Job summary
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:
1. Provide expert consultancy and guidance to ensure secure system design, governance, and compliance with frameworks like NIST Special Special Publications, ISO 27001/2/3, and NCSC guidelines.
2. Set and embed security standards and patterns, aligned with best practices, to strengthen NHS England's cyber resilience.
3. Lead threat modelling, security assessments, and risk mitigation efforts, delivering actionable advice to address identified vulnerabilities.
4. Collaborate with stakeholders and teams to address challenges via DevSecOps practices, security reviews, and comprehensive risk analysis.
5. Drive the development and implementation of NHS England's integrated cyber security strategy, defining objectives and addressing technical controls, risks, and issues.
6. Act as a trusted advisor and subject matter expert, representing Cyber Operations at governance forums and during project lifecycles.
7. Scope and review security testing reports, vulnerability assessments, and compliance audits to ensure robust application and endpoint security.
8. Provide architecture modelling expertise to design and implement resilient, secure systems and services across NHS England.
9. Support systems and services throughout their lifecycle, ensuring secure practices are maintained to minimise risks.
About us
The NHS England board have set out the top-level purpose for the new organisation to lead the NHS in England to deliver high-quality services for all, which will inform the detailed design work and we will achieve this purpose by:
* Enabling local systems and providers to improve the health of their people and patients and reduce health inequalities.
* Making the NHS a great place to work, where our people can make a difference and achieve their potential.
* Working collaboratively to ensure our healthcare workforce has the right knowledge, skills, values and behaviours to deliver accessible, compassionate care.
* Optimising the use of digital technology, research, and innovation.
* Delivering value for money.
If you would like to know more or require further information, please visit NHS England.
Colleagues with a contractual office base are expected to spend, on average, at least 40% of their time working in-person.
Staff recruited from outside the NHS will usually be appointed at the bottom of the pay band.
NHS England hold a Sponsor Licence; this means that we may be able to sponsor you providing the Home Office requirements are met. To be eligible for sponsorship through the Skilled Worker route you'll usually need to be paid the 'standard' salary rate of at least £38,700 per year, or the 'going rate' for your job, whichever is higher. You can find more information on the Government website.
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
Knowledge & Experience
Essential
* 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.
Desirable
* 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
Essential
* Specialist knowledge of and ability to support the secure development of enterprise architecture through conceptual, logical and physical approaches.
Desirable
* 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
Essential
* 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.
Certificate of Sponsorship
Applications from job seekers who require current Skilled worker sponsorship to work in the UK are welcome and will be considered alongside all other applications.
From 6 April 2017, skilled worker applicants, applying for entry clearance into the UK, have had to present a criminal record certificate from each country they have resided continuously or cumulatively for 12 months or more in the past 10 years. Adult dependants (over 18 years old) are also subject to this requirement. #J-18808-Ljbffr