Lead Security Architect

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., 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., 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., 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, Where the location is ‘National’ the successful appointee should discuss and agree an appropriate contractual location in line with both Defra’s location policy and site capacity, prior to proceeding with pre-employment processes.

The agreed amount of time spent at a workplace for this post will reflect the requirement for Civil Servants to spend at least 60% of their working time in an organisation workplace with the option to work the remaining time flexibly from home. Working time spent at a workplace may include time spent at other organisational locations including field-based operational locations, together with supplier, customer or partner locations. This is a non-contractual agreement which is consistent with common Civil Service expectations.

Travel costs to non-contractual workplaces will be subject to departmental travel and subsistence policies. Travel costs to contractual workplaces are the responsibility of the employee.

Defra includes the core department, APHA, RPA, Cefas and VMD.

The successful candidate is required to carry out all their duties from a UK location, and cannot do so from an overseas location at any time.

Reserve list

A reserve list may be held for a period of 12 months from which further appointments can be made.

Childcare Vouchers

Any move to DEFRA from another employer will mean you can no longer access childcare vouchers. This includes moves between government departments. You may however be eligible for other government schemes, including Tax Free Childcare; for further information visit the Childcare Choices website.

Near miss

Candidates who are judged to be a near miss at interview may be considered for other positions in Defra which may be at a lower grade, but have a potential skills match., * UK nationals

• nationals of the Republic of Ireland
• nationals of Commonwealth countries who have the right to work in the UK
• nationals of the EU, Switzerland, Norway, Iceland or Liechtenstein and family members of those nationalities with settled or pre-settled status under the European Union Settlement Scheme (EUSS)
• nationals of the EU, Switzerland, Norway, Iceland or Liechtenstein and family members of those nationalities who have made a valid application for settled or pre-settled status under the European Union Settlement Scheme (EUSS)
• individuals with limited leave to remain or indefinite leave to remain who were eligible to apply for EUSS on or before 31 December 2020
• Turkish nationals, and certain family members of Turkish nationals, who have accrued the right to work in the Civil Service

• 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., This vacancy is using Success Profiles , and will assess your Behaviours, Experience and Technical skills., As part of the pre-employment process for this post, successful candidate(s) will be able to agree a contractual workplace from those locations listed in this advert. The agreed contractual workplace is then the substantive and permanent place of work for the successful candidate(s)., Successful candidates must undergo a basic (or equivalent) criminal record check. Successful candidates must meet the security requirements before they can be appointed. The level of security needed is security check .

£58,207 - £64,715 Grade 7 National: £58,207 - £64,715, plus industry leading pension and benefits.

This post offers successful candidates the opportunity to be considered for an additional Digital, Data and Technology (DDaT) Skills Supplement. The level of the awarded supplement is determined following a separate skills assessment process, the outcome of which has no impact on the decision to make a job offer. This digital capability supplement ranges from £0 to £26,608 and you may be awarded a pay supplement within this range based on results of your additional skills assessment. For details of our pay on appointment policy, please see below under the heading ‘Salary’. A Civil Service Pension with an employer contribution of 28.97% GBP, 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 .

• 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., New entrants to the Civil Service are expected to start on the minimum of the pay band. The internal roles rules apply to existing Civil Servants, i.e. level transfers move on current salary or the pay range minimum, transfers on promotion move to new pay range minimum or receive 10% increase. Either case is determined by whichever is the highest.

Reasonable Adjustment

If a person with disabilities is put at a substantial disadvantage compared to a non-disabled person, we have a duty to make reasonable changes to our processes.

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.