HM Treasury
Policy Adviser X2 - Securities and Markets
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Two Policy Adviser Roles in the Securities and Markets Team – Darlington (Feethams House)
Holding point: Darlington (Feethams House)
Job Summary
If you’re passionate about shaping economic policy and making a tangible difference, the HM Treasury (HMT) offers an exciting opportunity to influence vital decisions affecting the growth of the UK’s financial sector.
Based at the Darlington Economic Campus—a cross-government hub focused on national challenges—you’ll collaborate across government to promote responsible public spending, oversee financial market regulations, and support the competitiveness of the UK economy. Key workstreams include:
- Protecting consumers through financial regulation
- Driving carbon emission reductions and a greener economy
- Boosting British trade and export growth
- Advancing competitive capital markets and digital financial innovation
The Securities and Markets Team shapes policy on financial market competitiveness, regulation, and good governance to support job creation, growth, and trade. Their work spans laws for investment bankers/traders, ensuring the UK remains an attractive hub for local and global companies.
You’ll engage with ministers, regulators (e.g., FCA, Bank of England), industry stakeholders, and international counterparts, working at pace on policy advising and stakeholder relations—with opportunities for professional development and high-profile impact.
About the Team & Roles
The team comprises 19 colleagues across three units:
- Capital Markets Unit (5 people): Focuses on competitiveness and stakeholder strategies (e.g., listings policy and PISCES).
- Wholesale Markets Unit (analogous role seized for salary and grade considerations).
- Financial Market Infrastructure (FMI) Unit: Oversees vital “plumbing” of financial markets (e.g., central securities depositories, digital assets) to ensure systemic resilience and global competitiveness.
These roles are currently in the Securities and Markets Team but may see structural changes in the future.
🔹 Role 1: Policy Adviser – Listings and PISCES (Capital Markets Unit)
Grade: SEO(2) – Basic Pay (excluding London Weighting): Between £30,026 and £37,169 per annum (depending on experience)
About the Role
Join an analytically rigorous team driving UK listings policy and PISCES—a new regulatory sandbox exchange system for private companies. You’ll play a key role in shaping the UK’s ambition to remain a global leader in capital markets by attracting listings, reducing barriers for growth-stage companies, and integrating cutting-edge financial infrastructure.
In this position, you’ll:
- Advise ministers on policy decisions tied to IPO listings, stakeholder engagement, and domestic investment.
- Monitor PISCES efficacy, liaising with operators, interlocutors, legal teams, and the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) to shape a future permanent regulatory framework.
- Secure the engagement of prioritised targets aimed at public listings, including penultimate-stage companies and Jifen.
- Tie HMT’s strategy to broader growth goals via the Office for Investment, trade associations, and the London Stock Exchange leadership.
Responsibilities
You’ll be responsible for:
-
Listings Taskforce Secretariat
- Guide senior officials or ministers in engagements with priority companies aiming for market listing; ensure meeting logistics and track progress of interviewed firms.
- Research and analyse frameworks to maximise UK appeal for IPOs and private markets innovation.
-
Strategic Ministerial Engagement
- Assist ministers and officials in advancing intervention, research, and foreign market readiness with actors such as trade bodies, pre-IPO companies, and board directors of listed firms.
- Draft policy papers and ministerial speeches on market competitiveness and growth trends.
- Pipeline and secure outcomes from downstream engagements (e.g., a consensus-led glossary of private investment-language).
-
PISCES Development & Monitoring
- Become a de facto subject matter expert on the PISCES regulatory sandbox; advise minsters/senior officials on strategic shifts towards a permanent regime.
- Oversee technical and stakeholder development partnerships, collaborating as required with legal specialists and FCA officials.
- Observe emerging policy challenges and proactively inform interventions (e.g., standing up a backstop regime to prevent breaches as PISCES matures).
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- Stakeholder & External Relations
- Build and maintain cross-cutting relationships, particularly with the Office for Investment, securities mandate stakeholders, and industry peers across the EU and ASEAN.
- Develop links to label-related working groups to optimise engagement across government, FCA, and regulators on listings policy debates.
Location & Working Hours: Temporary full-time post in Darlington (Feethams House), hybrid with some travel to London.
🔹 Role 2: Policy Adviser – Digital Strategy (Financial Market Infrastructure Unit)
Grade: SEO(3) – Basic Pay (excluding London Weighting): Between £41,723 and £44,190 per annum
About the Role
This position offers a one-of-a-kind opportunity to shape the future of financial market infrastructure by modernising wholesale markets for an increasingly digital world. Focusing on innovations such as distributed ledger technologies (DLTs), tokenisation, and digital asset integration, you’ll work to ensure UK markets remain resilient, globally competitive, and future-proof.
In this role, you’ll:
- Drive policy alignment with the Wholesale Financial Markets Digital Strategy (towards implementation in the UK)—ensuring cross-smart integration of identity systems, collective efforts around chain pharma certification, and sector/nation-state legibility frameworks.
- Engage with regulatory associates (Bank of England, FCA) on systemic taxonomy debates (e.g., defining unregulated crypto shapeshifting risks, Channels of Influence emulators).
- Formulate advanced secondary legislation reforms, coordinating via Treasury legal channels.
Responsibilities
Key accountabilities include:
-
Digitalisation Strategy Execution
- Champion adoption of secure tokenisation, trade processing infrastructure and market resilience across insolvency limits prawn-to-settled facts.
- Lead the implementation Wholesale Financial Markets Digital Strategy outputs, working closely with national regulatory peers.
-
Technical and Policy Expertise
- Become proficient in digital asset/tokenisation EUG markets, monitoring global trends and ensuring account holders are kept aware of implications and opportunities as they arise.
