AI Threat & Defence Analyst in London

The Global Risk & Security (GR&S) team enables Vanguard's business strategy by protecting clients, colleagues, assets, and information while fostering a strong risk culture across the organisation. The Enterprise Security & Fraud function is responsible for protecting Vanguard's people, property, data, and client assets globally. As the threat landscape evolves, we are investing in advanced capabilities to defend against emerging AI-enabled and autonomous threats.

We are seeking an experienced AI Threat & Defence Analyst to establish and lead a new capability focused on defending Vanguard against adversarial AI, autonomous attack techniques, and next-generation cyber threats. This is a rare opportunity to shape strategy, build a specialist team, and influence how AI security is embedded across the organisation.

In this role you will:

• Establish and lead a strategic AI Security and Adversarial Threat Defence programme, defining its vision, operating model, governance framework, and technical roadmap.
• Build, mentor, and develop a team of security specialists spanning threat research, reverse engineering, AI security, and detection engineering.
• Design, test, and evaluate preventative, detective, and compensating controls against AI-enabled and autonomous attack techniques, validating effectiveness through realistic adversary simulation.
• Develop and operate deception technologies, including honeypots, canary assets, and decoy environments designed to disrupt, misdirect, and detect sophisticated threat actors.
• Create and maintain dedicated research and testing environments to simulate adversarial AI scenarios and continuously assess defensive effectiveness.
• Conduct malware analysis, reverse engineering, and forensic investigations to identify attacker capability, intent, behaviour patterns, and indicators of compromise.
• Develop AI-enabled analysis and intelligence workflows to improve efficiency across threat intelligence, threat hunting, incident response, and security operations.
• Translate threat intelligence into automated detection, response, and containment capabilities to identify and disrupt attacks at scale.
• Assess emerging AI-related threats and model likely attack paths to inform security investment and defensive priorities.
• Lead complex incident investigations involving AI-enabled threats, including forensic analysis, root cause identification, and executive reporting.
• Partner with AI/ML engineering, cloud security, identity and access management, enterprise architecture, and technology teams to embed security controls into AI solutions from design through deployment.
• Define programme KPIs and maturity measures, reporting progress and risk exposure to senior leadership, governance forums, and risk committees.
• Ensure alignment with recognised frameworks and standards including NIST AI RMF, MITRE ATT&CK, MITRE ATLAS, OWASP LLM Top 10, ISO 27001, the EU AI Act, and evolving UK regulatory requirements.

What it takes:

• Significant experience within Cyber Security, Threat Intelligence, Incident Response, Red Teaming, Adversary Emulation, or Offensive Security.
• Experience building or leading specialist security capabilities, programmes, or teams.
• Strong technical expertise in malware analysis and reverse engineering across Windows platforms, including x86/x64, .NET, and scripting frameworks.
• Hands-on experience conducting cyber investigations, digital forensics, and incident response activities.
• Strong Python development and security automation skills.
• Understanding of large language models (LLMs), autonomous agents, AI security risks, and adversarial attack techniques.
• Experience designing and implementing security monitoring, detection engineering, or deception capabilities.
• Strong stakeholder management and communication skills, including presenting to senior executives and governance committees.
• Degree qualification in a relevant discipline, or equivalent professional experience.

Special Factors:

• Vanguard is not offering visa sponsorship for this position.
• This is a hybrid position and would require you to work in the office 3 days per week (Tuesday, Wednesday & Thursday).
• Please note that we review applications on a rolling basis and may close this role early if there is a high level of interest. To avoid missing out, we recommend applying as soon as possible.

Why Vanguard?

This is an opportunity to build and lead a pioneering AI Security capability within one of the world's leading investment management organisations. You will play a central role in shaping how Vanguard identifies, assesses, and mitigates AI-enabled threats while influencing enterprise-wide adoption of secure and responsible AI practices. Working alongside experienced security, technology, and risk professionals, you will help define the future of AI defence in a rapidly evolving threat landscape.

How We Work:

Vanguard has implemented a hybrid working model for the majority of our crew members, designed to capture the benefits of enhanced flexibility while enabling in-person learning, collaboration, and connection. We believe our mission-driven and highly collaborative culture is a critical enabler to support long-term client outcomes and enrich the employee experience.