Principal Consultant, Digital Forensics & Incident Response

Verizon; Reading; Hybrid; GBP 110,000 - 170,000; Full time

Job summary

Verizon is seeking a senior Principal Digital Forensics and Incident Response (DFIR) Consultant for the EMEA region. You will lead high‑stakes investigations, direct crisis responses, and drive customer resilience while partnering across IT, legal, risk governance, and leadership. Travel and executive presentations are routine.

You will also lead pre‑sales efforts, scope opportunities, and help expand strategic accounts with DFIR, threat intel, and proactive assessments across the EMEA region.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree or relevant work experience.
• Experience in incident response, forensics, ICS, IoT and eDiscovery.
• Experience with Windows, Linux, Unix or macOS.
• Experience consulting enterprise DFIR for clients.
• Experience managing protected customer relationships and IT investigations.
• Ability to travel on short notice, including 24/7 incident response.
• Fluency in English and a valid UK driver's license.

Responsibilities

• Lead complex digital forensic investigations and produce court‑admissible deliverables.
• Conduct IR capability assessments and develop IR plans per NIST/SANS.
• Act as DFIR liaison and customer success lead for enterprise accounts.
• Drive pre‑sales engagements and craft cross‑tower RFP solutions.
• Deliver technical thought leadership through papers, webinars, and conferences.

Skills

English fluency

Incident response

Digital forensics

Executive communication

Crisis management

Education

Bachelor's degree or equivalent

Tools

CrowdStrike

Microsoft Defender

SentinelOne

Splunk

Job description

When you join Verizon

You want more out of a career. A place to share your ideas freely — even if they’re daring or different. Where the true you can learn, grow, and thrive. At Verizon, we power and empower how people live, work and play by connecting them to what brings them joy. We do what we love — driving innovation, creativity, and impact in the world. Our V Team is a community of people who anticipate, lead, and believe that listening is where learning begins. In crisis and in celebration, we come together — lifting our communities and building trust in how we show up, everywhere & always. Want in? Join the #VTeamLife.

What You'll Be Doing...

As a Principal Digital Forensics and Incident Response (DFIR) Consultant in EMEA, you will operate as a lead technical investigator and crisis commander across high‑stakes enterprise cyber investigations. You’ll play a high-impact role leading end-to-end reactive and proactive investigations into severe, complex cyber intrusions—including nation‑state APT campaigns, double‑extortion ransomware, and deep edge‑device compromises—directing host, network, and cloud forensics while ensuring rigorous, court‑defensible evidence integrity.

Beyond active crisis command, you will drive customer‑facing cyber resilience as a trusted advisor and Customer Success Manager for key enterprise accounts. You will partner cross‑functionally across IT engineering, legal counsel, risk governance, and executive leadership (delivering Gold Command and Board‑level briefings) to translate incident findings into actionable defense transformations and continuous posture uplift.

Further, you will support commercial practice growth across EMEA. Leveraging your deep technical expertise and executive presence, you will steer pre‑sales engagements, scope opportunities, and support cross‑tower RFP solutions integrating DFIR, threat intelligence, proactive assessments, and expand strategic accounts to secure new business.

Responsibilities Will Include

• Leading complex, large‑scale digital forensic investigations in sophisticated security breaches, maintaining forensic integrity of evidence, and producing comprehensive, court‑admissible deliverables for clients, legal counsel, and regulatory bodies.
• Conducting Incident Response Capability Assessments (IRCA), developing IR plans (IRPD) based on NIST and SANS frameworks, and facilitating breach simulation tabletop exercises for C‑suite and Board‑level leadership.
• Functioning as the principal DFIR liaison and customer success lead for assigned critical enterprise accounts, supervising delivery across the Rapid Response Retainer (RRR) lifecycle, and advising client executives on evolving threat campaigns and security investments.
• Driving practice‑level growth by providing technical and executive presence during pre‑sales pursuits, scoping calls, and client briefings, while authoring cross‑tower Request for Proposal (RFP) solutions.
• Delivering technical thought leadership through white papers, industry conferences, webinars, and threat advisories, while mentoring and providing technical oversight to EMEA VTRAC consultants.

What We're Looking For...

You are a senior, hands‑on consulting expert who thrives under pressure and excels at navigating complex cybersecurity crises. You enjoy building trusted relationships with executive stakeholders to solve their toughest cyber resilience challenges. You’re a natural technical leader and team player who can seamlessly transition between technical investigation, pre‑sales solutioning, and C‑suite communication.

You’ll Need To Have

• Bachelor's degree or relevant work experience.
• Strong experience in the tools, techniques, and methodologies surrounding incident response, computer forensics, industrial control systems, IoT, and eDiscovery.
• Strong experience in at least two (2) of the following operating systems: Windows, Linux, Unix, macOS.
• Strong experience consulting enterprise customers in a Digital Forensics & Incident Response (DFIR) capacity.
• Experience managing the day‑to‑day aspects of protected customer relationships, IT investigative cases, and corporate security incidents.
• Ability to work effectively in a dynamic environment while maintaining strict confidentiality and a professional image.
• Willingness to travel on short notice (including 24/7 incident response activity as required).
• Fluency in English (both written and verbal).
• A valid UK Driver's License.

Even better if you have one or more of the following:

• Fluency in additional European languages (e.g., French, German, Dutch, etc.).
• Advanced degree in Computer Science, Digital Forensics, or Cyber Incident Response.
• One or more professional certifications: GCFA, GCFE, GCIH, GNFA, CCSP, GREM, CISSP, CISM, or equivalent.
• Experience conducting cloud (AWS, GCP, Azure) and OT incident response.
• Experience working with EDR tools (CrowdStrike, Defender, SentinelOne) and SIEM solutions (Splunk, Sentinel).
• Experience in malware analysis and reverse engineering, network forensics, memory forensics, or mobile forensics.
• Experience as a Payment Card Industry (PCI) Forensic Investigator (PFI) or Qualified Security Assessor (QSA).
• Experience automating triaging, enrichment, and workflow orchestration via AI‑augmented and MCP‑supported workflows.
• Background in electronic crimes law enforcement, military intelligence, or an established security professional services consulting firm.

Why Verizon?

Verizon is committed to maintaining a Total Rewards package which is competitive, valued by our employees, and differentiates us as an Employer of Choice.

• We are a ‘pay for performance’ company and your contribution is rewarded through competitive salaries and performance‑based incentives. We create an opportunity for us all to share in the success of Verizon and the value we help to create through this broad‑based discretionary equity award program.
• Your benefits are market competitive and delivered by some of the best providers.
• You are provided with a full spectrum of health and wellbeing resources, including a first in‑class Employee Assistance Program, to empower you to make positive health decisions.
• We offer generous paid time off benefits to help you manage your work life balance and opportunities for flexible working arrangements*.
• Verizon provides training and development for all levels, to help you enhance your skills and develop your career, from funding towards education assistance, award‑winning training, online development tools and access to industry research.
• You will be able to take part in volunteering opportunities as part of our environmental, community and sustainability commitment.
• Benefit packages are tailored to the specific country where a position is based.

Where you’ll be working

In this hybrid role, you'll have a defined work location that includes work from home and assigned office days set by your manager.

Scheduled Weekly Hours

40

Equal Employment Opportunity

Verizon is an equal opportunity employer. We evaluate qualified applicants without regard to race, gender, disability or any other legally protected characteristics.