and Leeds) ranging from £53,800 to £67,199 and London £59,200 to £73,799 per annum (Salary offered will be based on skills and experience)
• This role is graded as:
  Senior Associate – Regulatory
• Your recruitment contact is:
  Louis Van den Burg via
• Your External Recruitment contact is:
  Tahir Kahn via

The FCA regulates the conduct of c 35,500 firms in the UK to ensure our financial markets are honest, fair and competitive. Follow this link to find out more About the FCA.

The FCA’s Market Research team provides vital consumer insights that support regulatory decisions. The team conducts bespoke surveys and qualitative research for other areas of the FCA, collaborates with third-party data providers and ensures consumer insights are embedded across the organisation. They also deliver the Financial Lives survey (FLS) – a key, nationally representative study tracking UK consumers’ attitudes, behaviours and financial experiences.

Their work informs policy, identifies emerging issues and measures regulatory impact – helping to keep the consumer voice central to financial oversight.

The team also manages a smaller amount of firm research, including research about the perceptions firms and other stakeholders have of the FCA and how firms experience regulation.

• The role will be around 75% on bespoke research and around 25% on FLS. You will work closely with the team leads (Lead Associates) for FLS and for Bespoke research.
• You will work with our internal clients, to write excellent Statements of Requirements (SoRs) for new bespoke research, assess/ evaluate agency bids, and work with appointed suppliers to ensure research projects are delivered on time and within budget. You will be responsible for ensuring that projects use optimal data collection, data is robust, and findings are analysed and reported well.
• For quantitative bespoke projects you will ensure that sampling, screening and weighting are addressed as early as needed in the project timeline, and that outputs will meet client needs. For qualitative research you will ensure projects meet client needs, whether they are standalone projects, or intended to help design a survey or to fill the gaps quantitative research cannot fill, or to inform behavioural testing research run by our colleagues in Economics.
• For some projects, your role may be to design the survey or the qualitative research, and/or to provide in a SoR a clear research design for agencies to refine. Sometimes you will produce a first draft of the questionnaire or discussion guide.
• You willbe responsible fortwo or threeof theretail financialsectorsortopicscovered by the FLS, meaning you deliver the questionnaire, thetabspecand the slides-based report for thesesections of the survey.

• Prior experience managing market research projects within a market research agency, regulator or government department, including devising and overseeing work streams and detailed timelines as well as overseeing suppliers.
• Strong organisational skills, with the ability to work autonomously and deliver on your own initiative, to manage competing priorities, to work collaboratively to achieve wider team goals, and to keep delivery on track.
• High attention to detail, with the ability to implement and maintain processes that ensure the quality and rigour of the team’s work.

• Experience of designing and conducting research for, or on behalf of, a financial services organisation or a public sector organisation.
• Very good knowledge of a broad range of quantitative and qualitative research methodologies, with the ability to analyse results effectively.
• Experience of writing reports to publication standard, in PowerPoint and in Word.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills.
• Broad understanding of the different retail sectors within the financial services industry and the regulatory environment in which it operates,
• Experi…