Secure by Design Lead

Sanderson; England; Hybrid; GBP 111,000 - 129,000; Full time

Job summary

Sanderson is seeking a hands-on Secure by Design Lead for a major financial services client. The role involves leading a security consultancy function, shaping secure software and technology change, and guiding AI security adoption.

You will manage a team of security consultants and architects, aligning work to standards, performing design reviews and threat modelling, and communicating risk to senior business and technology leaders.

Qualifications

• Deep knowledge of Secure by Design principles.
• Experience leading a security consultancy or architecture team.
• Strong people leadership and cross‑functional collaboration.
• Practical expertise in AI security risk and threat modelling.

Responsibilities

• Lead, coach and develop the security team with clear direction.
• Align work to group standards and improve ways of working.
• Provide technical leadership on design reviews and threat modelling.
• Act as senior escalation point for complex security challenges.
• Build relationships with business and technology leaders to translate risk into actionable guidance.
• Define service model and roadmap for security engagements.
• Ensure AI security assurance across internal and third‑party AI.

Skills

Secure by Design

Security leadership

Threat modelling

Security engineering

Cloud security

Job description

Secure by Design Lead

Day rate: £600 - £700 Inside IR35 via Umbrella
Location: Reading (Once a week on site, Wednesday's)
Contract: 6 months initial

The opportunity:

Our client, a leading financial services organisation is looking for a hands‑on Secure by Design Lead to take charge of its security consultancy function. This is a chance to shape how security is built into business and technology change, including the secure adoption of AI.

You'll lead a team of security consultants and architects, raising the quality and consistency of their work while keeping close to the technical detail yourself. The team is capable but works in pockets, so a big part of the role is bringing people together around shared standards and one way of working.

What you'll be doing:

• Leading, coaching and developing the team, with clear direction, regular peer reviews and honest, constructive challenge


• Aligning the team's work to group standards and frameworks and building on recent improvements to ways of working


• Providing technical leadership on design reviews, threat modelling and security assurance across applications, cloud, identity, data and third‑party services


• Acting as the senior escalation point for complex security challenges


• Building strong relationships with business and technology leaders and turning technical risk into clear advice that supports good decisions


• Building AI security assurance into the service, covering internal AI use cases, agentic AI and third‑party AI suppliers


• Defining the service model and roadmap, including risk‑based tiering of engagements, a single engagement route and a clear service catalogue

About you:

• Deep knowledge of Secure by Design principles, with a solid background in security engineering and architecture


• Proven experience leading a security consultancy or architecture team and raising its standards and consistency


• A confident, approachable people leader who can challenge constructively, upskill others and bring a team together


• Strong technical grounding across cloud, infrastructure, applications and identity and the credibility to challenge solution designs


• Practical experience of AI security risk and assurance, including LLM and agentic AI threat modelling, with knowledge of NIST AI RMF, ISO/IEC 42001 and OWASP guidance for LLM applications


• Experience supporting complex transformation programmes


• Energy and drive, with a real appetite for improving how a team works

Desirable:

• Experience in a large or highly regulated organisation


• Knowledge of ISO 27001, NIST and OWASP


• CISSP, CISM or equivalent

Reasonable Adjustments:

Respect and equality are core values to us. We are proud of the diverse and inclusive community we have built, and we welcome applications from people of all backgrounds and perspectives. Our success is driven by our people, united by the spirit of partnership to deliver the best resourcing solutions for our clients.