Senior Risk Manager – Trade Surveillance Model Validation
London hybrid – Broad ST.
Contract to the end of year - this person will ideally continue next year’s book of work
Inside ir35.
Summary
An excellent opportunity for a highly motivated candidate to join the Markets & AI Modelling team within the Model Risk Office (MRO).
This role offers an exciting opportunity to be part of a dynamic and growing team focused on model validation of trade surveillance systems, ensuring that models used to detect market abuse, insider trading, and other conduct risks are robust, explainable, and compliant with regulatory standards such as FCA and PRA SS1/23.
The role will suit someone with a strong quantitative background, hands-on programming skills in Python, and experience validating or developing machine learning or statistical models used for conduct or surveillance applications.
MRO acts as the second line of defense for model risk management, ensuring the Group’s models are independently validated, well-controlled, and compliant with policy and regulation.
You’ll join a dedicated team responsible for the independent review, testing, and validation of trade surveillance models that leverage machine learning, statistical, and natural language processing to identify potential market abuse and anomalous trading activity.
Key responsibilities include:
• Performing independent validation and periodic reviews of trade surveillance models, ensuring conceptual soundness, robustness, and regulatory compliance.
• Evaluating data quality, feature engineering, and performance across surveillance systems.
• Reviewing model documentation to assess conceptual soundness, implementation quality, and governance controls.
• Conducting benchmarking, backtesting, and stress testing using Python to challenge model design and performance.
• Assessing statistical and machine learning based trade surveillance systems, ensuring transparency, explainability, and effective thresholds for alerts and detections.
• Providing quantitative and qualitative assessments of models’ accuracy, stability, and suitability for business use.
• Engaging with first-line model developers, Compliance, and Surveillance teams to discuss validation findings and ensure timely remediation.
• Delivering clear, concise, and actionable reports summarising validation outcomes and risk ratings for senior management and governance committees.
• Supporting regulatory validation work required under FCA, and other relevant frameworks.
• Contributing to the continuous improvement of validation methodologies for models used in trade surveillance.
What skills and experience can you bring to the role?
• Experience working in Data Science or ML development, validation, or a quantitative/analytical role within financial services or another regulated industry; or a relevant postgraduate degree.
• Strong technical or academic background (e.g., Data Science, Statistics, Mathematics, Computer Science, or related field).
• Good analytical and problem-solving skills with the ability to understand and test trade surveillance systems.
• Experience with configuring, tuning, or validating third-party trade surveillance tools
• Solid grasp of model governance frameworks, including regulatory expectations under MAR, and FCA requirements.
• Strong written and verbal communication skills, with the ability to document and explain findings clearly.
• Ability to work collaboratively within a team, manage tasks effectively, and deliver quality outputs on time.
• Demonstrated ability to collaborate effectively with multiple stakeholders, including Risk, Compliance, and Technology teams.
If you believe you have the experience required, please apply with your CV now for instant consideration!
TO APPLY - PLEASE APPLY WITH AN UP-TO-DATE CV
Candidates will ideally show evidence of the above in their CV in order to be considered.
Please be advised if you haven't heard from us within 48 hours then unfortunately your application has not been successful on this occasion, we may however keep your details on file for any suitable future vacancies and contact you accordingly.
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