Head of Security Architecture

Job title

Head of Security Architecture

at Government Digital ServiceLocation: Bristol, London, ManchesterJob summary

The Government Digital Service (GDS) is the digital centre of government. We are responsible for setting, leading and delivering the vision for a modern digital government.Our priorities are to drive a modern digital government, by joining up public sector services, harnessing the power of AI for the public good, strengthening and extending digital and data public infrastructure, elevating leadership and investing in talent, funding for outcomes and procuring for growth and innovation, and committing to transparency and driving accountability.We’re part of the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT) and employ more than 1,000 people across the UK, with hubs in Manchester, London and Bristol. The Information Security team protects the people, services and information used to deliver critical government digital infrastructure, supporting a secure software development lifecycle and building a positive, no-blame security culture.GDS is looking to recruit a Head of Security Architecture. This role involves engaging internally in GDS and across government on critical areas of work. The Head of Security Architecture will be an experienced security professional with extensive technical, strategic and management experience, able to brief the CISO and interact at C-level.Responsibilities

Delivering a security architecture advisory service to GDS service teams, covering concepts such as securing service architecture, software development lifecycle, infrastructure as code, policy as code, zero trust, and related security concepts.Implementing the GDS Secure by Design principles in operational services.Leading the security component of cross-business initiatives on Privileged Access Management, including effective Identity solutions and use of Privileged Access Workstations.Developing common, workable patterns for enterprise-level guardrails and application patterns enabling secure delivery of digital services at scale, in consultation with technical experts across the business.Engaging with the Enterprise Architecture team across GDS, ICS, DSIT and Cabinet Office to provide consistent design and design governance under the GDS Product Group Chief Information Security Officer.Ensuring the multi-year vision for security architectural strategy is in place and aligned with the wider IT strategy.Ensuring that GDS Product Group has the relevant policies and approaches for security architecture to counteract threats in line with risk profiles and compliance with legislation and regulation.Leading a Community of Practice for Security Architects to ensure a high-quality, consistent approach across teams that may include service security architects in different management chains.Influencing senior managers to adopt secure architectural principles to reduce information risk and migrate legacy and existing systems into a secure architectural framework.Person specification

We’re interested in people who have:Extensive experience designing architectures for critical services operating at a national scale, including specifying technical security controls.Experience designing secure architectures for central enabling services/platforms (e.g., corporate identity and privileged access management approaches).Strong working knowledge of current cyber security risks and experience implementing security solutions for infrastructure, network and application security.Good working knowledge of identity and access management (multi-factor authentication, single sign-on, identity management), endpoint protection and related technologies.Excellent knowledge and experience implementing GDS Secure by Design Principles within an organisation.Experience specifying security technical controls and developing design patterns based on solid understanding of security architecture and design principles.Good working knowledge of security advantages and vulnerabilities of common products and technologies, and ability to assess new products and technologies for secure use.Strong working knowledge and experience of cloud computing architecture and related technologies, including AWS Well-Architected principles.Ability to interact with a broad cross-section of personnel to explain and enforce security measures, including working with service teams.Excellent written and verbal communication skills, business acumen and a commercial outlook.Relevant industry qualifications and accreditations (e.g., CCP, CREST, BCS Practitioner Certificate in Information Assurance Architecture, ISC2 CISSP, CISM, or other relevant qualifications).DSIT cannot offer Visa sponsorship

to candidates through this campaign. DSIT holds a Visa sponsorship licence but this can only be used for certain roles; this campaign does not qualify.Please note that this role requires SC clearance , which would normally require 5 years’ UK residency in the past 5 years. This is not an absolute requirement, but supplementary checks may be needed where individuals have not lived in the UK for that period. This may mean security clearance (and therefore appointment) could take longer or, in some cases, not be possible.Please click Apply Button for more information.Seniorities and employment details

Seniority level:

DirectorEmployment type:

Full-timeJob function:

Information Technology, Consulting, and Strategy/PlanningIndustries:

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