Job Description
Job Type: Permanent
Location: Based from our Birmingham/London/Edinburgh offices with hybrid working options.
Flexible working: All of our roles are open to part-time, job-share and other types of flexibility. We will discuss what is important to you and balancing this with business requirements during the recruitment process. You can read more about Phoenix Flex here.
Closing Date: 29.10.25
Salary and benefits: From £120,000 plus an indicative bonus range of 30%-60%, private medical cover, 38 days annual leave, excellent pension, 12x salary life assurance, career breaks, income protection, 3x volunteering days and much more.
Who are we?
We want to be the best place that any of our 6,600 colleagues have ever worked.
We’re Phoenix Group, we’re a long-term savings and retirement business. We offer a range of products across our market-leading brands, Standard Life, SunLife, Phoenix Life and ReAssure. Around 1 in 5 people in the UK has a pension with us. We’re a FTSE 100 organisation that is tackling key issues such as transitioning our portfolio to net zero by 2050, and we’re not done yet.
The Role
This role is part of the Phoenix legal team who support Corporate & Commercial, Shared Services & Asset Management providing high quality legal advice. The focus of the role will be supporting the legal business needs of the Asset Management function relating to the management of external investment service providers, investment transactions and internal and external investment structures. The legal team organisational structure also facilitates the opportunity to support activity for other Phoenix legal and operational teams. The role requires management of a variety of legal tasks, the management of legal risks, horizon scanning as well as being an active member of the wider Phoenix General Counsel function and its working groups. Our lawyers are expected to take an active interest in the wider business and their stakeholders.
Key Responsibilities
- Drafting, negotiating and advising on group strategic projects with an investments value chain (i.e. strategic relationships), investment services agreements such as investment management agreements, custody agreements and ancillary services agreements and data licences.
- Supporting Heads of Legal in the team on corporate restructuring projects, investment office management actions and the interplay of documentation governing our strategic relationships and specialist areas such as illiquid asset class investments, FSMA Part VII and derivatives trading.
- Liaising with the investments office to update commercial terms in investment services agreements as required due to updates to the asset owner’s regulatory business plan or a change project
- Supporting the head of litigation on dispute resolution procedure under investment management agreements in relation to fee reviews, underperformance, manager selection and withdrawal rights
- Management of external lawyers efficiently and within budget on high volume investment related projects and specialist legal advice.
- Provide high quality, commercial legal advice and develop internal business partner relationships.
- Be an active team member of the wider GC function, proactively contributing to the GC Function’s vision of a high performing, innovative and fulfilled team.
- Supporting the investments ESG legal business needs with external specialist support as required
- Maintenance of investments documentation in shared folders
- Mentoring and supporting skills and development of junior lawyers
What are we looking for?
- Qualified solicitor in England and Wales
- Financial services background, either gained in-house or through private practice experience.
- A sound understanding of contractual issues arising with agreements addressing the outsource of asset management services supporting UK financial services companies.
- An understanding of the operations of an asset manager, asset classes and investment vehicles
Essential Criteria
- Experience inhouse or from private practice in asset management work including leading on investment management agreements
- Experience in working with Funds and Unit Trusts
- Experience working in or with as a client Financial Services with a key understanding of the regulatory and legislative frameworks
- Ability to balance legal risk with business needs, advising stakeholders on risk tolerance and options
- Excellent communication skills to convey complex legal issues clearly to non-lawyers
We want to hire the whole version of you.
We are committed to ensuring that everyone feels accepted and welcome applicants from all backgrounds. If your experience looks different from what we’ve advertised and you believe that you can bring value to the role, we’d love to hear from you.
If you require any adjustments to the recruitment process, please let us know so we can help you to be at your best.
We’re reviewing applications as they come in, so apply early to avoid missing out.
Find out more about
- Guide for Candidates: thephoenixgroup.pagetiger.com/guideforcandidates
- Find or get answers from our colleagues: www.thephoenixgroup.com/careers/talk-to-us
