Cyber Security Lead
Job summary
NHS England's Cyber Operations team is at the forefront of safeguarding critical national healthcare services and ensuring patient safety through robust cyber resilience. The Cyber Security Lead role is a key part of the Security Consulting Team, operating within the Chief Information Security Office (CISO) function. This team provides specialist consultancy across NHS England, ensuring national services and Critical National Infrastructure are secure by design.
You will play a pivotal role in developing and implementing cyber-resilient architectures, providing advice and ensuring systems meet security standards. Acting as an advisor to project teams, you will embed secure practices into systems before they become live services, safeguarding data and operations across the NHS.
This role offers opportunities to address challenges of national scale, contribute to improving healthcare outcomes and enhance NHS cyber resilience. As part of a supportive and innovative environment, you will benefit from access to professional development, collaborative initiatives, and impactful work that directly supports patient care.
Main duties of the job
As a Cyber Security Lead, your responsibilities include:
- Provide expert consultancy and guidance to ensure secure system design, governance, and compliance with frameworks like NIST Special Publications, ISO 27001/2/3, and NCSC guidelines.
- Set and embed security standards and patterns, aligned with best practices, to strengthen NHS England's cyber resilience.
- Lead threat modelling, security assessments, and risk mitigation efforts, delivering actionable advice to address identified vulnerabilities.
- Collaborate with stakeholders and teams to address challenges via DevSecOps practices, security reviews, and comprehensive risk analysis.
- Drive the development and implementation of NHS England's integrated cyber security strategy, defining objectives and addressing technical controls, risks, and issues.
- Act as a trusted advisor and subject matter expert, representing Cyber Operations at governance forums and during project lifecycles.
- Scope and review security testing reports, vulnerability assessments, and compliance audits to ensure robust application and endpoint security.
- Provide architecture modelling expertise to design and implement resilient, secure systems and services across NHS England.
- Support systems and services throughout their lifecycle, ensuring secure practices are maintained to minimise risks.
- Engage in continuous professional development, adopting and promoting industry best practices to enhance organisational cyber security resilience.
About us
Our staff bring expertise across clinical, operational, commissioning, technology, data science, cyber security, software engineering, education, and commercial specialisms -- enabling us to design and deliver high-quality NHS services.
We lead the NHS in England by:
- Enabling local systems and providers to improve the health of their people and patients and reduce health inequalities
- Making the NHS a great place to work, where people can develop and make a difference
- Working collaboratively to ensure our healthcare workforce has the right knowledge, skills, values and behaviours to deliver accessible, compassionate care
- Optimising the use of digital technology, research, and innovation
- Delivering value for money
Earlier this year, the Government announced that NHS England will gradually merge with the Department of Health and Social Care, to create a smaller, more strategic centre that reduces duplication and waste.
If successful at interview, we will initiate an Inter Authority Transfer (IAT) via the Electronic Staff Record (ESR). This retrieves key data from your current or previous NHS employer to support onboarding, including competency status, Continuous Service Dates (CSD), and annual leave entitlement. You may opt out at any stage of the process.
Colleagues with a contractual office base are expected to spend, on average, at least 40% of their time working in-person.
Staff recruited from outside the NHS will usually be appointed at the bottom of the pay band.
Job description
Job responsibilities
You can find further details about the role, including key responsibilities and accountabilities, alongside the organisational structure and person specification in the attached Job Description and other supporting documents.
Please ensure your supporting statement includes demonstratable evidence and specific examples on how you meet the criteria for each of the key skills specified. This will be used in both the shortlisting and interview processes
Important: Please be aware there are residency requirements you need to meet:
All NHS England Cyber Security personnel must hold Security Clearance level as a minimum.
To meet National Security Vetting requirements, SC clearances require 5 years continuous UK residency. In certain cases, this can be reduced to three years continuous UK residency, with additional overseas checks for the previous two years.
Candidates who were posted abroad for service with HM Government, Armed Forces or within a UK government role - will still be considered.
Please make sure you meet these requirements before applying for this role.
You dont need to have SC already, however, failure to achieve the requirements for SC after offer will result in the job offer being withdrawn.
For further advice please check: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/united-kingdom-security-vetting-clearance-levels/national-security-vetting-clearance-levels#security-check-sc
Please be aware that should you be successful in this position, you will be hired to the job title of Security Lead and this job title is advertised to attract the right skills needed for the role.
The post of Security Lead has been awarded a Recruitment and Retention Premia (RRP) in response to current labour market conditions. In recognition of this, the role attracts an additional monthly RRP payment equal to 30% per annum.
Please be aware that RRP is non-contractual and subject to review.
Person Specification
Knowledge
- Extensive knowledge of techniques, roles, and responsibilities in providing technical or business guidance to clients, both internal and external; ability to apply this knowledge appropriately to diverse situations.
- Specialist knowledge of and the ability to protect information and information systems while ensuring their confidentiality, integrity and availability.
- Detailed knowledge of the tools and techniques used for creating software, hardware, networking and application infrastructure; ability to meet information security objectives while using these.
Skills & Experience
- Detailed knowledge of tools, techniques, approaches and processes of cybersecurity risk management; ability to ensure organisational network operation and minimise negative effect by cybersecurity risks.
- Specialist knowledge of and ability to develop and modify enterprise architecture through conceptual, logical and physical approaches.
Qualifications
- Masters level degree in Cyber Security or a relevant subject, or have the equivalent level of experience.
Disclosure and Barring Service Check
This post is subject to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act (Exceptions Order) 1975 and as such it will be necessary for a submission for Disclosure to be made to the Disclosure and Barring Service (formerly known as CRB) to check for any previous criminal convictions.
Employer details
Employer name
NHS England
Address
Wellington Place (Leeds) / Hexagon House (Exeter)
Leeds/Exeter
LS1 4AP
Employer's website
https://www.england.nhs.uk/about/working-for/