Lending Operations Manager

Nicholas Howard are delighted to be recruiting for a Lending Operations Manager.

The Role:

The Lending Operations Manager is responsible for leading the end-to-end operational delivery of our client's residential mortgage underwriting process. The role’s primary mandate is to drive continuous improvement, efficiency, scalability, simplification, and performance optimisation across the lending journey, working closely with credit risk, sales, operations, compliance, and technology teams.

The role oversees mortgage origination operations from pre-application queries through initial packaging, underwriting support, offer issuance and conveyancing queries, ensuring that processes are scalable, well controlled, deliver high quality outcomes, and aligned to the FCA’s regulatory expectations.

The role is crucial to lending, though does not involve underwriting mortgages. The focus is entirely on the operational infrastructure that surrounds the underwriting function: how cases are received, routed, tracked, supported, and completed; how bottlenecks are identified and eliminated; and how the firm's operational controls keep pace with regulatory requirements.

Responsibilities:

New lending operations management

• Own day-to-day new lending operations across the mortgage origination lifecycle, from pre-application queries through packaging, underwriting, offer and conveyancing queries, as well as post-completion lending decisions (such as porting and additional borrowing).
• Ensure new mortgage applications are triaged and prioritised by complexity and risk, and progressed accurately and within agreed service levels.
• Manage pipeline volumes, task / workflow allocation, and team capacity through active forecasting and resource planning to improve conversion, reduce turnaround times, and maintain consistent service levels at peak volumes.

Process improvement and continuous improvement

• Lead a structured, data-driven programme to continuously identify, prioritise, and deliver process improvement initiatives across mortgage origination, targeting measurable gains in processing speed, throughput, quality, and unit cost per case.
• Lead initiatives to simplify and automate workflows, eliminate duplication and manual handoffs, and increase straight-through processing rates.
• Use management information and root cause analysis to pinpoint bottlenecks, rework, delays, and control weaknesses, and to target the process steps that contribute most to cycle time.

Team leadership

• Lead, coach, and develop mortgage operations team (junior to senior level) to deliver high-quality, strong service, competitive turnaround times, and compliant outcomes, in conjunction with the Underwriting Team Leader who owns the first line of defence (LOD) for the underwriting team and is responsible for their training and development.
• Set clear performance expectations and monitor productivity, quality, and service against set targets and develop the regular monitoring metrics and processes.
• Conduct regular performance management reviews and end of year reviews and create tailored improvement plans to build capability and expertise; the underwriting team benefits from a dedicated Underwriting Team Leader, who will feed into your performance reviews from a training and quality assurance view.

Risk, controls, and compliance

• Work with our credit risk function to ensure mortgage operations are delivered in line with internal lending policies, risk appetite, and regulatory obligations.
• Work closely with compliance and the Data Protection Officer (DPO) to ensure mortgage origination operations comply with the FCA’s MCOB sourcebook (including responsible lending under MCOB 11, disclosure under MCOB 4 to 6A, and arrears handling under MCOB 13), the Consumer Duty, and the firm’s obligations under SM&CR, and data protection requirements.
• Monitor control effectiveness and identify operational, conduct, or compliance risks within the mortgage origination processes.

Customer service

• Help deliver a high-quality experience for customers and their intermediaries throughout the new lending journey.
• Ensure operational processes support clear communication, timely updates, and fair customer outcomes from application to completion.
• Manage escalated pipeline cases and service issues in partnership with sales.

Stakeholder management and cross-functional collaboration

• Work closely with the Head of Underwriting, and the Risk, Sales, Compliance, and Technology teams to support effective new lending operations and delivery of process improvements.
• Act as a key point of contact for operational escalations, pipeline performance issues, and implementation of change.
• Provide operational insight and reporting into governance forums, leadership meetings, and risk committees, with a focus on application flow, conversion, service performance, and improvement opportunities.

Experience Required:

• Proven experience in mortgage operations (5+ years), with strong exposure to the new lending process for owner-occupied lending in an intermediary environment.
• Strong understanding of the mortgage origination lifecycle, including application processing, case management, underwriting and conveyancing.
• Experience leading operational teams in a regulated mortgage or lending environment.
• Strong track record of identifying and delivering process improvements, operational efficiencies, or transformation initiatives, including use of tech and AI driven solutions.
• Good knowledge of mortgage regulation and conduct requirements, including FCA expectations and customer outcome considerations.
• Strong understanding of operational risk, controls, quality management, and pipeline performance.
• Excellent organisational, problem-solving, and stakeholder management skills.
• Ability to interpret performance data and use MI to drive service improvement and operational decision-making.

Should you wish to be considered for this position please apply below.