About us

More than half the UK working population rely on The Pensions Regulator (TPR) to regulate their retirement savings. With a career at TPR, you’ll be joining an organisation that will impact on millions of lives for decades to come.
Everyone at TPR plays an important role in helping to keep more than £2trn of savings safe. We’re committed to bringing people into TPR who are ready to make a difference and put UK savers at the heart of what we do.

It is important to us that TPR remains a great place to work. We do all we can to help our people reach their full potential with learning, secondment, and development opportunities. We put our 900+ employees first, supporting flexible working and offer a diverse, lively, and inclusive environment. This includes our Disability Network, Family Network, LGBT+ Network (Proud), Minority Ethnic (ME) Network and Women’s Network, which offer spaces to connect.

Our new corporate strategy outlines a bold and challenging vision of how pensions regulation should evolve to keep pace with a change in the scale and nature of the industry. We are at the start of that journey. Join us to find out what part you can play.

We operate a hybrid working model, subject to government guidelines, where regular attendance in our Brighton office is required. Attendance in the office is team and role dependent.

The job

We’re recruiting a number of Pensions Regulation Managers to join our relationship supervision team.

Relationship supervision involves working closely with pension schemes to identify areas of concern before they get worse, helping them improve and embed best practice. We work with many of the UK’s largest and most complex schemes, including master trusts, and have recently started working with third-party administrators. Neary 70% of workplace pension savers are in schemes supervised by our relationship supervision team.

You can find out more about how relationship supervision works on our website.

Your role

As a Pensions Regulation Manager (lead specialist grade), you’ll take a leading role at the forefront of our relationship supervision team, which covers a wide range of scheme types, including defined benefit, defined contribution, public service, CDC, superfunds, and master trusts.

Your role will include working with our highest profile schemes or with our new pensions administration work. Whichever role fits your experience best, you’ll be doing some of our most challenging and rewarding work. No two days will be the same, but some things you can expect to be involved in include:

• Working closely with your portfolio, getting real insight, and using this to identify risks and best practice.
• Reviewing and responding to time-sensitive events that will have a high media profile, carrying out an initial assessment and summarising them with a view to how TPR should react.
• Helping develop our specialists and lead associates, and implementing processes and guidance on new and arising issues.
• Working with advisers to engage with the senior leadership teams, including attending evaluation meetings, reviewing scheme documentation, and observing board meetings.
• Making recommendations and following up on assessments or action plans to improve regulatory outcomes within agreed timescales.

To be successful at this role you’ll understand risks and be able to build and manage relationships at all levels. Sometimes these relationships will involve difficult and challenging conversations, and you need to have the confidence and knowledge to be able to get our message across and to negotiate the appropriate outcome. You’ll also be gathering and sharing complex information, analysing it, applying rules and keeping records of your assessments, strategies, action plans.

Responsibilities

Your responsibilities include:

• leading on high-level engagements and developing timely, efficient, and effective strategies
• building and influencing strong, collaborative relationships as a dedicated point of contact
• making strategic decisions and negotiating positive outcomes
• managing your time and available resources to achieve positive outcomes
• working with internal and external stakeholders at all levels
• using your knowledge and experience to set the tone of discussions, influencing high-profile internal and external boards and steering groups
• innovating and driving change, getting involved with continuous improvement, projects and training
• carrying out assessments to consider investigative activity with our enforcement team as required

Essential and desirable criteria

Essential
• Experience of managing portfolio of complex casework (or equivalent) and doing this through working independently and in a team
• Sufficient experience in finance, banking, regulation, the law or pensions, giving you the broad knowledge or appropriate skills to manage this work
• Critical thinking skills that demonstrate your ability to evaluate information and identify risks, making complex decisions and recommendations
• Demonstrable communication, negotiation and influencing skills, with experience at all levels to show how you can manage stakeholders and build relationships
• Experience of working within project management and/or the development of processes

Desirable

• Experience of leading/managing cross-functional teams
• Experience of leading pensions administration management

Person specification

• Strong verbal and written communication skills
• Ability to build strong interpersonal relationships with internal and external stakeholders
• Proactive and flexible
• Good problem-solving and analytical skills
• Able to negotiate difficult conversations
• Attention to detail and accuracy
• Able to make clear and well-reasoned decisions

Salary and benefits

As well as a salary between £46,093 and £61,187 per year, depending on skills and experience, we offer an excellent benefit package including:

• Civil Service defined benefit pension scheme
• Discretionary bonus arrangements
• Access to performance-related pay progression
• 25 days annual leave
• Flextime, with ability to take up to two days’ flexi leave a month
• Flexible working arrangements, including hybrid working
• Career development opportunities
• Enhanced parental leave arrangements
• Free employee assistance programme
• Location in Brighton and Hove area

How to apply

We are committed to diversity and inclusion, offering equal opportunities to all regardless of an individual’s age, disability, gender identity, marriage or civil partnership status, pregnancy or maternity, race, religion or belief, sex and sexual orientation.

If you share these values and feel like you’d be a good fit for the role, please send your CV to recruitmentteam@tpr.gov.uk along with a covering letter which answers the following questions:

1. How does your industry or other experience meet our needs?
2. What is your experience of relationship building and stakeholder engagement?
3. How can you demonstrate excellent communication skills including report writing?

When responding please quote ref 124526. Please also confirm if you are interested in a permanent or fixed term contract when submitting your application. CV’s alone will not be considered.

If you would like a short chat to discuss this role before applying, please contact recruitmentteam@tpr.gov.uk, and they will arrange this with one of our hiring managers or experienced staff.

As a Disability Confident employer, we’re committed to the recruitment, employment, retention, and development of people with disabilities, and to improving their employment opportunities. Candidates who declare that they have a disability and who meet the essential criteria for the job will be offered an interview. 

Please be aware, as we work within a hybrid environment, unless specified we will be holding interviews through Microsoft Teams for the foreseeable future.

In accordance with Home Office guidance, the successful candidate will be required to provide their right to work in the UK before they start employment. Unfortunately, TPR is not able to offer sponsorship at the time. TPR is a UK-based organisation with a working location in Brighton, candidates must live in the UK to be employed by us.

The Pensions Regulator is an arm’s length government body and part of the public service. 

Any offer of employment will be subject to the receipt of satisfactory background screening checks and criminal record checks (BPSS). 

If you have any queries about this role, or if you have a disability and wish to request a reasonable adjustment at any stage of the recruitment process, please email recruitmentteam@tpr.gov.uk.