Security Operations Technical Lead

To support the Head of Security Operations in delivering effective day-to-day security operations, ensuring AJ Bell maintains the appropriate capability to detect, investigate and respond to security events and incidents.

The Security Operations Technical Lead is responsible for ensuring that security operations activities are executed efficiently, consistently and in line with defined SLAs and operational standards, through hands-on technical leadership across SOC, Incident Response, Threat Intelligence, Insider Risk and Vulnerability Management.

This role acts as a senior technical escalation point, supporting complex investigations and driving improvements in detection, response, automation and operational processes. The role holder is expected to lead through expertise, supporting analysts and ensuring Security Operations operates with discipline, quality and continuous improvement.

The key responsibilities of the role are:

* Act as the primary technical escalation point for security events and incidents identified by the Security Operations team.

* Support the Head of Security Operations in ensuring AJ Bell has the appropriate capability to detect and respond to security events and incidents.

* Oversee the day-to-day execution of security operations, ensuring alerts and incidents are handled in line with defined processes and SLAs.

* Ensure security operations SLAs and OLAs are met, including alert triage, escalation and incident response timelines, highlighting and addressing risks where required.

* Provide hands-on support in the investigation and response to security incidents, including endpoint, identity, network, cloud and insider-related threats.

* Ensure consistent execution and continuous improvement of incident response playbooks and operational runbooks, validating them through real incidents and simulations.

* Support the optimisation and tuning of security monitoring and detection capabilities, including SIEM and endpoint tooling, to improve signal quality and reduce false positives.

* Actively design and implement automation and orchestration to reduce manual effort, repetitive or high-volume tasks, improve response times and increase consistency across security operations processes.

* Support the effective operation of 24x7 security monitoring, including coordination with third-party providers.

* Contribute to the development and delivery of operational MI and reporting, ensuring accuracy and insight into security trends and performance.

Technical

Skills:

* Strong hands-on experience of Security Operations tools and capabilities, including SIEM and SOAR platforms (e.g. Sentinel, Service Now, Splunk SOAR, Cortex), Endpoint Detection & Response (EDR/XDR),

* Strong hands-on experience of Threat Intelligence platforms (e.g. Recorded Future, Doppel, Zero Fox, Google Threat Intelligence), Vulnerability management solutions (e.g. Tenable, Rapid7), and Insider Risk and DLP tools (e.g. Purview, Netskope).

* Strong hands-on experience with Network security solutions like Next Gen Firewalls, Network Anomaly, WAF & DDoS solutions.

* Experience of leading and responding to Cyber Incident Response aligned to NIST

* Knowledge of threat detection techniques and use case development &

Experience of applying threat intelligence in an operational context

* Strong experience with vulnerability management tools and processes

* Working knowledge of Microsoft security stack (Defender, Sentinel, Purview), Active Directory and Azure AD, Windows and Linux environments.

Hands-on experience with automation and scripting (e.g. Power Shell, Python) highly desirable

* Experience with data loss prevention and insider risk tooling advantageous

Competence

* Experience working within recognised Information Security frameworks and best practices such as ISO
27001, NIST, MITRE ATT&CK

* Knowledge of relevant regulatory requirements (e.g. GDPR, FCA/PRA)

* Experience working in a Security Operations role for a minimum 7 years and operating within a Lead / Senior Analyst role for at least 3 years.

Gained in a financial services environment preferred

About AJ Bell

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