Location: London, Threadneedle Street

Opportunity: Supported hiring, with flexible working

Apply by: 5 November 2021

The Bank of England is the UK’s central bank. Their mission is to deliver monetary and financial stability for the British people.

The Bank of England is a diverse organisation. Each of its 4,000 plus people are committed to public service and dedicated to promoting the good of the people of the United Kingdom by maintaining monetary and financial stability.

The Bank is recruiting a Risk Specialist – Sector Resilience Team, within the Supervisory Risk Specialists (SRS) Directorate and welcomes professionals who have taken an extended career break to apply for this permanent role. A successful hire who has taken a career break of 2+ years will receive coaching support through the transition period from Women Returners.

The Bank has hired a large number of returners over the last few years. Read Melissa’s story here. Learn more about working at the Bank here.

The Bank is fully committed to having a diverse and inclusive working environment, and are open to considering how the role might be carried out with flexible working. This role is therefore open to flexible working patterns.

About the Supervisory Risk Specialists Directorate

On 1 April 2013 the Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA) became responsible for the prudential regulation and supervision of banks, building societies, credit unions, insurers and major investment firms. The PRA was created by the Financial Services Act (2012) and is part of the Bank of England.

As a directorate of the PRA, the Supervisory Risk Specialists (SRS) provides deep technical expertise and applies judgement in specific risk disciplines as part of the PRA’s integrated supervisory approach, in order to identify, analyse and mitigate material risks to the safety and soundness of PRA regulated firms. These material risks can arise within and across firms and from the market environment.

SRS is split into four main divisions:

  • Credit Risk (CRD)
  • Operational Risk & Resilience Division (ORRD)
  • Risk Analytics, Liquidity and Capital (RALC)
  • Traded Risk (TRD)

Department Overview

The Operational Risk and Resilience Division (ORRD) sits within Supervisory Risk Specialists (SRS) Directorate and leads the PRA’s work on Operational Resilience (OR). Work on their approach to operational resilience has increased, with interest from their Governors, the Financial Policy Committee, the Prudential Regulation Committee and internationally. Key partners include supervision, industry, international counterparts, Her Majesty’s Treasury (HMT) and the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA).

About the Role 

An exciting opportunity has arisen to join the Sector Resilience Team (SRT) within ORRD. The role offers a varied set of challenges and is well suited to someone with a background in crisis management, exercise development, business continuity, risk management, and contingency planning.

Through working collaboratively with financial sector partners (‘collective action’) they focus on:

  • Detecting threats, hazards and vulnerabilities with the potential to disrupt the sector
  • Understanding the operational resilience of the sector
  • Mitigating vulnerabilities to reduce the probability or impact of risks to the sector’s operational resilience
  • Developing, maintaining and delivering Response capabilities to sustain the sector through periods of disruption
  • Driving the operational resilience agenda, both domestically and internationally, through thought leadership, subject matter expertise and partner management

Specific responsibilities will be agreed dependent on experience and personal interest. But are likely to involve:

  • Working closely with their lead specialist to deliver their incident response strategy. This will include delivering and supporting their incident response framework (Authorities Response Framework, Sector Response Framework, international frameworks and their own internal Critical Incident Management Framework)
  • Supporting their exercising and cyber stress-testing strategies
  • Providing a focal point of engagement on resilience issues for UK sector industry groups and firm specialists, international counterparts and internally
  • Supporting internal and external committee forum meetings such as the Cross Market Operational Resilience Group (CMORG) and its sub-groups, the Cross Market Business Continuity Group (CMBCG) and international working groups. This may include secretariat responsibilities
  • Drafting briefings for Bank seniors and delivering internal training

