Product Technical Lead - Digital Trust

thales; Reading; On-site; GBP 90,000 - 140,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Performance‑related bonus

Private healthcare

Pension scheme

Life cover

Gym membership discounts

Volunteer time

Job summary

Thales in Reading, United Kingdom, is seeking a senior cyber security architect and engineering leader to shape national‑level resilience and secure critical systems. You will define the blueprint for SbD, ZTA, and cryptographic integration across multi‑domain environments, translating complex trust concepts into actionable guidance.

This role demands architecture governance experience, stakeholder engagement, and the ability to drive security patterns from concept to deployment, ensuring

Qualifications

• Strong background in secure architecture for multi‑domain environments.
• Experience translating complex trust concepts into actionable guidance for engineering teams.
• Proven ability to influence senior stakeholders and drive security patterns end‑to‑end.

Responsibilities

• Define and evolve security architectures (SbD, ZTA) for national‑level systems.
• Lead design of cryptographic integration and data‑centric security patterns.
• Provide technical leadership and governance across engineering teams.
• Engage with external bodies and internal stakeholders to align on standards.

Skills

ZTA / Zero Trust

SbD

Cryptography

Security architecture

Stakeholder leadership

Tools

NCSC, NIST standards

Job description

Location: Reading, United Kingdom

Thales is a global technology leader with more than 83,000 employees on five continents. With over 7,500 people in the UK, operating across defence, space, aerospace, and digital security, we help build a future we can all trust. Thales supports the security and stability of our nation by providing extraordinary technology to our customers, as well as delivering social value to the UK with our products and services.

Location: Ebbw Vale, Reading, Crawley, Bristol, Templecombe, and Cheadle (any Thales office)

Step into a role where your cyber expertise shapes national‑level resilience and the future of secure critical systems!

What the role has to offer

• Enterprise-wide technical influence - shaping consequence informed, secure‑by‑design and AI‑enabled security technologies, and steering the evolution of Thales' future cyber design capabilities
• Own the UK Digital Trust technical strategy, ensuring consequence informed, SbD principles are embedded from concept to decommissioning.
• Lead development of design patterns for Zero Trust Architecture, including supporting and guiding on the adaption for products, identification of variance and applicability, segmentation, continuous verification, and policy-driven access.
• Define and evolve Data-Centric Security model product, including the classification, tagging, encryption, attribute-based access control strategies.
• Contribute to the global approach to DCS across the wider Thales enterprise.
• Drive inclusion of cryptographic architecture into solutions, including
  • PQC-ready design patterns
  • Hybrid classical/PQC key exchange
  • Cryptographic agility frameworks
  • Secure key management and HSM integration
• Develop defensible design patterns, for high-assurance systems, ensuring alignment with NCSC, NIST, ETSI and sector specific standards.
• Provide technical leadership to engineering teams, guiding implementation, testing, and assurance.
• Engage with senior stakeholders, translating complex trust and crypto concepts into clear, actionable decisions.
• Shape internal standards, patterns, and governance, ensuring consistency across programmes.
• Represent the organisation externally, contributing to working groups, standards bodies, and partner ecosystems.
• Innovation leadership - driving next‑generation of security capabilities, defining and using new technologies and architecture patterns such as ZTA, DCS and SbD, leveraging AI opportunities, and shaping Thales' long‑term cyber resilience strategy.

Our Opportunity

You will lead the technical direction for our Digital Trust capability, shaping how we design, assure, and deploy trust-enabling technologies across complex, multi-domain environments. This includes Secure-by-Design (SbD) engineering, Zero-Trust Architecture (ZTA), Data-Centric Security (DCS), and the integration of advanced cryptographic technologies such as Post-Quantum Cryptography (PQC) into modern design patterns.

This is a role for someone who can operate at architecture engineering, and governance levels simultaneously - and individual who can define the blueprint, assure the implementation, and influence the organisation.

Building a Future, we can all trust.

Are you looking for the opportunity to directly shape and deliver world‑class solutions to our customers? If so, then Engineering & Technical Management may be just the ticket. Whether focusing on leading large teams or working as a technical expert, roles in this area provide you with an opportunity to shape the world we live in today.

Benefits:

• Performance‑related bonus
• Half day every Friday, usually finishing around 13:00
• 28 days annual leave (plus bank holidays) with opportunity to buy up to 40 hours/year (pro rata)
• 24 hours volunteering paid for
• Private healthcare
• Pension scheme
• Life cover
• 24/7 Employee Assistance Program and access to mental wellbeing app
• Employee discount shopping schemes on major brands and retailers
• Gym membership discounts

Security Clearance Requirement:

Due to the nature of the work that we do at Thales, many of our roles are subject to security restrictions. This role requires you to be a UK National and achieve Security Clearance (SC) without any caveats. It would be advantageous if currently held, however, if not currently held, it is a requirement that the successful applicant undergo, achieve, and maintain SC Clearance prior to commencing employment. If approved by the MOD, a dual national from a non-ITAR country may be considered.

To be eligible for full SC, you generally need to have resided in the UK for the last 5 years. In some circumstances, a minimum of 3 years' residence in the UK over the last 5 years may be accepted, with additional overseas checks.

Please visit the UKSV website for further guidance:https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/united-kingdom-security-vetting-clearance-levels/national-security-vetting-clearance-levels .

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At Thales, we ensure equal opportunities, pay and working condi