Cyber Security Consultant - Threat Management

At IBM CIC, we provide technical and industry expertise to a wide range of public and private sector clients in the UK. A career in IBM CIC means you'll have the opportunity to work with leading professionals across multiple industries to improve the hybrid cloud and AI journey for the most innovative and valuable companies in the world. You will get the chance to deliver effective solutions, driving meaningful business change for our clients, using some of the latest technology platforms. Curiosity and a constant quest for knowledge serve as the foundation to success here. You'll be encouraged and supported to constantly reinvent yourself, focusing on skills in demand in an ever changing market. You'll be working with diverse teams, coming up with creative solutions which impact a wide network of clients, who may be at their site or one of our CIC or IBM locations. Our culture of evolution centres on long-term career growth and development opportunities in an environment that embraces your unique skills and experience.

We offer:

• Many training opportunities from classroom to e-learning, mentoring and coaching programs and the chance to gain industry recognized certifications
• Regular and frequent promotion opportunities to ensure you can drive and develop your career with us
• Feedback and checkpoints throughout the year
• Diversity & Inclusion as an essential and authentic component of our culture through our policies and process as well as our Employee Champion teams and support networks
• A culture where your ideas for growth and innovation are always welcome
• Internal recognition programs for peer-to-peer appreciation as well as from manager to employees
• Tools and policies to support your work-life balance from flexible working approaches, sabbatical programs, paid paternity leave, maternity leave and an innovative maternity returners scheme
• More traditional benefits, such as 25 days holiday (in addition to public holidays), private medical, dental & optical cover, online shopping discounts, an Employee Assistance Program, life assurance and a group personal pension plan of an additional 5% of your base salary paid by us monthly to save for your future.

Your role and responsibilities:

As a Cyber Security Consultant specialising in Threat Management, you will strengthen clients’ detection, response, and security operations capabilities across cloud, hybrid, and on-premise environments. You will design and uplift SIEM, logging, and threat detection architectures, build and tune analytics rules, integrate diverse log sources, and enable automated investigation and response workflows. Using your practical experience across SOC environments, threat detection engineering, and incident response, you’ll help clients improve visibility, reduce noise, and operate more resilient security functions. This is a hands‑on, client‑facing role that combines technical depth with the ability to translate operational security requirements into actionable, business‑aligned improvements.

Key Responsibilities:

• Design, build, and uplift SIEM architectures, including log ingestion, parsing, normalization, enrichment, and use‑case development.
• Develop, tune, and optimize detection analytics, improving signal fidelity and reducing false positives across diverse environments.
• Integrate cloud, on‑prem, and SaaS log sources (e.g., Azure, AWS, EDR, identity, network, application telemetry) into unified monitoring platforms.
• Lead SOC uplift engagements, including capability assessments, detection maturity reviews, and roadmap development.
• Build and refine automated workflows and playbooks using SOAR tooling to improve investigation and response efficiency.
• Conduct threat hunting and proactive detection exercises, aligned to MITRE ATT&CK and client threat profiles.
• Advise on operational processes, including incident response, escalation pathways, runbooks, SLAs, and KPI/OKR design.
• Develop detection engineering standards, including naming conventions, alert lifecycle, and correlation logic patterns.
• Troubleshoot complex SIEM/SOC issues, including rule misfires, ingestion failures, misconfigured integrations, and analytic gaps.
• Deliver workshops and stakeholder briefings, translating technical detection and operational insights into business‑focused recommendations.

Required technical and professional expertise:

• Hands‑on experience with major SIEM platforms, such as Microsoft Sentinel, Splunk, LogRhythm, QRadar, Elastic, or similar.
• Strong detection engineering experience, including analytic rule creation, KQL/SPL/detection logic, alert tuning, and correlation design.
• Ability to onboard and normalize log sources across cloud (Azure/AWS), identity, EDR/XDR, network, firewall, application, and SaaS systems.
• Working knowledge of MITRE ATT&CK, detection coverage mapping, and threat‑informed defence principles.
• Experience with SOAR platforms (e.g., Sentinel automation, Splunk SOAR, Cortex XSOAR, Siemplify) and building automated response playbooks.
• Understanding of EDR/XDR technologies, endpoint telemetry, and detection patterns.
• Experience with incident response processes, triage, investigation workflows, escalation paths, containment, and recovery actions.
• Ability to produce high‑quality HLDs/LLDs, runbooks, detection standards, and SOC procedures.
• Proficiency in query and scripting languages relevant to detection engineering (KQL/SPL/SQL/Python/PowerShell).
• Consulting experience, including stakeholder management, delivery ownership, and presenting operational findings.

This role requires eligibility for UK Government security clearance. Candidates who already hold clearance (SC or DV) are encouraged to apply, but we will fully consider applicants who meet the eligibility criteria and can obtain clearance.

Preferred technical and professional experience:

• Relevant certifications such as SC‑200, AZ‑500, GCDA, GCIA, GCIH, Splunk Enterprise Security, or vendor‑specific SIEM accreditations.
• Experience leading SOC maturity assessments or building SOC capability uplift roadmaps.
• Experience with EDR/XDR advanced features, detection logic tuning, and behavioral analytics.
• Familiarity with cloud‑native detection engines (e.g., AWS GuardDuty, Security Hub, CloudTrail analytics, GCP SCC).
• Understanding of log ingestion architectures, data retention, EPS sizing, ingestion cost optimization, and schema standardization.
• Exposure to threat intelligence integration, enrichment pipelines, and TI‑driven detection logic.
• Experience working in or alongside SOC L2/L3 teams, including content development and continuous improvement cycles.
• Understanding of regulatory or compliance‑driven environments, such as public sector, finance, or critical national infrastructure.
• Knowledge of Zero Trust architectures and identity‑centric detection strategies.
• Experience contributing to or overseeing SOC transitions, including outsourcing/insourcing, MSSP coordination, or tooling migration.

IBM is committed to creating a diverse environment and is proud to be an equal‑opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, gender, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, national origin, caste, genetics, pregnancy, disability, neurodivergence, age, veteran status, or other characteristics. IBM is also committed to compliance with all fair employment practices regarding citizenship and immigration status.