Financial Conduct Authority
Regulating financial services firms and financial markets in the UK, https://www.fca.org.uk/careers
Head of Department, Retail Investigations
At the FCA, we’re creating a fair and more resilient financial system. We’re establishing more transparent relationships between financial services and customers, building trust in financial markets and protecting vulnerable consumers. We’re currently on an exciting journey as we drive forward significant organisational, people, process, and technology transformation to become a more forward-thinking, proactive regulator. We will use data more effectively to drive better regulatory decisions and build greater cohesion across our broad financial services remit. Significant improvements in digital enablement, business intelligence, market data and information management maturity are all being pursued to maintain our position as a world leader in financial services regulation.
In March 2025, The FCA launched a new 5-year strategy to deepen trust, rebalance risk, support growth and improve lives. The FCA will focus on four priorities:
* Be a smarter regulator; predictable, purposeful and proportionate. The FCA will improve its processes and embrace technology to become more efficient and effective.
* Support sustained economic growth, by enabling investment, innovation and ensuring the continued competitiveness of the UK’s world-leading financial services.
* Help consumers navigate their financial lives by working with industry to boost trust, product innovation and ensuring the right information and support is available for people to take financial decisions.
* Fight financial crime, focusing on those who seek to use the fact they are regulated to do harm. It will go further to disrupt criminals and support firms to be an effective line of defence.
The Role
The vacancy is in Retail 3, which sits in the Retail & Regulatory Investigations directorate and is one of three departments focused on taking regulatory, civil, and criminal proceedings against firms and individuals in retail/consumer markets. The Department is comprised of multi-disciplinary teams of experienced professionals including lawyers, accountants and investigators with 4 investigation teams and a Crypto Hub team. The Crypto Hub joins up EMO’s cryptoasset work, to support the progression of action to tackle crypto harm, and to advance complex work preparing for the UK’s regulation of crypto. It brings together and further develops resource from investigations, intelligence, regulatory and legal.
Retail investigates sectors covering retail banking, asset management, mortgage broking and lending, insurance, financial advice, consumer credit and payment services. It deals with firms that sell unsuitable products or services to consumers, mishandle client money and assets, or have governance and systemic issues. It also investigates financial crime matters and takes action against individuals under SMCR, APER and/or fitness and properness regimes.
The successful candidate will be a member of the Division’s senior leadership team and will be expected to take a full role in supporting and challenging others to deliver the full range of the Division’s responsibilities (which also include Market Oversight and Intelligence). The candidate will work collaboratively ensuring that the Division offers its staff a challenging and high-performance place to work and that the Division is constantly focussed on improving efficiency and innovation in its work and contributing to the leadership and strategy of the FCA as a whole.
Location: London, Leeds, Edinburgh
Contract type: Full time, Permanent
Profession: Head of, Investigation, Retail
Working pattern: Flexible working, Hybrid
Closing Date: 16/02/2026
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