Senior Microsoft Identity Security Specialist

The Senior Microsoft Identity Security Specialist will play a key role within the Global Information and Cyber Defence and Identity function, supporting the organisation's Microsoft-first identity security strategy through the design, implementation and optimisation of Microsoft Entra  related platforms.

The role will strengthen the organisation's identity security posture through Conditional Access, Identity Protection, Privileged Identity Management, password less authentication and Zero Trust-aligned controls.

The role combines hands-on engineering with technical design, automation and continuous improvement, including the appropriate use of AI-assisted analysis to improve identity operations and security monitoring. This position follows a hybrid working model and is based in the London office. The successful candidate will be expected to attend the office when required to meet business and team requirements.

The Role:

Identity Platform Engineering

• Contribute to the design, implementation, and optimisation of Microsoft Entra  the organisation's strategic identity platform.
• Configure and enhance Conditional Access, Identity Protection, PIM and Just-in-Time access controls.
• Support identity governance capabilities, including access reviews, entitlement management, Joiner-Mover-Leaver processes and role-based access control models.
• Support workforce identities, external identities, application identities, managed identities and service principals.
• Troubleshoot complex authentication, authorisation, federation and provisioning issues.

Authentication and Access Security

• Support the adoption of phishing-resistant authentication, including FIDO2/passkeys, Windows Hello for Business, certificate-based authentication and hardware-backed credentials.
• Implement and support Zero Trust identity controls across SaaS, cloud and enterprise applications.
• Support secure application integration using OAuth 2.0, OpenID Connect and SAML.

Automation and Platform Enablement

• Develop reusable pipelines, scripts and workflow automation for repeatable identity operations.
• Create approved self-service patterns for activities such as application registration and enterprise application onboarding, using validation, approvals and audit logging to reduce direct administrative access.
• Integrate identity standards and secure defaults into application-modernisation, CI/CD and infrastructure-as-code processes.
• Automate routine activities such as configuration validation, certificate and secret-expiry monitoring, evidence collection and operational reporting.

AI-Assisted Operations and Security Monitoring

• Identify and support practical uses of approved AI capabilities to improve the efficiency and quality of identity engineering and operations.
• Use AI-assisted analysis and automation to help identify Conditional Access gaps, configuration drift, anomalous sign-ins, risky privilege activity, stale identities and excessive permissions.
• Support identity-focused monitoring and signal correlation using Entra , Microsoft Defender, Log Analytics and Microsoft Sentinel.
• Help define and apply approved identity controls to AI agents and agent identities, including ownership, least privilege, credential management, monitoring and lifecycle governance.
• Ensure high-impact access, policy and remediation decisions retain appropriate human review and approval.

Threat Detection and Continuous Improvement

• Support detection and remediation of identity threats including credential compromise, privilege escalation, token theft and suspicious authentication activity.
• Collaborate with security operations teams to improve identity threat visibility, triage and response.
• Contribute to technical designs, standards, documentation, operational procedures and control-effectiveness reporting.
• Provide technical guidance and subject matter expertise relating to Microsoft identity technologies.

What you'll bring:

Required

Skills and Experience:

• Demonstrable recent, hands-on experience in Identity and Access Management, including substantial expertise in Microsoft Entra  and security within complex enterprise environments.
• Experience implementing and supporting Conditional Access, Identity Protection, PIM and Identity Governance.
• Experience deploying and supporting passwordless and phishing-resistant authentication.
• Strong understanding of OAuth 2.0, OpenID Connect, SAML and modern authentication protocols.
• Experience with scripting and automation and familiarity with source control and deployment…