IT Security Operations Lead

This is an ideal opportunity for a senior security engineer ready to take the next step into a lead role; with the scope, visibility, and autonomy to build something from the ground up.

We help protect critical infrastructure, public safety operations, and enterprise environments around the world. That means our own security posture is not just an internal IT matter - it is a commercial and reputational imperative. Our customers buy trust as much as they buy technology.

The IT Security Operations Lead will be the dedicated security owner within Group IT, responsible for establishing and maturing the group's information security capability across all seven international sites. You will govern our managed security partners, drive our Cyber Essentials Plus programme, chair our Change Advisory Board, and build the BCP/DR and incident response framework aligned to business needs. You will also act as a security overlay across the wider IT team and business, bringing security expertise and technical depth to everything the function does.

Principal Accountabilities

• Own and develop the group's information security posture across all business units and international sites.
• Govern and manage managed security service providers, including SOC/SIEM, PAM, and SASE/ZTNA, ensuring SLAs are met and value is delivered.
• Drive Cyber Essentials and Cyber Essentials Plus certification group wide.
• Chair the Change Advisory Board, ensuring all changes to IT systems are formally assessed, approved, and communicated.
• Develop, document, and test the group's BCP/DR framework and incident response plan, ensuring it can act without committee approval in a real incident.
• Own the IT risk register and maintain the group's security risk picture, contributing to board-level reporting.
• Lead the end-to-end review of IT processes and introduce appropriate automation.
• Provide group-wide IT (including shadow IT), AI governance, including data classification and DLP.
• Embed vulnerability scanning with a defined scan cadence and remediation tracking process.
• Own identity governance, including PAM stabilisation and support for identity platform migration planning.
• Provide IT security input and coordination support into wider group ISO audits.
• Provide security oversight, technical guidance, and cross-functional support to the wider IT team and business, acting as a security overlay across all IT operations.
• Provide security governance input to the IFS/Salesforce ERP programme and other major projects.

Key Personal Attributes

• Ownership mindset: Comfortable taking full accountability for a domain with minimal existing framework to inherit.
• Clear communicator: Able to translate technical risk into business language for board-level and non-technical audiences.
• Collaborative: Works effectively across teams, with managed service partners, and with a wide range of internal stakeholders
• Detail-oriented: Able to manage multiple compliance frameworks and workstreams simultaneously without losing thread.
• Pragmatic: Able to prioritise and sequence work intelligently in a complex, inherited environment.
• Self-directed: Does not require close management; owns their domain and drives it forward.

Essential

• Demonstrable experience in information security operations, including governance of managed security service providers.
• Familiarity with Microsoft 365 security tooling - Defender, Purview, Entra ID.
• Experience with SIEM/SOC and SASE/ZTNA tooling like Zscaler.
• Working knowledge of Cyber Essentials, Cyber Essentials Plus, and/or ISO 27001 frameworks.
• Experience developing or contributing to BCP/DR frameworks and incident response planning.
• Formal qualification in information security, ISC2 CC as a minimum.
• Experience working in a regulated or compliance-sensitive environment.
• Able to communicate security risk clearly to non-technical audiences, including senior leadership.

Desirable

• Hands-on experience with PAM tooling.
• Exposure to AI governance frameworks and data classification tooling.

Eligibility for Employment in the UK

In accordance with current legislative requirements within the UK, any successful applicant must produce verification of their eligibility to live and work in the UK. Such verification should be taken in advance of the employment start date and the applicant will be unable to start in their role until this has been received by Synectics.

Our Commitment to Equality and Diversity

Synectics plc and its subsidiaries are committed to promoting equal opportunities in employment and in our employment policies for recruitment, selection, training, development and promotion. Such policies are in place to ensure that both job applicants and employees of Synectics receive equal treatment regardless of age, disability, gender reassignment, marital or civil partnership status, pregnancy and maternity, race, religion or belief, sex or sexual orientation.