Pensions Operational Assurance & Technical Lead
Job description
Original text imported from Reed
At Gallagher Benefit Services, you’re a trusted partner to organizations navigating some of their most important people decisions. We help clients build better workplaces, where people feel supported, empowered, and inspired to thrive. Whether it’s shaping benefit strategies, designing wellbeing programs, or advising on workforce challenges, the work you do here creates meaningful change for businesses and the people who power them. We’re a community of bold explorers, trusted experts, and compassionate partners; working side by side to solve problems, and shape the future of work. Here, curiosity is encouraged, collaboration is second nature, and your ideas have room to grow. If you’re looking for a place where your contribution matters and where you can help build a better world of work; think of Gallagher.
Overview
We’re looking for a leader to head up our Operational Assurance, Complaints, and Technical Enablement function. This role is all about ensuring our pension administration services are accurate, consistent, and meet both regulatory and client expectations. You’ll play a key part in helping us grow and adapt during a time of increasing regulatory complexity and operational change.
How you'll make an impact
- Lead a proactive audit and assurance framework to identify risks early and drive improvements.
- Oversee complaints management, ensuring fair and consistent handling of cases.
- Translate complex regulatory and technical requirements into practical operational actions.
- Provide technical oversight to ensure processes and communications meet high standards.
- Develop clear, client-friendly updates on regulatory changes to build confidence in our services.
- Lead and develop a multi-disciplinary team, fostering collaboration and continuous improvement.
- Strengthen governance, reporting, and communication with senior stakeholders.
About You
- Have significant experience in pension administration (typically 10+ years).
- Have led multi-disciplinary teams across assurance, complaints, or technical functions.
- Understand governance, audit frameworks, and regulatory requirements.
- Can interpret complex technical information and turn it into practical solutions.
- Are analytical, data-driven, and a strong problem solver.
- Communicate clearly and manage stakeholders effectively.
- Focus on improving customer experience and driving continuous improvement.
It’s a plus if you:
- Hold an APMI or EPMI qualification (desirable but not essential).
- Have experience delivering regulatory change or integrating complex client needs.
- Promote a culture of accountability and constructive challenge.
Applicants must already have the legal right to work in the UK.
Compensation and benefits
On top of a competitive salary, great teams and exciting career opportunities, we also offer a wide range of benefits.
Below are the minimum core benefits you’ll get, depending on your job level these benefits may improve:
- Minimum of 25 days holiday, plus bank holidays, and the option to ‘buy’ extra days
- Defined contribution pension scheme, which Gallagher will also contribute to
- Life insurance, which will pay 4x your basic annual salary, which you can top-up to 10x
- Income protection, we’ll cover up to 50% of your annual income, with options to top up
- Health cash plan or Private medical insurance
Other benefits include:
- Three fully paid volunteering days per year
- Employee Stock Purchase plan, offering company shares at a discount
- Share incentive plan, HMRC approved, tax effective, stock purchase plan
- Critical illness cover
- Discounted gym membership, with over 3,000 gyms nationally
- Season ticket loan
- Access to a discounted voucher portal to save money on your weekly shop or next big purchase
- Emergency back-up family care
- And many more…
We value inclusion and diversity
Inclusion and diversity (I&D) is a core part of our business, and it’s embedded into the fabric of our organisation. For more than 95 years, Gallagher has led with a commitment to sustainability and to support the communities where we live and work.
Gallagher embraces our employees’ diverse identities, experiences and talents, allowing us to better serve our clients and communities. We see inclusion as a conscious commitment and diversity as a vital strength. By embracing diversity in all its forms, we live out The Gallagher Way to its fullest.
Gallagher is Disability Confident Committed. We have pledged to make sure our recruitment process is inclusive and accessible, in addition to supporting our existing employees with any long-term health conditions or disabilities.
We understand that applicants may have disabilities, if you do, you may find some parts of the recruitment process more challenging than others. Don’t worry, we’re here to help, however, we can only do this if you let us know.
Should you require reasonable adjustments to your application, please get in touch with . If you’d prefer to speak on the phone, please request a call back, leaving details, so we get in touch.
Our employing entity, Arthur J. Gallagher Services (UK) Limited, is proud to be accredited as a Living Wage employer with the Living Wage Foundation. We are committed to diversity and opportunity for all and are opposed to any form of less favourable treatment on the grounds of gender or gender identity, marital status, civil partnership status, parental status, race, ethnicity, colour, nationality, disability, sexual orientation, religion/ belief, age and those with caring responsibilities.
