Market Risk Analyst recruitment

Organisational overview

NEST Corporation is the trustee body responsible for overseeing NEST (National Employment Savings Trust).

NEST Corporation has overall responsibility for the scheme and is a non-departmental public body independent of government but accountable to Parliament through the Department for Work and Pensions.

NEST will be a new workplace pension scheme that’s being designed specifically to meet the needs of low-to-moderate earners and their employers.

Departmental overview

The Investment Research team is responsible for the design and implementation of the investment strategy that is the basis of the investment recommendations made to the Trustees. The Investment Team is at the cross over of capital markets and pensions. It also acts as an advisor for the NEST Trustees. The team researches, builds, and communicates all necessary material to inform NEST Corporation and the Public on best practices in investing the scheme members’ contributions, setting the strategic and tactical asset allocations, setting the investment’s choice universe, and implementing relevant risk management .

Job title and overview

Market Risk Analyst

NEST Corporation is a high profile investment organisation. Among other things, it has set its reputation on very high standards of governance. To meet those standards, NEST Corporation has set Investment Risk Management as a strategic function. The Market Risk Analyst participates to that effort by conducting a wide range of research and market engagement in the field of capital markets risk. This research will be used to design and implement the investment risk framework. The role does not include managerial responsibilities, but will require a reasonable level of autonomy and a high level of team work.

Role deliverables

Reporting to and working closely with the Head of Market Risk the successful candidate will have responsibility for the following deliverables and activities:

• Research, development and modelling of market risk to contribute to a comprehensive risk management framework

• Contributing to the research, design and development of a multi-asset level risk factor decomposition and its integration into the investment process

• Monitoring and quality assuring inputs into the investment research platform

Candidate requirements

Experience required

The successful candidate will be able to demonstrate the following experience:

• Previous experience gained in a similar role in a financial services organisation (buy side or sell side). Previous exposure to pension funds would be an advantage, in particular, experience of multi-asset class investing

• Previous experience of utilising market data providers (e.g. Bloomberg, Reuters etc) as well as a deep understanding of risk management systems (e.g. BARRA).

• Advanced MS Excel skills with good working knowledge of Visual Basic programming

• Previous experience of utilising other programming and statistical languages (in particular Matlab or equivalent )

Personal attributes required

• A strong work ethic with the ability to work under pressure to tight deadlines – this role would not suit an individual who could not cope in a deadline driven environment

• An ability to manage time effectively from ensuring good timekeeping and attendance through to managing their workload to meet required deadlines

• An ability to take direction but also work unsupervised once given a brief

• An ability to gather requirements and deliver research which answers the questions being raised

• An ability to gain trust and credibility with stakeholders at all levels, including those not from a financial services background

• An ability to take complex concepts and translate them into language understandable across the organisation

Education/qualification requirements

• Candidates should have a good degree (2:1 or above) in a Maths or Statistics heavy subject

• Additional professional qualifications (e.g. CFA level 1 or above) would be advantageous