The post of Cyber Security Lead has been awarded a Recruitment and Retention Premia (RRP) in response to current labour market conditions. In recognition of this, the role attracts an additional monthly RRP payment equal to 30% per annum.
Please be aware that RRP is non-contractual and subject to review.
NHS England's Cyber Operations team is at the forefront of safeguarding critical national healthcare services and ensuring patient safety through robust cyber resilience. The Cyber Security Lead role is a key part of the Security Consulting Team, operating within the Chief Information Security Office (CISO) function. This team provides specialist consultancy across NHS England, ensuring national services and Critical National Infrastructure are secure by design.
You will play a pivotal role in developing and implementing cyber-resilient architectures, providing expert advice and ensuring systems meet stringent security standards. Acting as a trusted advisor to project teams, you will embed secure practices into systems before they become live services, safeguarding data and operations across the NHS.
This role offers unparalleled opportunities to address challenges of national scale, contribute to improving healthcare outcomes, and enhance NHS cyber resilience. As part of a supportive and innovative environment, you will benefit from access to professional development, collaborative initiatives, and impactful work that directly supports patient care.
Main duties of the job
As a Cyber Security Lead, your responsibilities include:
* Provide expert consultancy and guidance to ensure secure system design, governance, and compliance with frameworks like NIST Special Publications, ISO 27001/2/3, and NCSC guidelines.
* Set and embed security standards and patterns, aligned with best practices, to strengthen NHS England's cyber resilience.
* Lead threat modelling, security assessments, and risk mitigation efforts, delivering actionable advice to address identified vulnerabilities.
* Collaborate with stakeholders and teams to address challenges via DevSecOps practices, security reviews, and comprehensive risk analysis.
* Drive the development and implementation of NHS England's integrated cyber security strategy, defining objectives and addressing technical controls, risks, and issues.
* Act as a trusted advisor and subject matter expert, representing Cyber Operations at governance forums and during project lifecycles.
* Scope and review security testing reports, vulnerability assessments, and compliance audits to ensure robust application and endpoint security.
* Provide architecture modelling expertise to design and implement resilient, secure systems and services across NHS England.
* Support systems and services throughout their lifecycle, ensuring secure practices are maintained to minimise risks.
Job responsibilities
Please see the attached Job Description and Person Specification for more information about the role and responsibilities.
Please ensure your supporting statement includes demonstrable evidence and specific examples on how you meet the criteria for each of the key skills specified. This will be used in both the shortlisting and interview processes.
Important: Please be aware there are residency requirements you need to meet:
All NHS England Cyber Security personnel must hold security clearance SC level as a minimum. To meet National Security Vetting requirements, you must have resided in the UK for a minimum of 3 out of the past 5 years for SC clearance. Candidates who were posted abroad for service with HM Government, Armed Forces or within a UK government role will still be considered.
Please make sure you meet these requirements before applying for this role. You don't need to have SC already, however, failure to achieve the requirements for SC after offer will result in the job offer being withdrawn.
Person Specification
* Consulting - Extensive knowledge of techniques, roles, and responsibilities in providing technical or business guidance to internal and external clients; and the ability to apply this knowledge appropriately to diverse situations.
* Information Assurance - Specialist knowledge of and the ability to protect information and systems while ensuring confidentiality, integrity and availability.
* Information Security Architecture - Detailed knowledge of the tools and techniques used for creating software, hardware, networking and application infrastructure; ability to meet information security objectives while using these.
* Application Security - Specialist knowledge of the tools and processes for maintaining application security; ability to design and implement security programs to prevent data loss and access intrusion from web and mobile applications.
Skills
* Specialist knowledge of and ability to support the secure development of enterprise architecture through conceptual, logical and physical approaches.
* Vulnerabilities Assessment - Extensive knowledge of vulnerability assessment tools, techniques, models, and systems; ability to utilise the knowledge to identify vulnerabilities on networks, operating systems, mobile applications, etc.
Qualifications
* Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP)
Disclosure and Barring Service Check
This post is subject to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act (Exceptions Order) 1975 and as such it will be necessary for a submission for Disclosure to be made to the Disclosure and Barring Service (formerly known as CRB) to check for any previous criminal convictions.
£82,879 to £93,980 a year (exclusive of London weighting)
Contract
Permanent
Working pattern
Full-time
Reference number
990-TD-CY-6822447-E
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