Behind every well-priced risk is the right actuary.
We specialise in actuarial recruitment across the UK, covering Non-Life (GI) Insurance, Pensions, Actuarial and Portfolio Management & Analytics. Our international network also extends to Singapore, Hong Kong and Bermuda, giving you access to experienced professionals from other leading insurance and reinsurance markets.
Actuarial and analytics professionals play a key role in some of the most important decisions made by insurers and pension schemes: how risks are priced, how reserves are set, how much capital to hold and how portfolios perform. When the right people are in place, pricing stays disciplined, reserving is robust and boards can make strategic decisions with confidence, while meeting the expectations of the PRA, Lloyd’s and your own governance framework.
Specialist recruitment that strengthens control
Audit, risk and compliance is all our consultants in this team focus on, so they come to every brief with a current understanding of the regulatory pressures you’re working under and the expertise that’s in demand.
We start by getting clear on what your role needs to achieve. That might be an MLRO strengthening financial crime controls ahead of a regulatory visit, a second-line risk lead embedding operational resilience, or an internal audit manager building assurance over a new regulatory regime. From there, we look at how candidates have influenced the first line, evidenced decisions to regulators and boards, and turned findings into lasting change. Where relevant, we also explore how they’ve used data, from transaction monitoring analytics to data-led audit techniques. The professional credentials you’d expect are a useful marker, but proven experience is what sets the strongest candidates apart.
For Chief Risk Officer, Chief Compliance Officer, MLRO and Chief Audit Executive appointments, we also offer executive search.
We recruit across audit, risk and compliance, from analysts through to executive leadership and interim appointments:
- Compliance & Financial Crime: compliance officers and advisory specialists, monitoring and testing professionals, AML, KYC and sanctions specialists, fraud and financial crime investigators, MLROs and Chief Compliance Officers.
- Internal Audit: internal auditors, audit managers and Heads of Audit across business, regulatory and data-led audit, up to Chief Audit Executive.
- Risk Management: credit, market, liquidity and operational risk specialists, enterprise and operational resilience leads, and Chief Risk Officers.
Remediation and regulatory change often call for specialist expertise at short notice, and for a limited period. We help you bring in the right people to deliver the work and keep your business-as-usual teams focused on day-to-day control.
That might mean contract specialists to clear a KYC refresh backlog, run a financial crime look-back or support a skilled person review. It might be experienced project and programme leads to steer a regulatory change programme from impact assessment through to implementation, or subject matter experts to interpret new requirements and translate them into practical controls. We’ll help you scale the team up as the work peaks and plan for a smooth handover as it winds down.
Many programmes also highlight capability gaps that need a longer-term answer, so we’ll help you decide where permanent hires should follow, ensuring improvements are embedded rather than lost when contractors move on. For consultancies and advisory firms delivering remediation for financial services clients, we focus on the technical expertise, client experience and availability each engagement requires.
We offer contingency, retained and contract hiring, with IR35 considerations in mind for contract roles. See our permanent recruitment and contract hiring pages for more detail.
We support organisations where strong controls and independent assurance underpin trust:
- Retail and commercial banks: compliance, financial crime, risk and audit teams working under close regulatory oversight.
- Investment banks and capital markets firms: market and credit risk, trading surveillance and regulatory compliance.
- Asset and wealth managers: compliance, conduct and risk roles supporting client outcomes and investment oversight.
- Building societies: risk, compliance and audit functions balancing regulatory expectations with member focus.
- Payments and fintech businesses: growing firms building data-led financial crime, compliance and risk capability as they scale.
- Consultancies and advisory firms: specialists supporting financial services clients with remediation, regulatory and assurance projects.
Regulated hiring has its own practicalities, from regulatory references to Senior Management Function approvals, and planning for them early keeps your function on track. Beyond the CV, we look at what candidates have achieved, such as financial crime frameworks built, remediation delivered and audit plans completed. We share current salary and availability insight to help you plan, and our relationships reach professionals who aren’t actively looking. Permanent, fixed-term or contract, we help banks, investment firms, fintech businesses and consultancies hire people who strengthen their controls.
