Senior Lead Security Operations Analyst - Companies House - G7 in Manchester

We are looking for an experienced and technically skilled Senior Lead Security Operations Analyst to play a key role in the continued development of Security Operations at Companies House. You will provide technical leadership within the Security Operations team, supporting analysts with complex investigations and helping to ensure security incidents are effectively identified, investigated, contained and escalated.

You will remain hands-on, using security monitoring and threat detection technologies including Microsoft Sentinel, Microsoft Defender and Amazon Web Services security tooling to investigate activity across our cloud and technology environments. The role will also help drive improvements to our security monitoring capability, including developing and tuning detection rules, improving investigation and response processes, introducing automation and ensuring our monitoring continues to evolve alongside the threats facing Companies House.

We Are Looking For Someone With:

• Strong security operations experience
• Excellent analytical and investigative skills
• The technical knowledge to lead complex investigations and support the development of others

You should be comfortable working with large volumes of security and log data, making evidence-based decisions and communicating technical security issues clearly to both technical and non-technical colleagues. This is an opportunity to take a senior technical role within an evolving Security Operations capability and directly influence how Companies House detects, investigates and responds to cyber security threats.

Your Key Responsibilities Will Include:

• Leading security investigations and incident response – taking technical ownership of complex or high-impact incidents and coordinating investigation, containment, remediation and escalation.
• Providing technical leadership – acting as a senior escalation point for analysts, providing guidance on complex investigations and supporting effective decision making.
• Developing security monitoring and detection – creating, reviewing and tuning security detections to improve our ability to identify malicious and suspicious activity.
• Managing and improving Microsoft Sentinel and Microsoft Defender – using and developing our security technologies to investigate threats, improve detection coverage and maintain effective monitoring.
• Monitoring cloud environments – detecting and investigating security activity across Amazon Web Services and Microsoft Azure using cloud security services, logs and other security telemetry.
• Improving automation and processes – identifying opportunities to automate Security Operations activities and improve monitoring, investigation and response workflows.
• Developing incident response capability – improving investigation procedures, playbooks and escalation processes and supporting security exercises and readiness activities.
• Developing the team – mentoring analysts, sharing technical knowledge and supporting the development of investigative and technical capability.
• Supporting operational leadership – helping prioritise and coordinate Security Operations activity and providing operational leadership in the absence of the Head of Security Operations when required.
• Working across Companies House – collaborating with security, cloud, platform, infrastructure and software engineering teams to investigate security issues and improve monitoring and response.
• Advising senior stakeholders – communicating significant incidents, risks and technical findings clearly and providing evidence-based recommendations.
• Driving continuous improvement – keeping pace with emerging threats and technologies and using lessons from incidents and operational activity to continually improve our security capability.

This is a hands-on technical role with technical and operational leadership responsibility. You will remain actively involved in security monitoring, investigations, detection engineering and incident response while helping to develop the capability of the wider Security Operations team.

About The Team:

The Security Operations team sits within the wider Security function at Companies House and is responsible for monitoring, detecting, investigating and responding to cyber security threats across our technology and cloud environments. We are a collaborative and technically focused team made up of Security Operations analysts, senior specialists and threat intelligence capability, working closely with colleagues across security, cloud, platform and engineering teams as well as external security partners.

We have a supportive and collaborative culture where people are encouraged to challenge existing approaches, share knowledge and learn from each other. As a Senior Lead, you will play an important role in maintaining that culture and helping develop the technical capability of the wider team.

What we’re looking For:

• Strong hands-on Security Operations expertise and the technical capability and judgement required to operate as a senior technical lead.
• Significant hands-on experience working within Security Operations, including investigating, triaging and responding to complex security alerts and incidents.
• Strong practical experience using Microsoft Sentinel, including security monitoring, log analysis, incident investigation, developing and tuning detection rules, and improving monitoring coverage.
• Strong experience working with Amazon Web Services, including investigating security activity using cloud security services and telemetry such as CloudTrail, GuardDuty and Identity and Access Management.
• Experience leading complex security investigations, coordinating containment and remediation activities, and making risk-based decisions during security incidents.
• Experience developing and improving Security Operations capabilities, including monitoring processes, incident response procedures, playbooks and automation.
• Advanced knowledge of Microsoft Sentinel, including Kusto Query Language, analytics rules, security investigations, log analysis and automation.
• Strong knowledge of Amazon Web Services security, including cloud logging, identity and access management, threat detection and the investigation of activity across cloud environments.
• Good working knowledge of Microsoft Defender security technologies and their use for threat detection, investigation and response.
• Strong analytical and diagnostic skills, with the ability to correlate security information from multiple data sources, identify malicious or suspicious activity and determine appropriate response actions.
• Practical knowledge of scripting and security automation using technologies such as PowerShell, Python, Terraform or equivalent tooling.
• Strong understanding of cyber threats, attacker techniques and security monitoring principles, with knowledge of relevant frameworks and good practice such as MITRE ATT&CK and the National Cyber Security Centre Cyber Assessment Framework.