Business Unit:  Chief Credit Office
Salary range: £45,600 - £57,000
Location:  UK Hybrid - with occasional travel to a key hub
Contract type: Permanent

Our Team

Our Business Credit Risk team plays a central role in shaping how we lend to business customers. We provide insight and challenge that helps the business grow sustainably, supports good customer outcomes, and meets regulatory expectations.

We’re looking for a Senior Specialist to join the team – someone who enjoys turning data into insight, improving how portfolios are managed, and working collaboratively across risk, finance and the wider business.

What you’ll be doing

• Helping to evolve how we assess and oversee the performance of the business lending portfolio from a credit risk perspective.
• Developing and embedding improved approaches to portfolio monitoring – identifying trends, strengths and emerging risks, while driving greater efficiency and automation.
• Delivering clear, practical insight and challenge on portfolio credit quality to a wide range of stakeholders, including senior management forums and regulators.
• Owning regular deep‑dive analysis into portfolio composition and asset quality, coordinating input and engagement across teams as needed.
• Exploring and integrating new internal and external data sources to enhance portfolio insight, working with stakeholders to ensure data is well governed and fit for purpose.
• Supporting the design and recommendation of Credit Risk Appetite metrics, limits and triggers, and helping to ensure effective engagement across the first and second lines of defence.
• Contributing to a culture of continuous improvement – simplifying processes, improving analytical sophistication, and reducing unnecessary complexity.

We need you to have

• Experience working in a credit risk or portfolio analytics environment, with strong analytical capability and hands‑on experience using tools such as SAS, Python, R, SQL, or similar.
• A track record of building or improving reporting and insight that is efficient, well‑designed and genuinely useful for decision‑making.
• The ability to translate complex credit risk topics into clear, concise insight that resonates with senior audiences.
• A strong focus on quality and accuracy, with an eye for detail and confidence in the robustness of your analysis.
• Curiosity and a problem‑solving mindset – you enjoy understanding what’s really driving customer outcomes, not just reporting what has happened.
• Experience influencing change in a constructive, collaborative way and turning ideas into practical improvements.
• Confidence building trusted relationships with a broad range of stakeholders, both within Risk and across the wider business.

It’s a bonus if you have but not essential

• Experience of business lending in an IRB credit environment.
• Exposure to business credit risk modelling or advanced analytics.
• A broad understanding of risk management disciplines and how the three lines of defence operate in practice.

Red Hot Rewards  

• 25 days holiday per year, increasing over time to 30. Plus, an option to buy more, giving you even more choice.
• Private medical insurance
• A highly competitive pension to help you build a strong foundation for retirement
• Access to an annual performance-related bonus
• Training and development to help you progress your career
• A great selection of additional benefits through our flexible benefits scheme
• Life assurance to provide peace of mind for you and your loved ones
• Up to 2 days of paid volunteering a year

If we’re lucky to receive a lot of interest, we may close the advert early. Please ensure to submit your applications as soon as possible.  

Say hello to Virgin Money 

Virgin Money is so much more than just a bank. As part of the Nationwide group, together we're the UK's first full-service mutual bank serving millions of retail and business customers and all driven by our purpose; Banking but fairer, more rewarding and for the good of society. With us, you’ll be part of an organisation uniquely positioned to make a difference to the lives of customers, communities and broader society and embark on a collaborative, customer obsessed, and fun-filled career journey. Embrace the weekdays, enjoy fantastic perks, and make a meaningful positive difference. Time to discover what it means to be part of the first mutual full-service banking provider.  

 
Be yourself at Virgin Money 

At Virgin Money, we celebrate everyone. We have fun, think big, and relentlessly include each other, all in pursuit of our purpose: Banking – but fairer, more rewarding, and for the good of society.  We’re committed to creating an inclusive culture where colleagues feel safe and inspired to contribute, speak up and be heard.    

As a Disability Confident Leader, we're committed to removing any obstacles to inclusion.  If you need any reasonable adjustments or support making your application, contact our Talent Acquisition team careers@virginmoney.com

Please note: If we receive a high volume of eligible applications, we may need to prioritise candidates whose skills and experience most closely align with the role, while still ensuring fair and equitable consideration for all applicants.

Now the legal bit 

We’re in the process of bringing Virgin Money and Nationwide together which, subject to Court approval, will happen on 2 April 2026. You can find out more about what this means at https://uk.virginmoney.com/nationwide-transfer. If you’re successful in securing a role with us, your employment will move automatically to Nationwide when this transfer goes ahead.

Although some of our roles allow you to be based anywhere in the UK, we'll need you to confirm you have the right to work in the UK. 

If you're successful in securing a role with us, there are some checks you need to complete before starting. These include credit and criminal record checks and three years' worth of satisfactory references. If the role is part of the Senior Manager Regime and Certification Regime, it requires enhanced pre-employment checks – we'll ask for six years of regulatory references, and once in the role, you'll be subject to periodic employment checks.