Risk Talent · Executive search
Market and liquidity risk search is RiskTAE’s retained executive search service for the people who run market, liquidity and treasury risk in banks, building societies and trading firms. A partner runs each search from the written brief to the first day, and every candidate is interviewed on the substance of your balance sheet before you see a CV.
You meet people who have set the limits, written the ILAAP and explained a stress result to the board.
The role
A head of market and liquidity risk runs the second line for the balance sheet: the limits, interest rate risk in the banking book, the liquidity risk appetite, the stress tests behind the ILAAP, and the challenge to the people who take the positions. The role usually reports to the chief risk officer, whose PRA function, SMF4, covers the setting and managing of the firm’s risk exposures.
Two PRA rules anchor it. A firm must at all times maintain liquidity resources which are adequate, both as to amount and quality, and the PRA expects its prescribed responsibilities for capital, funding and liquidity and for treasury management to sit with the senior manager most closely linked to each.
First we settle which job this is, because the title covers three. In a trading firm it means desk limits, value at risk and the daily profit and loss; in a UK bank with little or no trading book it is a liquidity and interest rate job lived at the ALCO. Where the treasurer reports decides who this person challenges, and the strongest candidates ask that first.
Sources: PRA Rulebook, Senior Management Functions Part, rule 3.4; Internal Liquidity Adequacy Assessment Part, rule 2.1; Allocation of Responsibilities Part, rules 4.1(7) and 4.1(8); PRA SS28/15, April 2026, paragraph 2.26.
Candidates
The person you want has set limits and held them when a desk or the treasurer wanted them moved, built or validated the numbers behind them, and explained a stress result to a risk committee without hiding behind the model.
Where they come from depends on the balance sheet: investment bank and broker-dealer market risk teams for a trading firm or a bank with an internal model permission; treasury risk and ALM teams at banks and building societies of similar shape for a retail or SME lender. The mismatch we see most runs one way: a trading-floor market risk head who has never written an ILAAP or argued deposit pricing at an ALCO, hired by a bank whose risk sits in the banking book. The PRA’s own criteria for a small domestic deposit taker cap its trading book at both £44 million and 5% of total assets, so market risk there means interest rate risk and liquidity.
Source: PRA Rulebook, SDDT Regime: General Application Part, rule 2.1.
Process
| Stage | What happens |
|---|---|
| Brief | A 30-minute call, then a written brief: the role, first-year success, terms and timetable, the trading book and its capital approach, the treasury’s mandate, and whether the role is certified or approved. |
| Market map | The people who fit, most not looking, mapped by balance sheet shape rather than title, 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 built rather than inherited, then interviews and feedback both ways. |
| Offer, checks and start | Six-year regulatory references apply to certification candidates too, with a four-week reply window, and the PRA expects a criminal record check for non-SMF holders. We plan the start around both and stay close through the new head’s first ALCO and first ILAAP. |
Most heads of market or liquidity risk hold a certification function: the firm itself certifies them as fit and proper each year, and nothing goes to the regulator. Where the person holds overall responsibility for the area and no other approved function (the FCA’s SMF18), or fulfils the chief risk function in a firm whose activities do not justify a separately appointed one (SMF4), the regulator has a statutory three months from a complete application.
Sources: PRA Rulebook, Senior Management Functions Part, rules 2.3 to 2.3B; Fitness and Propriety Part, rule 2.7; Certification Part, rule 2.1; PRA SS28/15, April 2026, paragraphs 4.19 and 6.5 and Table E; PRA PS12/26, 22 April 2026, paragraphs 2.20 and 2.79; FCA Handbook, SUP 10C Annex 1, SUP 10C.7.1R and SUP 10C.10.26G.
Basel 3.1 and the FRTB
FRTB standardised approaches apply under PS1/26
The PRA’s final Basel 3.1 rules, PS1/26, take effect on 1 January 2027, and for market risk that means the Fundamental Review of the Trading Book: a new trading book boundary and new standardised approaches, the advanced (ASA) and the simplified (SSA). The internal model approach follows on 1 January 2028. An existing internal model permission can be kept for the interim year, with positions outside it going to the ASA, and it ceases to apply automatically at the end of that year; any firm may instead move its whole trading book to the ASA from 1 January 2027.
For most UK banks the questions are practical: which standardised approach the firm chose, who owns the boundary policy, and whether the new numbers have been run on the live book. We ask every candidate what their firm decided and what the recalculation showed.
Source: PRA PS1/26 Implementation of Basel 3.1: final rules, 20 January 2026, paragraphs 1.23, 1.24, 3.4, 3.8 and 3.11.
Liquidity
The ILAAP is the firm’s own process for identifying, measuring, managing and monitoring its liquidity; the management body must approve it, keep a written record and review it at least annually, or at least every two years for a small domestic deposit taker. Since 1 January 2026 a bank outside the SDDT regime must also identify, monitor and manage step-in risk, the risk that it supports an unconsolidated entity under stress, and where that risk is significant, estimate the effect on its LCR and NSFR and, where appropriate, address it in its liquidity contingency plans.
The head of liquidity risk should own the assumptions, and that is where we test candidates: the deposit outflow rates and their evidence, the survival horizon under the firm’s own stress, the collateral that can become cash within the week, and the triggers in the contingency funding plan. Someone who inherited an ILAAP and re-dated it reads differently from someone who built the stress from the balance sheet up. Risk Advisory can review the ILAAP before the board signs it, and Risk Education can train the new head’s team.
Sources: PRA Rulebook, Internal Liquidity Adequacy Assessment Part, rules 13.1 to 13.3; PRA PS5/25 and SS1/25 Step-in risk, 22 April 2025, in force 1 January 2026.
Failure points
Sources: PRA Rulebook, Allocation of Responsibilities Part, rules 4.1(7) and 4.1(8); Risk Control Part, rule 3.1(3); PRA PS1/26, 20 January 2026, paragraphs 3.4 and 3.11.
FAQ
Yes: the second-line roles across market, liquidity, interest rate and treasury risk, at head and deputy level, and the combined roles smaller banks write. The treasurer’s own job is first line, and the brief has to say where the line between the two sits.
Yes. We can place an interim while the permanent search runs, and where the role is a senior management function the interim can usually start before approval if the previous holder left unexpectedly. Our interim chief risk officer page shows how we run both searches together.
Yes, often. HR, talent acquisition and RPO teams own the process and the offer; we bring the market map and a technical screen a generalist team cannot run, for one hard-to-fill role or a whole hiring programme. See our page for talent acquisition teams.
One expert firm
Insights
The UK’s version of the Fundamental Review of the Trading Book (FRTB) arrives in two steps. From 1 January 2027 the new trading book boundary and the two new standardised approaches apply with the rest of...
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By Benn Pople · 7 min readNext step
A 30-minute call is enough to agree the brief and whether we are the right firm to run the search.
Tell us about the role and a partner will come back to you. Treated in confidence.
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