Head of Secure Access & Trust

MARKS&SPENCER; Greater London; On-site; GBP 120,000 - 180,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

20% discount on M&S products

Holiday allowance

Discretionary bonus

Pension & life cover

Induction & training

M&S Choices portal

Family policies

Wellbeing support

Volunteer day

Job summary

Marks & Spencer seeks a senior leader to define and drive the Secure Access & Trust capability across the enterprise. You will shape identity governance, authentication and privileged access while enabling cloud-native and AI-enabled environments.

You will partner with CTO, CISO and engineering leadership to raise security posture, reduce risk and support scalable digital delivery across the business.

Qualifications

• Proven experience defining and leading IAM and Zero Trust strategies in large organisations.
• Deep expertise in identity governance, privileged access, authentication and access controls.
• Strong leadership of secure access and identity platforms with resilient, scalable services.
• Ability to balance cyber risk, compliance and resilience while enabling growth.
• Excellent stakeholder management, influencing senior leaders and suppliers.

Responsibilities

• Define and lead the Secure Access & Trust strategy, owning roadmaps, operating model and governance.
• Own identity and trust governance across people, devices, apps and AI agents.
• Lead the platform for authentication, authorisation, directory, remote and privileged access.
• Enable secure engineering via reusable platform capabilities and self-service APIs.
• Drive cyber risk reduction, incident response and supplier governance with measurable outcomes.

Skills

IAM strategy

Zero Trust

Identity governance

Privileged access

Authentication

Authorization

Cloud & on-prem

Security architecture

Stakeholder mgmt

Job description

Summary

As Head of Secure Access & Trust, you are accountable for the enterprise capability that enables trusted access to M&S technology and information. You ensure the right people, systems, devices and AI agents have secure, proportionate and seamless access to the resources they require, enabling business growth, modern engineering, operational resilience and effective management of cyber risk.

You define the strategic direction and evolution of the Secure Access & Trust capability, establishing the governance, platform strategy, trust architecture and operating model that underpin how trust is established, managed and assured across M&S. Through this capability, you provide secure, resilient and reusable platform services that enable engineering teams to build secure solutions by default.

This is a retained leadership role accountable for capability outcomes. You set direction, govern standards, manage enterprise risk and assure delivery through strategic partners, ensuring Secure Access & Trust continually evolves to meet changing business, technology and regulatory needs.

Working closely with the CTO, CISO, Enterprise Architecture, Engineering and business leaders, you strengthen M&S's security posture while reducing complexity, improving developer and colleague experience, and enabling technology to be consumed securely at enterprise scale.

What you'll do

• Define and lead the Secure Access & Trust strategy, owning the roadmap, operating model and governance framework to align with business objectives, security policies and regulatory requirements.
• Own enterprise identity and trust governance, including identity lifecycle management, access governance, privileged access, segregation of duties and trust standards across people, devices, applications, services and AI agents.
• Lead the Secure Access & Trust platform, ensuring authentication, authorisation, directory, remote access and privileged access services are secure, resilient, scalable and support cloud-native and AI-enabled environments.
• Enable secure engineering and business delivery through reusable platform capabilities, APIs, architectural standards and self-service services that improve developer experience and embed security by design.
• Drive cyber risk reduction, operational resilience and supplier performance, overseeing business continuity, major incident response, managed service governance and the development of a high-performing capability focused on measurable outcomes.

Who you are

• Proven experience defining and leading enterprise Identity & Access Management (IAM) and Zero Trust strategies within complex, large-scale organisations.
• Deep expertise in identity governance, privileged access management, authentication, authorisation and access controls across cloud, on-premise and emerging AI-enabled environments.
• Strong technical leadership experience managing secure access and identity platforms, ensuring services are resilient, scalable and aligned to modern engineering practices.
• Demonstrated ability to balance cyber risk, regulatory compliance and operational resilience while enabling business growth, innovation and secure delivery.
• Excellent stakeholder management and influencing skills, with experience leading multidisciplinary teams, suppliers and senior business leaders to deliver measurable outcomes.

What's in it for you?

Working at M&S means being part of something bigger - helping to deliver quality, value and service to millions of customers every day. We're inclusive, fast-moving and always evolving, with a strong sense of purpose and a focus on doing the right thing.

Here are just a few of the benefits that make working here even more rewarding:

• 20% colleague discount on all M&S products and many third-party brands for you and someone in your household, available once you've completed your probation
• Competitive holiday allowance with the option to buy more
• Discretionary bonus schemes linked to your performance and ours
• Strong pension and life assurance to help plan for the future
• Tailored induction and training to support your development from day one
• Exclusive perks and savings through our M&S Choices portal
• Market-leading family policies, including parental, adoption and neonatal leave
• 24/7 wellbeing support, including virtual GP access and mental health services
• One paid volunteer day a year to support a cause that matters to you

Everyone's welcome

We are ambitious about the future of retail. We're disrupting, innovating and leading the industry into a more conscientious, inspiring digital era. We're transforming how we work together and offering our most exciting opportunities yet. Marks & Spencer strives to an inclusive organisation, trusted and admired by our colleagues, customers and suppliers. Join us and make change happen.

We are committed to building diverse and representative teams, where everyone can bring their whole selves to work and be at their best. We support each other and work together to win together.

If you feel you'd benefit from any support or reasonable adjustments during any stage of the recruitment process, please don't hesitate to let us know when completing your application. This information will be picked up by our team, so we can try and put steps in place to help you be at your best through this process.