Lead Security Architect

Job summary

Defra is the UK government department responsible for safeguarding our natural environment, supporting our world-leading food and farming industry, and sustaining a thriving rural economy. Our broad remit means we play a major role in people's day-to-day life, from the food we eat, and the air we breathe, to the water we drink.

Digital, Data, Technology and Security (DDTS) is the trusted team for digital across the entire Defra Group.

We have around 1000 colleagues across DDTS and our ambition is to make it easier and faster than ever for people to interact with Defra. If you are ready to drive innovation and push boundaries, we want to hear from you. Join us and together we will create a great place for living, and a green and healthy future for all.

Find out more about DDTS:

Defra digital, data and technology blog

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Defra Jobs

We are Government Digital and Data Candidate Information Pack V3 - 1

Job description

Defra is looking for an experienced Lead Security Architect to join our Digital, Data, Technology and Security teams. In this role, you will embed "secure-by-design" principles into critical national infrastructure and public-facing services. You will lead our threat modelling capabilities, provide actionable architecture guidance, and partner directly with delivery teams to ensure Defra’s services are secure by design.

Person specification

Responsibilities:

Identify Threats:

• Map data flows, entry points, and system architecture to uncover and analyse potential security gaps across complex environments.

Design Mitigations:

• Build actionable security controls and mitigation strategies to lower identified risks to acceptable levels.

Collaborate Cross-Functionally:

• Work directly with solution architects, product managers and project teams to embed secure-by-design standards throughout the delivery lifecycle.

Evaluate & Apply Frameworks:

• Apply structured methodologies (such as STRIDE or PASTA) to quantify, categorise, and prioritise architectural risks effectively.

Document and Automate:

• Maintain complete threat lifecycle records and develop automation, scripts, or tooling to scale threat modelling processes across the department.

Provide Architectural Guidance:

• Author clear, authoritative documentation to support threat modeling functions and internal ways of working.

Skills and experience:

• Proven experience working directly within agile/project delivery environments alongside multidisciplinary software and infrastructure teams.
• Deep expertise in threat modelling, risk management frameworks (STRIDE, PASTA, or similar), and secure system design.
• Proven track record of writing high-quality guidance documentation and standards for enterprise security architecture.
• Experience using, managing and configuring platforms such as IriusRisk for automated and manual threat modelling.

Behaviours

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

• Communicating and Influencing

Technical skills

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

• Analysis - Level: Practitioner
• Designing secure systems - Level: Practitioner
• Enabling and informing risk-based decisions - Level: Practitioner
• Research and innovation - Level: Practitioner
• Security technology - Level: Expert
• Understanding security implications of transformation - Level: Practitioner

Benefits

Alongside your salary of £58,207, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs contributes £16,862 towards you being a member of the Civil Service Defined Benefit Pension scheme. Find out what benefits a Civil Service Pension provides (opens in a new window).

• 25 days leave (rising to 30 days over 5 years) plus bank holidays.
• A Civil Service pension with an average employer contribution of 28.97%.
• A day off per year for the King's birthday.
• Access to a range of retail discounts (these include supermarket, tech, gym, holiday, phone and more).
• Flexible working options such as condensed hours, part-time and flexi time.
• 3 paid volunteering days per year.
• Funding for professional membership of a recognised professional body.
• Learning and development tailored to your role and budget for training or qualifications.
• A culture encouraging inclusion and diversity.
• Cycle to work scheme.
• Health cash plan to help you manage health costs for a reduced monthly fee.
• Access to the Employee Assistance Programme open 24 hours, 7 days a week, that provides support to you during any times of stress or difficulty.
• Free access to Headspace for wellbeing.
• Season ticket loan for public transport.

Things you need to know

Artificial intelligence

Artificial intelligence can be a useful tool to support your application, however, all examples and statements provided must be truthful, factually accurate and taken directly from your own experience. Where plagiarism has been identified (presenting the ideas and experiences of others, or generated by artificial intelligence, as your own) applications may be withdrawn and internal candidates may be subject to disciplinary action. Please see our candidate guidance (opens in a new window) for more information on appropriate and inappropriate use.

Selection process details

This vacancy is using Success Profiles (opens in a new window), and will assess your Behaviours, Experience and Technical skills.

The Civil Service marks each element of the selection process on a merit basis. You can visit the gov.uk website for further information on the Civil Service rating scale.

Ensure you have tailored your CV and Personal Statement to the 'skills and experience' section of the job advert by providing examples on how you are suitable for the role using the STAR method.

Please ensure you demonstrate clearly, within your personal statement, how you meet these requirements, as the information you provide will form a key part when the panel is scoring your application.

For further information on STAR, you can check out our Hints and Tips document.

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