Role Requirements

Minimum Criteria

  • Experience in incident response/crisis management – playing a key role as part of a team in responding to an operational incident
  • Additional working level experience in at least two of the following areas
    • Project leadership – specifically working with multiple partners to deliver sophisticated projects, planning timescales and milestones, logging actions
    • Scoping, preparing and delivering an operational and / or cyber resilience exercise
    • Preparation of post-incident lessons learnt
    • Crafting and delivering training packages
    • Creation of strategic briefing papers

Essential criteria

  • Capable of leading own work, within tight timescales and during lively periods
  • Openness to empathise with colleagues and demonstrate diverse and inclusive values
  • Excellent communications skills – both written and oral. This includes a consistent track record of tailoring communications to the intended audience. And an ability to communicate technical or sensitive information
  • Strong problem solving and analytical skills
  • Able to provide challenge within your specialist area and be open to challenge from others

Desirable criteria

  • Experience in a relevant area of their work (e.g. financial stability, supervision, payments, market infrastructure, data analysis etc.) and the ability to apply this to new areas

Reward Package

The Bank of England is a distinctive institution and their rewards are one of the things that set them apart. As well as enjoying a competitive salary you will work in a collaborative, inclusive environment, with a subsidised restaurant, flexible working opportunities and plenty of wellbeing initiatives.

The salary range for this vacancy is approximately £46,000 – £59,000 , dependent on relevant skills and experience.  In addition, the total reward package also includes:

  • A non-contributory, career average pension giving you a guaranteed retirement benefit of 1/95th of your annual salary for every year worked There is the option to increase your pension (to 1/50th) or decrease (to 1/120th) in exchange for salary through our flexible benefits programme each year
  • A discretionary performance award based on a current award pool
  • A 7% benefits allowance with the option to take as salary or purchase a wide range of flexible benefits
  • 25 days annual leave with option to buy up to 13 additional days through flexible benefits
  • Private medical insurance and income protection

About the Bank of England

As a place of work, the Bank feels different from most other organisations. The atmosphere is relaxed but professional, research-driven and also very much connected to real events in the economy. While organisations in the private sector are focused primarily on profits, the ultimate objectives for the Bank are always the quality of thinking and the rigour of analysis. This makes for an unusually satisfying place to develop your career. Whichever area of the Bank you join, you will almost certainly be working on high-profile and high-impact projects. The issues they deal with on a daily basis are often in the news headlines, and have implications for everyone in the country. For many of their people, this sense of contributing to the public good is one of the most rewarding aspects of working there.

The environment is extraordinary too: a historic building located in the heart of the City, which combines rich tradition with up-to-date technology and facilities. Just as importantly, they have a strong culture of support that exists within each of their teams and across the organisation as a whole.

To Apply

Please apply using the link below ensuring that you answer all the application questions, complete the work history and submit your CV, per the guidance below.

Risk Specialist – Sector Resilience Team

Apply asap. The closing date for applications is 5 November 2021.

IMPORTANT: When completing your application:

  • For the ‘Source name‘ question it is essential you select ‘Women Returners’ so the Bank can identify you as a returner and know you are applying on a supported hiring basis.
  • Due to the anonymised application process followed by the Bank (detailed below) it is essential to include your career break with dates in your work history, in the area of online free form text.

The Bank anonymises applications so hiring managers will not be able to see your personal information including your CV or any covering letters when reviewing your submission. Please complete fully the work history and application form questions as requested, as any inomplete submissions may not be reviewed.

The Bank values diversity and inclusion – they want to reflect the society they serve better, they want the best people to work for them and they want their workplace to be inclusive.  They value all forms of diversity, including but not limited to age, disability, ethnicity, gender, gender identity, race, religion and sexual orientation.  One way they support diversity and inclusion is through their staff-run networks, which are summarised here.

They are also committed to making workplace adjustments for all of their employees as needed, and also for candidates throughout all stages of the selection process. They are a member of the Disability Confident scheme, summarised here, and people who wish to apply under this scheme should check the box in the ‘Candidate Personal Information’ under the ‘Disability Confident Scheme’ section of the application.