SOC Analyst (24/7 Shift) - Public Sector

International Business Machines Corporation; Hursley; On-site; GBP 70,000 - 110,000; Full time

Job summary

IBM CIC is seeking a Technical Consultant specialising in Threat Detection, Response & Intelligence to support and lead security operations within a 24x7 SOC consulting environment in the UK.

You will monitor, triage, and investigate security alerts, lead incident response activities, and help improve SOC processes and playbooks while coordinating with clients and internal teams.

Qualifications

• Proven experience in a SOC environment (L2/L3) in a 24x7 setting.
• Experience with SIEM platforms and incident response workflows.
• Strong ability to triage, investigate, and coordinate responses.

Responsibilities

• Monitor, triage, and investigate security alerts across SIEM platforms.
• Lead or support incident response activities including initial investigation, containment, and escalation.
• Act as senior presence on shift and drive incident quality, playbook adherence, and handovers.
• Collaborate with detection and engineering teams to improve alert quality and reduce false positives.

Skills

SOC experience

SIEM expertise

Incident leadership

Threat detection

Communication

Tools

Microsoft Sentinel

QRadar

Splunk

Elastic

EDR/XDR

Job description

At IBM CIC, we provide technical and industry expertise to a wide range of public and private sector clients in the UK.

A career in IBM CIC means you’ll have the opportunity to work with leading professionals across multiple industries to improve the hybrid cloud and AI journey for the most innovative and valuable companies in the world. You will get the chance to deliver effective solutions, driving meaningful business change for our clients, using some of the latest technology platforms.

Curiosity and a constant quest for knowledge serve as the foundation to success here. You’ll be encouraged and supported to constantly reinvent yourself, focusing on skills in demand in an ever changing market. You’ll be working with diverse teams, coming up with creative solutions which impact a wide network of clients, who may be at their site or one of our CIC or IBM locations. Our culture of evolution centres on long-term career growth and development opportunities in an environment that embraces your unique skills and experience.

Your role and responsibilities

As a Technical Consultant specialising in Threat Detection, Response & Intelligence, you will support and lead the monitoring, detection, and initial response to cyber security threats within a 24×7 SOC consulting environment.

You will play a key role in maintaining operational excellence on shift, supporting incident investigation, and ensuring consistent delivery of high-quality security operations across client environments.

Working across SIEM platforms, security tooling, and incident response workflows, you will help ensure threats are identified, triaged, and escalated effectively, while contributing to the continuous improvement of SOC processes and capabilities.

This is a hands‑on operational role with responsibility for incident leadership, team support, and quality assurance, alongside exposure to client environments and senior stakeholders.

Key Responsibilities:

• Monitor, triage, and investigate security alerts and incidents across a range of SIEM and security platforms

• Lead or support incident response activities, including:

• Initial investigation

• Containment coordination

• Escalation to relevant teams * Act as a senior presence on shift, supporting Tier 1/2 analysts and ensuring smooth SOC operations

• Drive incident quality and consistency, ensuring playbooks and procedures are followed

• Support major incident initiation and coordination, including communication across technical and non‑technical stakeholders

• Analyse security events and identify

• Patterns

• Threat behaviours

• Opportunities for improvement * Contribute to playbook development and refinement, improving SOC efficiency and response capability

• Work with detection and engineering teams to

• Improve alert quality

• Reduce false positives

• Support operational effectiveness * Produce clear and structured incident reports and handovers

• Participate in shift handovers, retrospectives, and continuous improvement activities

• Support client interactions where required, providing updates and operational insights

Required technical and professional expertise

• Proven experience working in a SOC environment (L2 / L3 level) within a 24×7 operational setting

• Strong experience with SIEM platforms, such as

• Microsoft Sentinel, QRadar, Splunk, Elastic or similar

• Practical experience in

• Incident triage and investigation

• Security event analysis

• Alert validation and escalation

• Understanding of:

• Incident response processes and workflows

• Threat detection methodologies

• Exposure to security tooling, such as

• EDR/XDR platforms

• Network security technologies

• Identity and access systems

• Ability to interpret logs and identify suspicious behaviour across:

• Endpoints

• Networks

• Cloud environments * Strong communication skills, with the ability to clearly articulate incidents and risks

• Experience working in client-facing or service‑based environments

This role is subject to pre‑employment screening in line with the UK Government’s Baseline Personnel Security Standard (BPSS). An additional range of Personal Security Controls referred to as National Security Vetting (NVS) may apply, this could include meeting the eligibility requirements for The Security Check (SC) or Developed Vetting (DV).

Preferred technical and professional experience

• Experience as an Analyst and/or acting as a shift lead or senior escalation point within a SOC

• Exposure to threat hunting or detection improvement activities

• Experience working with

• MITRE ATT&CK

• Threat intelligence integration * Familiarity with SOAR platforms and automated response workflows

• Relevant certifications such as:

• SC-200

• GCIH / GIAC

• Vendor SIEM certifications * Experience working in regulated or public sector environments

• Understanding of SOC performance metrics and continuous improvement approaches

• Active UK Security Clearance

IBM is committed to creating a diverse environment and is proud to be an equal‑opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, gender, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, national origin, caste, genetics, pregnancy, disability, neurodivergence, age, veteran status, or other characteristics. IBM is also committed to compliance with all fair employment practices regarding citizenship and immigration status.