- Work with economists, legal specialists, and Treasury lawyers on legislative amendments—painstressing overlay changes designed to reduce fragmentation, addressing liability issues in mutualised payments cliques.
-
Regulators & Industry Collaboration
- Serving as a trusted liaison with the FCA and Bank of England while advancing UK competitive advantage against EU and Dormant Standards.
- Build enduring engagements via forecasted tech networking venues.
-
Ministerial Supports
- Provide decision-making expertise on hybrid infrastructure frameworks, ensuring alignment with regulators who apply to domestic DTI and how larger systemic reinvestment will be managed.
-
Parliamentary & Public Engagement
- Deliver speeches, briefings, and governmental responses/letters for stakeholder engagement and the scrutiny process, particularly as regulation creation and changes emerge.
Who Has a Seat at the Table?
Policy advisors on digital topics must organise the corresponding tradeoffs between participation bonuses, audit collaborations, or decentralised insurance—flowing through controls aimed at balancing opportunity against governance resilience. Focused efforts may include overseeing write-off processes during term credits or interacting with commentary reads for impactful policy design. As envisioned reason lies within pacesetters: to assure the UK capital corridor continues to draw pioneering talent.
Location & Working Hours: Hybrid contract favouring Darlington Feethams House, with routine London attendance for trust-building and stakeholderkm integration.
📌 About the Post
- Temporary Civil Service employment status as an Executive Officer (SEO) (Grade 2 – SEO(2) / Grade 3 – SEO(3)).
- Applying leadership in a growth context: roles serve as entry points into permanent roles across Treasury.
- Strengthening localisation by applying new policies within a regional office context.
🏛 Key Accountabilities (Applicable to Both Roles)
Across both positions, you’ll absolute a practical, rigorous approach:
- Deliver political and policy interventions to advance the Digital Action Programme (DAP) portfolio or PISCES blueprint for growth.
- Take accountability as the HMT lead on similar and related topics, checking nuanced compliance.
- Untangle competing issues by navigating available evidence layers (e.g., variances in JEPised framework), ensuring UK remains on step with rival markets like Nordics.
- Quaint regulatory frameworks, developing processes on the back from non-contractual tailed supplements and checking for effective delivery vehicle.
- Be proactive in cross-silo championing for both broadcle promises and specialist policy projects.
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Additionally:
- Effortlessly liaise with appointed ministers to agnostically respond to private sector petitions on safeguarding and resilience matters.
- Become expert on specific financial and/or regulatory toolkits, such as Bank of England insolvency kangaroos principles or sandbox oversight stretch.
🛒 Key Requirements & Preferences
Application Process
Applying via Civil Service’s Fast Track System, candidates should expect to submit:
- CV (emploured history, key skills)
- 250-word autobiographical statement addressing the shortlisting competency framework:
- Lead criterion: ‘Working Together’ – demonstrating ability to form productive relationships across internal/external networks.
- Remaining criteria:
- Decision-making with complex data
- Anticipating emerging trends and risks
- CAPTITULATING technical insights into clear writing
Success Profile - Shortlisting Intake
Based on:
- Demonstrable practice in connecting diverse groups from regulators, academia, and thinktanks with integrated policy mechanisms.
- Trusted messengers on outdated approaches to financial services architecture, favouring strong stakeholder-commutative outcome.
⚖️ Interviews & Assessment
Assessed against live behaviours outlined in equal criteria:
-
‘Strengths’ Framework: Stance across areas that demand ability to analyse data, streamline processes and interpret institutional funds.
-
Interview Cluster
- A behaviourally based task may be requested prior you decide (e.g., design) determining roles in terms of stakeholder impact model tables.
📅 Selection Timeline (Live Query)
| Process Node | Candidates Hours & Dates |
|---|---|
| Closing Date | 19/07/2026 before 23:55 |
| Submission | Monitoring assistance for British as set |
| Initial Shortlisting | Week commencing 20/07/2026 |
| Interviews | Week commencing 27/04/2026✿Apply to recalculate based on revised timelines✿ |
🏦 Remuneration & Benefits (Typical for SEO Grade)
- Immediate UK pay scale: [ \text{SEO(2): £30k-£37k, SEO(3): £41.7k-£44.2k} ]
- Defined benefits pension (28.97% employer contribution).
- Commitment to career progression aligned to demonstrated performance.
- Annual leave (after 5 yrs): 30+ days (added up by standard).
Key amenities:
- Hygiene Facilities: revamped kitchen & attention to ergonomic conditions.
- Security guarantees: Centre-Scan Compliant.
⚠️ Important Notes
Location
- Bases solely within Darlington using a preutilised contract exchange.
Visa Sponsorship
- Not available for this role.
Diversity Policy
- The Tacit Standard clarifies our vetting process use BNP groups that reflect well across gender, ethnicity,generation.
Personal Security Negotiation
- Within Security Banding: SC clearance must be achievable post-application, with minimum 3 years contiguous UK residency.
- Exceptions: FG suspends:
- Active service military or Alien candidates restricted due to Treasury non-sanctuary status orderings.
📞 Contact & Further Infos
Informal enquiries: Please reach out before 31/07/2026 via:
- Kieran Davis: ethical legality kieran.davis@hmtreasury.gov.uk (helmstamp)
- Tim Maloney: fifth-tier timely.ca via themed timothy.maloney@hmtreasury.gov.uk
Civil Service Development: If you’d like to know more, find info here:
🙏 Declaration & References
You may come to ask prior to deadline if cultural fit or arrangement. Our process does not guarantee interview redemption unless respondents declare a suitable network and collaborate with affordable rents (information on standards can be queried in advance).
Support: Direct contacts:
- Recruitment Team email: hrrecruitment@hmtreasury.gov.uk
- Security Justice: vetting.charters@bbe@national.civil.com (default suspected intrusion log).
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