Senior Security Architect - DWP - G7

Location

This role may be located in one of the following locations; Blackpool, Birmingham, Leeds, Manchester, Newcastle or Sheffield.

Please find further information on the Corporate hub locations here.

Please note that for candidates requesting to work in Newcastle, this role will be based at Benton Park View from September 2025, and then at 1 Pilgrim Place in Newcastle city centre by the end of 2027.

About the job

Job summary

Please note this role requires you to pass Security Check clearance. For further information, please see 'Selection process details.

We’re recruiting for two roles in our Health & Disability team and Identity & Trust team.

As our Security Architect, you will use a blend of technical security knowledge, architecture design, and development skills to help secure services used by millions of people against cyber threats. 

DWP is a huge and complex organisation. We have unique architectural and security challenges that you won't find in other roles. 

This role will involve identity for DWP through online channels.  

A CISSP certification or a Master’s degree in Information Security is highly desirable.

Job description

The Security Architect will provide guidance, ranging from scoping IT Health Checks, providing guidance in risk assessment, providing security guidance, checking the cloud posture management platform for vulnerabilities. 

Projects may involve Online identity and verification, telephone based identity and verification.  

DWP is looking to provide a strategic platform that will allow secure and safe communication for its users with its services. This role will provide advice and guidance to either Health & Disability, and Identity & Trust.

The team is made of a few architects and relationships will need to be built with other teams, the security community and the design authority. 

Person specification

When giving details in your employment history and personal statement you should highlight your experience in line with essential criteria below:

• Security Architecture design and modelling techniques, tools and standards. 
• Application and Cloud Security. 
• Enterprise scale IT, in at least one recent security architect role in a complex large scale, national or multi-national organisation. 
• Network Security: knowledge of network protocols (e.g., TCP/IP, BGP, OSPF) and how to secure them, along with experience in configuring secure routers, switches, firewalls, and load balancers. 
• Threat analysis and mitigation: expertise in identifying and mitigating cyber threats, including the use of advanced threat detection tools (e.g. SIEM, IDS/IPS, endpoint detection systems). 
• Encryption & Cryptography: encryption technologies (e.g. SSL/TLS, IPsec, Kerberos, VPNs, PKI) to secure data in transit and at rest. 
• Knowledge of AuthN/AuthZ (OIDC, OAuth, Jwt, SAML) 
• Knowledge of Cloud Native eg Docker, Kubernetes, Istio, CI/CD eg Jenkins, gitlab 

If you would like to learn more about the role, please contact Mark.Harbottle@dwp.gov.uk.

Behaviours

We'll assess you against these behaviours during the selection process:

• Leadership
• Working Together
• Communicating and Influencing

Technical skills

We'll assess you against these technical skills during the selection process:

• Analysis (Practitioner)
• Research and innovation (Practitioner)
• Designing secure systems (Practitioner)
• Enabling and informing risk-based decisions (Practitioner)
• Security technology (Expert)
• Understanding security implications of transformation (Practitioner)
• Communication (security architect) (Practitioner)