Senior Associate, Cyber Resilience and Operations

Grant Thornton Australia Limited; Sydney; Hybrid; AUD 120,000 - 160,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Flexible working options

9-Day fortnight with no salary cut

Job summary

Grant Thornton Australia Limited is expanding its cyber resilience and operations capability. We seek a curious, hands-on Senior Associate to help deliver incident readiness, playbooks, tabletop exercises, and security operations uplift for diverse client challenges within a global network of cyber professionals.

You will engage across incident response readiness, crisis exercises, and exposure management while developing consulting and client skills to shape your career within our firm.

Qualifications

• Typically, 3 years’ experience in cyber operations roles such as security operations, incident response, vulnerability management or IT security operations.
• Familiarity with common security tools and recognised cyber security frameworks.
• Experience communicating technical findings to non‑technical stakeholders.
• Genuine interest in how AI and automation are impacting the industry and how organisations stay resilient.
• Australian citizenship or permanent residency.
• Willingness to travel for client work.

Responsibilities

• Assess clients’ security operations capability and prioritise improvements to cyber resilience.
• Develop incident response plans and playbooks; facilitate tabletop exercises for technical teams, executives and boards.
• Support clients during live incidents alongside incident response specialists and partners.
• Assist with exposure and vulnerability management, prioritising risk across clients’ environments.
• Explore how AI and automation can strengthen cyber resilience and security operations.
• Prepare clear reporting and recommendations for clients and senior team members.
• Contribute to proposals, client presentations and practice development with the global cyber network.

Skills

Cyber operations

Incident response

Vulnerability management

Stakeholder communication

AI/Automation interest

Education

Cyber security degree

GCIH

CompTIA CySA+

Microsoft SC-200

Blue Team Level 1

Tools

Security tools

Job description

• Full time, permanent role
• Build your career in a hands‑on, client-facing cyber resilience and operations role
• Work with Partners who are truly invested in your professional development

Grant Thornton Australia is one of Australia’s leading professional services firms, providing audit, tax, and advisory services to a diverse range of clients. Our culture is underpinned by a commitment to our clients, people and communities, and our promise to ‘Reach for Remarkable’ by providing proven expertise, principled execution, and personalised experience. In Australia we're proud to support the careers of more than 1,500 remarkable people. Backed by six Australian offices and a global network spanning more than 150 markets, we offer the scale, connections and opportunities to help you shape your future, wherever it takes you.

About this role

We’re growing our cyber resilience and operations capability for an AI-enabled threat world and looking for a curious, hands‑on Senior Associate to help deliver it. AI is changing how attackers operate and how quickly organisations need to respond. Our clients need to be ready to withstand, respond to and recover from cyber incidents, and to run security operations that keep pace. This role is for someone with a solid grounding in cyber operations who wants to apply it across a broad range of client challenges - from incident response readiness and crisis exercises to security operations uplift and exposure management - while growing their consulting and client skills as part of a global network of cyber professionals. Whether you’re starting to find your niche or you enjoy the variety of being a generalist, we’ll help you shape a career that fits. If you’ve spent time in cyber operations, can see where things could work better and are ready to bring that insight to clients, we’d love to hear from you.

What you’ll work on

• Assess clients’ security operations capability and help them prioritise improvements to their cyber resilience across processes, tooling and operating models.
• Help clients prepare for cyber incidents, including developing incident response plans and playbooks, and designing and helping facilitate tabletop exercises for technical teams, executives and boards.
• Support clients during live incidents, working alongside our incident response specialists and technology partners.
• Support exposure and vulnerability management activities, helping clients understand and prioritise risk across their environment.
• Explore how AI and automation can strengthen clients’ cyber resilience and security operations.
• Prepare clear reporting and recommendations for clients and senior team members.
• Contribute to proposals, client presentations and practice development, collaborating with our global network of cyber professionals and sharing your knowledge with junior team members.

What you’ll need

• Typically, 3 years’ experience in cyber operations roles, such as security operations, incident response, vulnerability management, security engineering or IT security operations, either in‑house or with a consultancy or service provider.
• Familiarity with common security tools and recognised cyber security frameworks.
• Experience working with stakeholders outside your own team, and the ability to explain technical findings clearly to people who don’t work in cyber.
• A genuine interest in how AI and automation are impacting the industry and how organisations stay resilient.
• Australian citizenship or permanent residency.
• Willingness to travel for client work.

Nice to have

• Experience in regulated or critical infrastructure environments, and awareness of obligations under the SOCI Act, APRA CPS or the ISM.
• Experience in business continuity, disaster recovery or crisis management, and how these connect with cyber incident response.
• Exposure to threat hunting, threat‑led testing or continuous exposure management.
• A degree in cyber security, or a related field, and/or relevant certifications such as GCIH, CompTIA CySA+, Microsoft SC-200, Blue Team Level 1, or cloud or vendor security certifications - or working towards them.

If you’re interested in this role but don’t feel that you match every single one of our requirements, we would still love to hear from you and explore the unique skillset and attributes that you can bring to the team.

We are committed to ensuring our recruitment process is inclusive and accessible for anyone who wishes to apply, and we warmly encourage applications from individuals from diverse backgrounds including Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islanders, those in the LGBTQI+ community and individuals who identify as having disability or are neurodivergent.

Benefits

• Formal and informal flexible working options including adjusted work hours, part-time roles and hybrid working.
• We are also the first professional services firm in Australia to trial and permanently implement a 9-Day fortnight with no reduction in salary.

We set the bar high to deliver a strikingly different working experience – in what we do but also how we do it.