Audit, risk and compliance hiring trends
Regulatory change is reshaping what firms look for in audit, risk and compliance hires. The failure to prevent fraud offence, in force since September 2025, has put fraud prevention expertise firmly on the agenda. Evolving sanctions regimes and anti-money laundering expectations keep demand high for candidates with strong ICA or ACAMS credentials and hands-on experience of the Money Laundering Regulations and JMLSG guidance.
Internal audit is changing too. The Global Internal Audit Standards and the Chartered IIA’s updated Internal Audit Code of Practice have raised expectations around audit quality and board reporting, so candidates who understand them, alongside a CIA or professional accounting qualification, are well placed. In risk, operational resilience has moved from implementation to ongoing oversight, and depth in a specific discipline, often backed by PRM or FRM, remains highly valued.
Across all three areas, SM&CR accountability, Consumer Duty experience and growing data skills, from transaction monitoring analytics to data-led audit, are increasingly part of the brief. AI governance is emerging as a new expectation as well. Our consultants follow these changes closely, helping you find professionals whose credentials and experience match where regulation is heading.
Pay across audit, risk and compliance depends on specialism, seniority, type of firm and location. Senior financial crime leaders, MLROs, experienced internal auditors and specialist risk professionals typically sit towards the upper end of the market, and London roles generally carry a premium.
As a guide, reported base salaries are:
- Compliance managers with risk management skills (UK-wide): typically around £30,000 to £69,000, with a median of around £44,000.
- Compliance managers in London: a median of around £62,000.
- AML analysts: typically around £21,000 to £44,000, with a median of around £27,000.
- Internal auditors, risk managers and Heads of function are typically benchmarked individually, as pay depends heavily on firm size, regulatory scope and seniority.
Contractors, often brought in for remediation, KYC refresh or regulatory change, usually work on day rates. IR35 status can also affect the overall cost of these contract engagements. For tailored benchmarking by specialism and seniority, visit our benchmarking page.
AI is now part of everyday audit, risk and compliance work. It helps financial crime teams sharpen transaction monitoring, sanctions screening and fraud detection, supports compliance surveillance, and lets internal audit test whole populations rather than samples, with fintech and regtech firms often building it in from the start.
These teams are also taking on responsibility for overseeing AI across the firm. The Consumer Duty and SM&CR still apply, so firms need clear accountability, explainable decisions, safeguards against bias and sound model risk management. UK GDPR applies to personal data, and the EU AI Act may matter if you serve EU customers.
For hiring managers and procurement teams, that means looking for candidates who pair regulatory expertise with the data confidence to challenge AI outputs. It’s worth asking how they’ve used or overseen AI and how they reported the risks to senior management. Our consultants explore that experience in depth, helping you build a team ready to govern AI with confidence.
Financial crime remains one of the biggest drivers of compliance hiring across banking and investments. The failure to prevent fraud offence, in force since September 2025, has prompted many firms to review their fraud prevention procedures. Sanctions regimes continue to evolve, and anti-money laundering expectations remain a consistent focus for regulators. Payments firms, meanwhile, face growing expectations around fraud prevention and customer protection.
That’s creating demand across the financial crime spectrum, from AML, KYC and sanctions specialists to fraud prevention leads, investigators and experienced MLROs. Many firms also need contract support for remediation, KYC refresh programmes and look-backs, alongside permanent hires to embed stronger controls for the long term.
When hiring, it’s worth looking for candidates who combine regulatory knowledge with practical experience of designing and testing controls, and who are comfortable using data to identify risk. Our consultants follow these developments closely, helping you build financial crime capability that stands up to scrutiny.
Specialisms
We cover key specialisms within banking that help fuel transformation and growth within your business.
Skills
Our specialist recruitment consultants work across key skills areas and niche banking and investments communities, delivering excellent service whether you're one of our candidates or a client.
Our Community & Events
