Associate, Markets Policy at Financial Conduct Authority

The following is a Graduate Review for Financial Conduct Authority.

Financial Conduct Authority scores 3.7/5 based on 313 reviews.

All reviews are based exclusively on results of feedback from employees from Financial Conduct Authority. Employees are asked to rate Financial Conduct Authority on a wide range of work place topics, which is broken down through star ratings on the right hand side.

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What are the Best and Worst things about your job?

Best

Intellectually challenging work.

Relatively flat organisational structure, meaning exposure to very senior people quite regularly (including meetings, briefings, etc).

As a graduate, a lot of attention is paid to your professional and personal development. You can be quite open with your manager(s) about your mid-term and long-term career goals.

Obligatory external secondment to end your graduate scheme, which is fantastic in terms of future career options and progression within the FCA

Worst

Very long governance processes for most decisions.

Not having much flexibility in terms of choosing a rotation in the graduate scheme. If you love your current rotation, you will not be allowed to remain within the team if you are due to rotate out.

What is the annual salary for this role?

Starting salary: £33,000 - £35,000

Current salary: £33,000 - £35,000

What hours do you actually work, on average?

Start: 08:45

Finish: 18:30

What advice would you give to someone applying to this role?

Be specific about your interest in the role and your chosen division (e.g. "I am particularly interested in the supervision of wholesale financial services as I previously worked in a retail bank and would, therefore, want more exposure to wholesale firms and markets" is better than "The work of Wholesale Supervision sounds very interesting")

Do your research based on reliable news sources (e.g. Financial Times) and, crucially, FCA-published documents.

Do you have any interview tips?

Work quickly through the written exercises at the assessment centre because time runs out fast.

Whenever you are asked to role play, make sure you remember that you have to literally act as if you were someone else.

Avoid making sweeping generalisations about anything. If you state an opinion, make sure you are able to back that up with justification if asked by the interviewers.

Be able to explain how you fit the FCA values and mission (worth reading their business plan and Sector Views).