Does Compliance Work Count as QWE?

Compliance is one of the most common backgrounds we see, and one of the most misunderstood. Candidates in compliance roles tend to arrive certain of one of two things: either that all of their work counts because the job is governed by regulation, or that none of it does because they are not called a lawyer. Both are usually wrong.

Your job title is irrelevant to QWE. What matters is whether the work involved providing legal services. For compliance roles that question has a sharper edge than for most, so it is worth setting out properly.

The question that decides it

Every compliance officer applies the regulations. That, on its own, is not qualifying work experience. The distinction is this:

Was the business coming to you for the legal answer, or were you operating a framework that somebody else had already decided?

If a question arrived where the position was genuinely in doubt, you analysed what the law or the contract required on those particular facts, you reached a conclusion, and the business acted on it, that is the provision of legal services. If you were running a process to a standard set elsewhere, applying a policy, completing a checklist or escalating to counsel who then decided, that is compliance administration, however expertly done and however heavily regulated.

Both exist in almost every compliance role. The work is to separate them honestly.

What usually counts

• Determining whether a particular arrangement is caught by a sanctions regime, and refusing or approving it on that basis.
• Deciding the lawful basis for a processing activity and what it permits.
• Taking a position on what a contract requires when the other side reads it differently.
• Advising whether a regulatory notification is required, and on what footing.
• Reaching a conclusion on an onboarding or due diligence question where the file is incomplete and the answer is a judgement.
• Drafting the agreement, policy or notice that gives effect to the position you reached.

What usually does not

• Routine screening and monitoring, and clearing alerts against set criteria.
• Internal audit and testing against an existing framework.
• Maintaining registers, policies and procedures that were already written.
• Delivering training, managing vendors, recruitment and running the function.
• Preparing material for external counsel, where counsel then forms the view.

That last one catches people. If counsel decided and you implemented, counsel provided the legal service. If you reached a view, referred it out to check, and the advice confirmed it, that is different, and it also evidences working within the limits of your competence, which is a competence in its own right.

Why the proportion matters more in compliance than almost anywhere

Because both kinds of work sit in the same job, a compliance role is almost never one hundred per cent qualifying. The honest figure is a proportion, and that proportion is applied to the length of the placement, so the arithmetic decides whether you have two years or eight months.

It is also the figure most likely to be challenged, so it should be built rather than chosen. Our guide on how much of your role counts sets out the method and a test you can run on your own estimate before anyone else does.

Nobody in the chain is a lawyer. Does that matter?

Not as much as candidates fear. Compliance officers frequently report to a finance director, a chief executive or a board rather than to a lawyer, and often there is no solicitor in the organisation at all.

Your supervisor does not need to be a solicitor. They corroborate what you did and give feedback on it. The confirmation itself is given by a solicitor of England and Wales, who does not need to work at your organisation, which is the whole basis on which an external confirming solicitor can act. If there is no solicitor in your business, that is a reason to look outside it, not a reason to think your experience does not qualify.

Evidence in a compliance role is usually better than you think

Compliance work leaves a trail, and it is often a better trail than a law firm leaves. Internal messages where a colleague asks whether something can be approved and you answer, dated, with reasons. The email that refused a counterparty and said why. A due diligence memorandum setting out what was missing, the conditions imposed and the review date. Correspondence with external counsel showing your question and the advice back.

Those are contemporaneous records of a legal position being reached, which is exactly what a confirming solicitor needs to see. Redact names and commercial detail before sending anything; the law, the reasoning and the dates are what matter.

Competences compliance work tends to evidence

Most compliance records draw on acting honestly and with integrity, drawing on detailed knowledge of the field, critical thinking and analysis, obtaining relevant facts, legal research, developing and advising on options, keeping accurate records, and applying good business practice. Several also support drafting and negotiation. You need at least two, not all of them.