Cyber Security Architect in City of Westminster

Effective business acumen and an understanding of the cyber security challenges faced by clients, with the ability to interact with senior stakeholders across departments. The role involves shaping and delivering cyber security engagements, providing trusted, pragmatic advice rooted in understanding client objectives.

Responsibilities

• Manage, deliver and lead cyber security and cyber risk assignments, producing documentation, reports and recommendations, and quality-assuring the work of team members.
• Act as a subject matter expert to support a team and oversee a larger team delivering engagements at scale, with reach across teams and communities.
• Maintain awareness of key business and industry trends and understand how they impact responses to cyber risk.
• Research, articulate and pitch complex architecture and security advice at business and technical levels; justify and communicate design decisions to key customer stakeholders including senior management.
• Develop vision, principles and strategy for security architects on projects or technologies.
• Provide clients with trusted, pragmatic security advice to navigate complex, risk-driven cyber decisions.
• Investigate major breaches of security and recommend appropriate control improvements.
• Contribute to development of information security policy, standards, procedures and guidelines.
• Be the point of escalation for architects in lower grade roles and lead the technical design of systems and services.
• Understand and comprehend the impact of decisions, balancing requirements and selecting appropriate approaches.
• Demonstrate experience as an effective member of a multi-disciplinary team and maintain excellent stakeholder management, presentation and communication skills.
• Apply standards, practices, codes and assessment of certification programmes relevant to IT and related domains.
• Knowledge of secure network architecture, secure architecture in AWS or Azure, and experience creating secure architectures in cloud environments.
• Provide expert strategy, risk and technical advice on cyber security for business-as-usual and live/project engagements.
• Identify gaps in capabilities and align cybersecurity and cyber-resiliency with changing business needs, threat landscape and technical requirements.

Qualifications

• Minimum 3-5 years of experience in Information Security related positions.
• Minimum 2-3 years of experience in security architecture.
• Certification in AWS or Azure for Architecture and Security or similar IASME / Cyber Essentials Plus Certified.
• Knowledge of secure network architecture and technical design.
• Experience in creating secure architecture in AWS or Azure.
• Experience providing expert strategy, risk and technical advice on cyber security for clients.
• Broad range of cyber and information security skills, including threats, vulnerabilities and controls to prevent, detect and resolve incidents.
• Able to gap analyze domains, identify gaps in capabilities, and define security enhancements in line with business needs.
• Knowledge of threat modelling.
• Demonstrated ability to work effectively in a multi-disciplinary team.
• Excellent stakeholder management, presentation and communication skills.
• Pro-active approach to personal and professional development.
• Ability to understand IT/IS infrastructure and related services, including sustainability and efficiency.
• Ability to use security access control tools (e.g., Active Directory).
• Proficiency with cloud/virtualisation concepts and managing virtualised environments.
• Experience writing Cyber Security documents (Risk Assessments, ESRM, DPIA, etc.).

Desirable Skills & Experience

• Security certifications such as ISC2 CISSP, ISC2 CCSP, ISACA CISM or similar.
• Knowledge of evolving digital technologies (AI, digital twins, IoT).
• Knowledge of IT auditing principles, practices and tools.
• Experience working on central government, local government and public sector projects.
• Experience handling large and complex data sets with diverse data types.
• Experience with threat modelling and developing business cases, RFPs, ITTs and statements of requirements.

What we’re looking for

• Resilience.
• Strong collaboration and teamwork.
• Good communication skills.
• Genuine passion/commitment to improving public services.
• Determined and tenacious approach to work.
• Creative problem solving.
• Good listening and comprehension.
• Excellent stakeholder management.
• Autonomy to develop and grow skills and experience.
• Be part of exciting project work that makes a difference in society.
• Strong, inspiring, and thought-provoking leadership.
• Supportive and collaborative environment.
• Flexibility to learn and develop.

About Methods

Methods is passionate about its people; we want our colleagues to develop the things they are good at and enjoy. Since our establishment in 1990, Methods has partnered with central government departments and agencies to transform public sector operations in the UK. Our mission is to improve and safeguard public-facing services. We apply digital thinking to ensure the future of our public services is citizen-centered. We are customer-centric and focus on delivering what is right for our clients. We help clients succeed by delivering secure, resilient cyber and information services and reducing risk from cyber-attacks by building security road-maps and establishing prevention, detection and response capabilities. Methods offers autonomy to develop and grow, exciting project work, strong leadership, a supportive environment, flexible working, wellbeing support, volunteering opportunities, and a range of development and benefits to our people.