About this role
Salary: £80,000 - 87,000 per year
Requirements
- Strong experience in security architecture, security assurance, or a related technical security discipline.
- Experience designing or operating continuous control validation or assurance, such as breach and attack simulation, purple teaming, control monitoring, or security posture management.
- Strong security architecture knowledge, including practical experience with security design reviews and threat modelling.
- Good working knowledge of MITRE ATT&CK and the ability to map security controls against real-world attacker techniques.
- Strong experience governing protective security controls, including defining security standards and configuration baselines, monitoring control effectiveness and drift, managing exceptions, and driving remediation of identified weaknesses.
- Knowledge of the NCSC Cyber Assessment Framework and at least one of ISO 27001 or NIST CSF 2.0.
- Experience with zero trust and identity architecture, including conditional access and adaptive authentication.
- Experience scoping, commissioning, or managing penetration testing.
- Ability to communicate complex technical security issues and trade-offs to technical and senior non-technical audiences.
- A relevant security qualification such as CISSP, SABSA, CCSP, or TOGAF with a security specialism, or demonstrable equivalent experience.
- Experience in higher education, research-intensive, or similarly complex environments is advantageous.
- Exposure to AI security, multi-cloud security, DevSecOps, data protection engineering, or Microsoft security technologies—including Defender XDR, Sentinel, Intune, Entra ID, and Purview—is beneficial.
Responsibilities
- Develop and run a continuous security control validation programme across endpoint, identity, email, network, cloud, data, and backup environments.
- Use breach and attack simulation, purple teaming, posture monitoring, attack surface management, and detection testing to assess whether controls are deployed, correctly configured, and effective.
- Define security control metrics and risk indicators, using validation evidence to identify weaknesses and drive prioritised improvements.
- Own and maintain protective security control standards and configuration baselines across key security technologies.
- Govern security control configuration, monitor for control drift, and ensure weaknesses, exceptions, and deviations from standards are identified, assessed, and managed.
- Oversee the control exceptions process, ensuring exceptions are risk-assessed, documented, appropriately approved, and regularly reviewed.
- Work with technology and service teams to remediate control weaknesses and vulnerabilities, monitoring progress against agreed priorities and timescales.
- Maintain evidence of control effectiveness to support assurance activity and demonstrate alignment with security standards and frameworks.
- Act as a security architecture design authority, embedding secure-by-design principles and threat modelling into major technology change.
- Shape security architecture across AI and agentic technologies, zero trust and identity, Azure, AWS and GCP, DevSecOps, and data security.
- Oversee penetration testing and offensive assurance activity, working with CHECK- or CREST-accredited providers and incorporating red and purple team activity into the assurance programme.
- Support security assurance against frameworks and standards including the NCSC Cyber Assessment Framework, ISO 27001, NIST CSF 2.0, and Cyber Essentials Plus.
- Communicate technical risk and control weaknesses to senior stakeholders, balancing security improvement against cost, resilience, and operational requirements.
Technologies
- AI
- AWS
- Azure
- Cloud
- DevSecOps
- GCP
- Support
- Network
- Security
- TOGAF
- Architect
- Web
More
We are recruiting a permanent Security Architecture and Controls Lead at the University of Birmingham, reporting to the CISO. The role is based in Birmingham with a hybrid arrangement of three days in the office and two days working from home. The salary is up to £87,000 per annum, with the possibility of a supplement for exceptional candidates. Our benefits include a Universities Superannuation Scheme pension with a 22% contribution (9% personal and 13% University contribution), 25 days of annual leave, seven University Closure Days, eight bank holidays, volunteering leave, occupational sick pay, access to three subsidised nurseries, and the Birmingham Professional programme. The closing date is 15 November.
last updated 44 week of 2026