Lead Security Architect (SC Cleared)

Location: UK Wide - Remote

Day Rate: £650-700 p/d - InsideIR35

Type: Contract

Length: 6 Months

Start Date: ASAP

Overview:

We are seeking an experienced Lead Security Architect to design, assure and support the delivery of secure technology solutions for UK Government and other security-sensitive environments.

Working across bids and delivery, you will translate customer, regulatory and security requirements into pragmatic architectures, controls and assurance evidence. You will collaborate with solution architects, engineers, service designers, commercial teams and senior customer security stakeholders.

You will bring practical experience of NCSC guidance and UK Government security principles across cloud and hybrid environments, assessing risks and defining proportionate controls throughout the solution lifecycle.

Key Responsibilities

• Produce and review security architectures, HLDs, LLDs and end-to-end security designs.
• Conduct risk assessments, threat modelling and architectural security reviews.
• Define security requirements, control frameworks and risk treatments.
• Support bids, proposals and customer engagements with credible, deliverable and cost-conscious security solutions.
• Develop security cases, assurance evidence and risk treatment plans to support formal assurance, accreditation and audits.
• Engage with customer security authorities, accreditors, design authorities and governance forums.
• Assess supplier, SaaS, cloud and software supply-chain risks, reviewing third-party controls and assurance evidence.
• Provide security architecture leadership and assurance throughout the solution lifecycle.
• Develop reusable security patterns, standards and reference architectures, guiding teams on secure-by-design principles.
• Ensure designs support logging, monitoring, detection, incident response and forensic requirements.

Key Skills and Experience:

• 5-8+ years of relevant cyber/security experience, including significant Security Architecture or Solution Security experience.
• Practical application of NCSC guidance, including the Cloud Security Principles.
• Experience delivering solutions for UK Government, the public sector or similarly regulated and security-sensitive environments.
• Understanding of UK Government data classification, information handling and secure-by-design requirements.
• Strong Azure and AWS security architecture capability across identity and access management, networking, encryption, key management, secrets, logging, monitoring and resilience.
• Experience producing security cases, assurance evidence and risk treatment plans, and supporting formal assurance or accreditation.
• Experience applying security architecture methodologies such as SABSA, TOGAF or equivalent.
• Strong risk assessment, architecture review and threat modelling experience, using approaches such as STRIDE and MITRE ATT&CK.
• Experience developing reusable security architecture patterns and control frameworks.
• Ability to assess supplier, SaaS, cloud and software supply-chain security, including third-party assurance artefacts.
• Experience integrating security into DevSecOps, Infrastructure as Code, CI/CD pipelines, containers and cloud-native architectures.
• Experience designing solutions that integrate with security operations, detection engineering, incident response and forensic capabilities.
• Understanding of Zero Trust, defence-in-depth, least privilege and cloud shared-responsibility models.
• Ability to produce clear architecture documentation, security requirements, control sets, risk assessments and assurance evidence.
• Experience supporting competitive bids and translating security requirements into practical, commercially viable solutions.
• Knowledge of ISO 27001, Cyber Essentials Plus, NIST, NIST 800-53, CAF and CIS Controls, alongside applicable UK Government requirements.
• CISSP or an equivalent senior certification, such as CCSP or CISM, is highly desirable, alongside relevant Azure and/or AWS certifications.

Key Attributes:

• Pragmatic and delivery-focused, balancing security, usability, cost and delivery constraints.
• Confident challenging designs constructively and explaining security risks in business terms.
• Able to work independently and provide credible security leadership within multidisciplinary teams.
• Strong written and verbal communication skills, including engagement with senior customer security stakeholders and accreditors.
• Comfortable moving between bids, hands-on architecture design and delivery assurance.
• Able to turn complex security requirements into clear decisions and proportionate controls.

Desirable Experience:

• AI and LLM security architecture.
• Identity-first and Zero Trust architectures.
• Azure and AWS landing-zone security.
• Cross-domain or multi-tenant architectures.
• Application of NIST 800-53, CAF, CIS Controls and Secure by Design principles in complex environments.