Lending Operations Manager

About the role

The Lending Operations Manager will lead the end‑to‑end operational delivery of residential mortgage underwriting processes for our client. The role focuses on driving continuous improvement, efficiency and regulatory compliance across the lending journey while collaborating with credit risk, sales, operations, compliance and technology teams.

Key responsibilities

• Own day‑to‑day lending operations across the mortgage origination lifecycle, from pre‑application queries through packaging, underwriting support, offer issuance and conveyancing queries.
• Prioritise and triage new mortgage applications by complexity and risk, ensuring progression within agreed service levels.
• Forecast pipeline volumes, allocate tasks and plan resources to improve conversion, reduce turnaround times and maintain service consistency during peak periods.
• Lead a data‑driven programme to identify, prioritise and deliver process‑improvement initiatives that increase speed, throughput, quality and reduce unit cost per case.
• Drive automation, workflow simplification and higher straight‑through processing rates while eliminating manual hand‑offs.
• Use management information and root‑cause analysis to pinpoint bottlenecks, rework and control weaknesses.
• Lead, coach and develop a mortgage operations team (junior to senior) in partnership with the Underwriting Team Leader.

Required profile

• Proven experience managing mortgage or lending operations, preferably in a residential mortgage environment.
• Strong analytical mindset with ability to use data to drive process improvements.
• Demonstrated leadership and people‑development skills.
• Excellent understanding of FCA regulatory expectations and operational controls.

Required skills