Cyber Security Assurance lead - Secure by Design for Defence
Summary
The Cyber Security Assurance Lead will manage cybersecurity and information assurance across defence products and spacecraft, focusing on Secure by Design delivery and formal accreditation. The role involves coordinating security reviews, risk management, and compliance reporting within the UK defence sector.
Cybersecurity Assurance Manager - Secure by Design
UK Defence Sector | Guildford | Hybrid
Must be eligible to attain National Security Vetting at SC.DV is desirable, which would require 10 years unbroken residency in the UK.
We're recruiting on behalf of a leading organisation for a Security Assurance Manager to own cybersecurity and information assurance across their products, programmes and spacecraft lifecycle.
This is a genuinely broad, senior assurance role - spanning certification (ISO 27001, CE+, DCC), ITHCs, Secure by Design reviews, supplier security, and space licensing assurance. You'll sit across Change Advisory Boards, incident response, and executive-level reporting.
This is the one thing that matters most for this role:
You need to have personally delivered Secure by Design assurance within a Defence programme. Not just an understanding of the framework - hands-on ownership: engaging with system and design owners, running gap analysis against security controls, and taking something through to a real outcome such as Authority to Operate or formal accreditation. If that's not something you've genuinely done, please don't apply - the client has been explicit that there isn't time to build this knowledge up from scratch.
What you'll need:
- Hands-on Secure by Design delivery experience in a Defence programme - as a Delivery Team Security Lead, Delivery Team Security Engineer, or Security Assurance Coordinator
- Hold, or have held, CISM, CISA, BCS CISMP, ChCSP or CMIRM
- Membership of a cybersecurity or information risk body (CIISec, IRM, or similar)
- Eligible for National Security Vetting at SC or above, with 5+ years unbroken UK residency (DV desirable)
- Proven delivery of security artefacts — Security Management Plans, Risk Registers, Security Requirements Documents, RMADS, Threat Models
- Experience coordinating ITHCs, including scoping and remediation prioritisation
- Technical understanding at architecture, design and audit level
Desirable:
Knowledge of the space industry or aerospace communication systems.
If you've owned Secure by Design assurance on a Defence programme and can talk through a specific example of what you delivered and what it achieved, we'd like to hear from you.