Information Security Technical Lead

The Information Security Tech Lead is responsible for owning and driving the end-to-end information security programme across Asta & its client base. This is a Technical role leading a team of Engineers and provides authoritative security direction across PAM, EDR, SIEM, DLP, identity governance, vulnerability management, and regulatory compliance. The role requires the individual to take responsibility and strengthen Asta’s security posture through hands-on security engineering, continuous monitoring, and effective operational resilience.

The role and the team within this role would make informed, risk-based decisions during security incidents, prioritising alerts, coordinating containment actions, and recommending remediation strategies. They would be expected to deliver infrastructure hardening, threat detection, vulnerability management and support Microsoft 365 security improvements. The successful candidate will be part of the wider infrastructure team and work closely with development teams, clients, risk and compliance to drive security automation, threat detection, incident response, and risk reduction across the enterprise platform stack.

Key Responsibilities

• Security Leadership & Team Management: Lead a team of engineers, setting direction, managing workloads, and developing capability. Act as the primary security escalation point across the Infrastructure function. Own the InfoSec roadmap aligned to Asta’s IT transformation programme.
• Infrastructure Security Engineering & Hardening: Implement and maintain security controls across infrastructure & systems. Harden infrastructure by applying best practices for IAM, PIM, PAM encryption, network security. Review and implement recommendations of security tooling, including AD hardening tools like Ping Castle and Semperis Lightening as well as vendor solutions & systems. Collaborate on implementing & integrating security controls into pipelines including security scans, policy enforcement, and dependency checking.
• Security Monitoring & Incident Response: Monitor security alerts and events from SIEM, EDR, firewall, IDS/IPS, & other security tools. Triage and prioritise alerts based on severity and impact. Investigate security incidents and suspicious activities using log analysis, packet captures, and forensic techniques. Lead containment, eradication, and recovery efforts during security incidents. Maintain alerting for security events & integrate with SIEM/SOAR platforms.
• Security Strategy & Programme Delivery: Define, own, and drive delivery of Asta’s end-to-end security programme spanning PAM, EDR, NDR, SIEM, penetration testing, DLP, and compliance. Translate regulatory obligations (FCA/PRA, Lloyd’s Principle 12, CBEST, ISO 27001, Cyber Essentials) into actionable technical controls and measurable outcomes.
• Client Security Services: Provide security advisory and managed security services to 20+ syndicate and MGA clients including Carbon Underwriting, Dale Underwriting Partners, and Beat Capital. Conduct client security reviews, Secure Score assessments, Semperis/Entra evaluations, and PAM deployment planning. Act as the security escalation point for client-facing security incidents and assurance requests.
• Threat Intelligence & Detection: Stay current with emerging threats, vulnerabilities, attack techniques, and security trends. Apply threat intelligence to improve detection capabilities and identify indicators of compromise. Contribute to threat hunting activities and proactive security monitoring.
• Compliance & Documentation: Support compliance and audits for ISO 27001, NIST, SOC2, Lloyd's Principle 12, and other standards. Prepare incident reports, timelines, reviews, and maintain event logs. Contribute to security documentation, runbooks, and standards. Produce metrics and quarterly reports on security posture and incidents for senior management. Coordinate Cyber Essentials certification and audits. Handle security requests and data sharing from third parties.
• Operational Resilience & DR: Support operational resilience and business continuity planning activities including scenario testing and disaster recovery exercises. Participate in post-incident reviews and implement lessons learned.
• Phishing Campaign Management: Design, implement & manage simulated phishing campaigns to test and improve staff awareness of social engineering threats. Analyse results and identify training needs. Track metrics on phishing resilience and user security awareness.

Skills, Knowledge & Expertise

• 7 years + of hands-on experience with at least 3/4 years in a lead, management, or principal role in cybersecurity, combining security engineering and SOC operations or incident response with experience in regulated industry.
• Demonstrable experience leading and developing a security team.
• Confident communicator able to translate complex security risk into business language for C-suite and board audiences.
• Strong understanding of cybersecurity principles, attack vectors, defense strategies, OWASP Top 10, and the Mitre Attack framework.
• Experience with cloud security (Azure/AWS), IAM, secrets management, encryption, & certificate management.
• Experience with Microsoft 365 security suite including Microsoft Defender, Azure AD Identity Protection, threat analytics, and security compliance tools.
• Hands-on experience with SIEM platforms (Splunk, Crowdstrike (Falcon), Log Rhythm, Sentinel, and Microsoft Defender).
• Experience of working with tools such as Varonis, Tenable, Pentera & external and internal SOC processes.

Job Benefits

At Asta, you’ll enjoy a market-leading benefits package that puts your wellbeing, career development and financial future first. We combine flexible working, strong family-friendly policies and exceptional rewards to create a supportive, inclusive and high-performing workplace. Our benefits include:

• Work-life balance you can rely on: 35-hour working week with hybrid and flexible working.
• Generous holiday allowance that increases with service.
• Your health & wellbeing covered: Private medical insurance with virtual GP access, annual health screening, dental cover and eye care, subsidised gym or sports club membership.
• Support for you and your family: Enhanced maternity, paternity, adoption and shared parental pay.
• Rewarding your contribution: Highly competitive pension with up to 13% employer contribution, life assurance and income protection, discretionary annual bonus scheme, interest-free season ticket loan and salary sacrifice schemes.