Principal Information Security Engineer

AJ Bell; Salford; Hybrid; GBP 90,000 - 125,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

26 days holiday

Pension with matched contributions

Discretionary bonus scheme

Share schemes

Health Cash Plan

Free gym

Enhanced family leave

Travel and bike loan

Employee Assistance Programme

Job summary

AJ Bell is recruiting a Principal Information Security Engineer to lead the security engineering team. You will provide technical leadership, oversee BAU security work, and ensure outputs align with overall security strategy.

You will drive design validation, contribute to tooling roadmaps, and work with architecture and operations teams to improve risk posture across the enterprise.

Qualifications

• Experience in enterprise information security within financial services or e-commerce.
• 5+ years in information security roles with leadership potential.
• Familiar with ISO27001, NIST and related frameworks.

Responsibilities

• Act as technical escalation lead, guiding complex security challenges.
• Oversee day-to-day security engineering to meet SLAs and BAU quality.
• Ensure consistency of security outputs with standards across projects.
• Support delivery of the security tooling roadmap and architecture validation.
• Collaborate with security architecture and operations teams for risk mitigation.

Skills

Enterprise security

Microsoft security stack

End-user compute security

Firewalls & cloud security

SIEM / PAM / IGA

Security risk management

Security standards & frameworks

Automation / scripting

Education

Bachelor's degree in CS/IS or related

Tools

Azure / cloud tooling

Identity governance tools

Job description

Due to growth within our security engineering department we are now looking for a Principal Information Security Engineer to join the team. The role will support the Senior Information Security Engineering Manager by providing technical leadership and oversight across the Information Security Engineering team.

This role is responsible for the day-to-day technical execution by our security engineering team, ensuring that project engagements are delivered to a high standard and support activities are dealt with in line with organisational SLAs.

You will act as the teams primary technical lead and escalation point, driving efficiency, validating designs, and ensuring that all engineering outputs remain consistent and aligned with the security strategy.

The key responsibilities of the role are:

• Act as the primary technical escalation point for the team, providing hands-on guidance and decision-making for complex technical challenges.
• Oversee the day-to-day execution of security engineering, ensuring that BAU work is delivered to high standards and that all team SLAs are consistently met.
• Ensure the quality and consistency of engineering outputs, specifically for project engagements, technical tasks, and documentation, ensuring they align with established security standards.
• Support the technical delivery of our security tooling roadmap, helping to bridge the gap between high-level strategic objectives and operational outcomes.
• Work closely with the Information Security Architecture team to validate design concepts, ensuring solutions are robust, scalable, and fit for our enterprise environment.
• Collaborate with the Information Security Operations team to drive operational efficiency, quality improvements, and the seamless integration of security controls across the estate.
• Provide technical leadership and mentoring to the engineering team, ensuring they have the support and direction needed to deliver secure, automated, and effective solutions

Technical Skills:

• Demonstrable experience implementing enterprise security platforms
• Strong hands-on experience with of Microsoft security stack
• Strong hands-on experience using, managing, and securing diverse end-user compute environments, including Windows, MacOS, Linux, and mobile device platforms.
• Knowledge/experience working with firewalls and cloud security solutions is highly advantageous
• Deep understanding of Information Security solutions e.g. email / web gateways, Privileged Account Management (PAM), Identity Governance and Administration (IGA), Security Information and Event Management (SIEM), Endpoint protection
• Strong understanding and knowledge of Information Security risk management tools and techniques.
• Awareness of Information Security control standards and frameworks
• Knowledge/experience working with firewalls and cloud security solutions is highly advantageous.
• Knowledge/experience working with firewalls is highly advantageous
• Experience of Cloud security solutions and standards is highly advantageous
• Hands-on experience with automation and scripting highly desirable

Competence, knowledge and skills

Competence

• Experience working within recognised Information Security frameworks and best practices such as ISO27001, NIST etc.
• 5 years experience in an Information Security role gained in a financial services or e-commerce environment is preferred

Knowledge & Skills

• Significant experience in the area of Information Technology (IT) security
• Strong knowledge of core IT and networking concepts
• Well versed in IT security capabilities, framework and concepts
• Extensive experience implementing industry-standard IT security platforms
• Strong ownership of tasks, attention to detail and following through to conclusion
• Ability to challenge approach, strategy and implementation to ensure Information Security is consistently considered and improved
• Ability to work under own initiative to plan and communicate effectively with colleagues and customers
• Structured, self-starting, flexible and enjoy working in fast-paced environments
• Effective communication skills, both written and verbal
• Ability to plan, organise and follow through on assigned tasks and complete with little or no prompting from management
• Excellent attention to detail
• Attained or working towards CISSP certification

About AJ Bell

At AJ Bell, we believe investing should feel good. Whether you're looking for an ISA, pension or dealing account, whether you want to invest with the help of a financial adviser or do it yourself, we have easy-to-use solutions to suit people from all walks of life.

We're one of the UK's fastest-growing investment platform businesses, trusted by everyone from professional financial advisers to first-time investors.

Today, over 762,000 customers trust us to manage more than £121.5 billion of assets. By continually striving to make investing simpler and more accessible, we're helping more people take control of their financial futures.

We're proud to be recognised as one of the UK's Best 100 Companies to Work For for six consecutive years, and a Great Place to Work in 2025 and 2026, a reflection of our supportive and collaborative culture.

What we offer

• 26 days holiday, increasing with service + buy/sell scheme + bank holidays
• 7% Pension with matched contributions
• Discretionary bonus scheme
• Share schemes (including free shares and BAYE)
• Health Cash Plan and discounted private healthcare
• Free gym
• Enhanced family leave (subject to qualifying criteria)
• Travel and bike loan schemes
• Employee Assistance Programme

Life at AJ Bell

• Regular social events including summer and Christmas parties
• Learning and development opportunities tailored to you
• Casual dress code
• Friendly, supportive team environment

Our ways of working

At AJ Bell, our people are the heart of our culture. We believe in building strong connections by working together. That's why we offer a hybrid working model, where you'll spend a minimum of 50% of working time per month in the office. For new team members, an initial period will be spent full-time in the office to help you immerse yourself in our business and build valuable relationships with your colleagues.

Inclusion & diversity

Were committed to creating an inclusive environment where everyone feels respected, supported and able to be themselves at work.

We welcome applications from all backgrounds and make hiring decisions based on skills, experience and potential.

Agency information

This vacancy is being managed exclusively by our in-house Recruitment team. We are not partnering with recruitment agencies on this opportunity and will only accept applications submitted directly by candidates.