Risk Talent · Executive search
The right head of credit risk depends on the book: a mortgage lender and a bridging lender need different people. RiskTAE runs retained searches for heads of credit risk and chief credit officers in UK banks, building societies, challenger banks and specialist lenders, and maps candidates by asset class before anyone is approached.
A partner runs the search from the written brief to the first day, and every candidate is interviewed on the substance of your lending book before you see a CV.
You meet people who have written credit policy, sat on a credit committee and held a book through a downturn.
By Benn PopleUpdated
The role
A head of credit risk runs the second line for the lending book: appetite and policy, limits and concentrations, arrears and impairments, the credit models, and the challenge to the people who originate loans. In most banks the role reports to the chief risk officer, who holds the PRA’s Chief Risk function, SMF4.
The PRA’s rules require credit-granting to rest on sound and well-defined criteria, with a clear process for approving, amending, renewing and re-financing credits (the credit policy stack is that process written down), and a risk management function independent from the operational functions, with sufficient authority, stature, resources and access to the board.
First we settle which job this is. In one firm the title writes policy, monitors the book and challenges the lenders; in another it chairs the credit committee and signs off loans, a first-line job under a second-line name. A chief credit officer at a specialist lender usually does both, and the brief has to say how the second line stays independent, because the strongest candidates ask.
Sources: PRA Rulebook, Senior Management Functions Part, rule 3.4; Internal Capital Adequacy Assessment Part, rule 4.1; Risk Control Part, rule 3.4.
Candidates
The person you want has written the policy, set and defended the limits, read the arrears reports early enough to act, and explained an impairment charge to a board.
Where they come from depends on the book: building societies and other mortgage lenders for a mortgage book, people who have made individual decisions at credit committee for SME lending, the few who know the asset class for bridging, asset finance or motor. The mismatch we see most is scale: a credit risk director from a large IRB bank has run one portfolio with a big team and models built by someone else, and may never have written a policy from a blank page; a challenger bank’s head of credit risk does all of that with a handful of people.
Process
| Stage | What happens |
|---|---|
| Brief | A 30-minute call, then a written brief: the role, first-year success, terms and timetable, plus the book: segments, limits, the policy stack, authority at credit committee, and whether the role is certified or approved. |
| Market map | The people who fit, most not looking, mapped by asset class and approach so a mortgage lender is not sent corporate bankers, and approached without naming you until they are interested. |
| Technical screen | Each candidate is interviewed on the substance before you see a CV, by former chief risk officers and heads of risk, with quant specialists where the role owns the models. |
| Shortlist | A short list with our written view of what each person has run: book size, asset classes, standardised or IRB, and what they wrote rather than inherited; then interviews and feedback both ways. |
| Offer, checks and start | Regulatory references over six years apply to this role too; our guide to regulatory references after PS12/26 sets out the timetable. The PRA expects a criminal record check for non-SMF holders as well. We plan the start date around both and stay close through the first credit committee and the first arrears pack, where a new head is judged. |
Sources: PRA Rulebook, Fitness and Propriety Part, rule 2.7; PRA SS28/15, April 2026; PRA PS12/26, 22 April 2026.
Basel 3.1
Basel 3.1 applies under PS1/26
The PRA’s Basel 3.1 rules take effect on 1 January 2027 under PS1/26, and most of the change lands on this desk. On the standardised approach, every existing real estate exposure must be assessed by that date for whether repayment depends materially on the property’s cash flows; where a residential mortgage does not, the part up to 55% of the property’s value takes a 20% risk weight; unrated corporates take 100%; and the SME support factor leaves Pillar 1 for a Pillar 2A adjustment. For IRB firms the advanced approach goes for large corporates and financial corporates, input floors arrive for PD, LGD and EAD, and the output floor starts at 60% of standardised risk-weighted assets.
We ask every candidate what their firm’s impact assessment showed and which limits moved because of it. Our Basel 3.1 page sets out the changes in full.
Sources: PRA PS1/26 Implementation of Basel 3.1: final rules, 20 January 2026, paragraphs 1.23 and 2.6, and Appendix 1; PRA PS9/24, 12 September 2024, paragraphs 1.9, 1.16 and 3.51.
The regulator’s timetable
Usually not. In most banks the head of credit risk is a certification function: someone the firm itself certifies as fit and proper, and reassesses every year, rather than a person the regulator approves.
It becomes a senior management function in two cases we meet: where the person is allocated overall responsibility for credit risk and holds no other approved function, which is the FCA’s SMF18; and where a firm’s activities do not justify a separately appointed chief risk officer and another senior person fulfils that function without a conflict of interest, which means SMF4. The regulator then has a statutory three months from a complete application, the clock stops when it asks for more, and the criminal record check must be no older than six months at submission.
Sources: PRA Rulebook, Certification Part, rule 2.1; Fitness and Propriety Part, rule 2.9; FCA Handbook, SUP 10C Annex 1, SUP 10C.7.1R and SUP 10C.10; PRA SS28/15, April 2026, Table E; PRA PS12/26, 22 April 2026, paragraph 2.20.
Failure points
Sources: PRA Rulebook, Risk Control Part, rule 3.4; Fitness and Propriety Part, rule 2.7; PRA PS1/26, 20 January 2026, paragraph 2.6.
Working with your team
The chief risk officer usually owns this hire. The chief executive and the head of lending want a colleague they can argue with; the chair of the risk committee, responsible under the PRA’s rules for safeguarding the independence of the risk function and overseeing its performance, wants to know the second line will hold. We ask all three what a good first year looks like; the answers rarely match, and the candidate will hear every one.
With HR, in-house talent acquisition and RPO teams we split the work: they own the process and the offer; we bring the senior credit risk market map and a technical screen a generalist team cannot run. See our page for talent acquisition teams, and if the role has grown into a chief risk officer’s job, chief risk officer search. A search can be paired with interim advisory cover from Risk Advisory while the role is empty.
Sources: PRA SS5/16, paragraph 4.3; PRA Rulebook, Allocation of Responsibilities Part, rule 4.1(17).
FAQ
Yes. The title usually means the person holds the credit-granting authority as well as second-line policy and monitoring, common in specialist lenders and some challenger banks. We run the search the same way and spend more of the brief on how the two jobs stay apart.
Yes. Such a lender usually needs someone who will write the policy stack, sit on the credit committee and build a small team, so we map deputies and heads at lenders of similar size and asset class as well as larger banks, and test for the scale problem in the screen.
We approach candidates without naming you until they have shown interest, and where you ask, they sign a non-disclosure agreement before we name the firm. No candidate’s details are shared without their agreement, which matters in a market where heads of credit risk at competing lenders know each other.
Insights
The Basel 3.1 output floor stops a firm’s modelled risk-weighted assets falling below a set share of what the standardised approaches would produce. In the UK it starts at 60% on 1 January 2027 and rises...
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By Benn Pople · 7 min readNext step
In 30 minutes we will agree the brief, say how the market is likely to read it and tell you whether a retained search is the right route.
Tell us about the role and a partner will come back to you. Treated in confidence.
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