Senior Security Architect

Role: Senior Security Architect

Location: London - needs to be onsite Wednesday and Friday

Duration: 6 month contract

Rate: £625 per day - Inside of IR35

We are seeking an experienced Senior Security Architect to provide security design leadership across major technology change initiatives within a Higher Education / public-sector-style environment.

This role will focus on security architecture assurance, reviewing High-Level Designs (HLDs) and Low-Level Designs (LLDs), advising delivery teams, and ensuring solutions align with agreed security control baselines, organisational risk appetite, and recognised security frameworks.

Key Responsibilities

• Review HLDs and LLDs, providing clear, pragmatic security feedback to architects and engineers
• Define, explain, and advocate baseline security control sets across programmes and projects
• Ensure designs align with recognised frameworks including NCSC CAF, NCSC CSF, NIST CSF, and NIST SP 800-53
• Provide security design assurance across:
  • Network modernisation
  • Identity modernisation
  • Cloud adoption and migration (AWS preferred; Azure/GCP acceptable)
  • CI/CD and DevSecOps pipelines
• Translate security requirements into actionable design guidance rather than policy-only responses
• Participate in design forums and governance boards, strengthening secure-by-design delivery
• Support security risk assessments, threat modelling, and control gap analysis

Key Skills Needed

• Ability to review an HLD (High level design) or LLD (low level design)and provide security feedback
• Understand, explain and able to advocate baseline control sets
• Understanding of NCSC CSF and 800-53, NCSC CAF
• Experience of one or more of security elements of Network modernisation, Identity modernisation, cloud adaption (AWS) and migration, or CICD pipeline implementation.
• NIST CSF
• Security controls
• Technical Design Authority - Desirable
• Higher Education Experience - Desirable

Guidant, Carbon60, Lorien & SRG - The Impellam Group Portfolio are acting as an Employment Business in relation to this vacancy.