Gallagher believes that all persons are entitled to equal employment opportunity and prohibits any form of discrimination by its managers, employees, vendors or customers based on race, color, religion, creed, gender (including pregnancy status), sexual orientation, gender identity (which includes transgender and other gender non-conforming individuals), gender expKey skills
AI-extracted from the job advert
Application advice
5 AI-generated recommendations to maximise your chances.
⭐ Open your Personal Statement with explicit mention of pension administration tenure — the advert specifies 10+ years as a baseline, so quantify yours immediately (e.g. '12 years in DB/DC pension administration').
📊 Quantify your assurance and audit impact: 'Reduced error rate by 22% across 4 pension schemes through a redesigned QA framework' rather than listing audit as a responsibility.
🎯 Highlight any APMI or EPMI qualification prominently in your education section — the advert flags it as desirable and it will differentiate you from candidates without a formal pensions qualification.
🌐 Demonstrate regulatory change delivery with specifics: name the regulations (e.g. TPR General Code, Pensions Dashboards) and the operational actions you translated them into, mirroring the advert's language.
🤝 Include a dedicated 'Leadership & Governance' section or bullet cluster showing team size managed, governance structures implemented, and senior stakeholder reporting cadence to match the multi-disciplinary team leadership requirement.
Suggested CV bullets
3 bullets our AI drafted for this specific advert, mirroring its ATS keywords.
Add these 3 bullets under your most recent experience:
- •Designed and embedded an end-to-end operational assurance framework across 3 pension administration teams of 25 staff, reducing processing errors by 28% within 12 months.
- •Led complaints management function handling 400+ cases annually, achieving 95% resolution within FCA-aligned timescales and cutting repeat complaints by 35% through root-cause-driven process redesign.
- •Translated TPR General Code requirements into 14 revised operational procedures, delivering regulatory readiness 6 weeks ahead of board deadline and presenting outcomes directly to 3 senior client governance committees.
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Letter preview — tailored to Appcast Enterprise
Dear Hiring Manager,
Gallagher Benefit Services' focus on operational assurance and regulatory rigour within pension administration is precisely where my expertise lies — which is why the Pensions Operational Assurance & Technical Lead role in Edinburgh immediately stood out. With over a decade in pension administration and a track record of building audit frameworks that reduce operational risk, I am confident I can strengthen Gallagher's governance and technical enablement function from day one.
My background in leading multi-disciplinary assurance and complaints teams has equipped me to translate complex regulatory requirements — including TPR General Code obligations and Pensions Dashboards readiness — into clear, actionable operational processes. I have overseen complaints management programmes that improved resolution consistency and reduced escalations by 30%, while simultaneously developing client-facing regulatory updates that built measurable confidence across a portfolio of 20+ employer clients.
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Interview questions
10 questions generated from this advert.
Technical
- ›How have you designed and implemented an operational assurance framework for a pension administration function, and what metrics did you use to measure its effectiveness?
- ›Walk us through how you translated a major regulatory change (e.g. TPR General Code or Pensions Dashboards) into practical operational processes for your team.
- ›What governance and reporting structures have you put in place to give senior stakeholders confidence in the accuracy of pension administration outputs?
- ›How do you approach root-cause analysis when a complaints trend emerges, and what process changes have you driven as a result?
- ›Describe your experience integrating complex client requirements into existing pension administration systems or workflows without disrupting BAU operations.
Behavioural
- ›Tell me about a time you identified a significant operational risk in a pension administration environment before it became a regulatory issue — what did you do and what was the outcome?
- ›Describe a situation where you had to manage a difficult complaints escalation involving both a client and a regulatory body. How did you handle it?
- ›Give an example of leading a multi-disciplinary team through a period of significant change. How did you maintain performance and morale?
- ›Tell me about a time you had to challenge existing processes or senior stakeholders to drive a quality improvement. What approach did you take?
- ›Describe a situation where you had to communicate complex technical or regulatory information to a non-specialist audience. How did you ensure clarity and confidence?
STAR answer examples
Model answers using the Situation-Task-Action-Result framework. Adapt to your own experience.
Tell me about a time you identified a significant operational risk in a pension administration environment before it became a regulatory issue — what did you do and what was the outcome?
Give an example of leading a multi-disciplinary team through a period of significant change. How did you maintain performance and morale?