Role Title: Lead Security Architect

Duration: 2 month contract
Location: Remote
Rate: up to £579.60 p/d Umbrella inside IR35
Clearance required: Active SC Clearance is required

Role purpose / summary

Lead the architectural assessment of the Defra Text Alert Service, defining the most appropriate remediation approach to address security vulnerabilities, technical debt, supportability concerns, and architectural risks while ensuring alignment with Defra architecture standards and governance requirements.

• Review the existing Text Alert Service architecture, integrations, hosting arrangements, data flows, and operational support model.
• Assess known technical and security concerns including Cosmos DB remediation requirements, infrastructure configuration risks, identity management, secrets management, and protection of personal data.
• Identify architectural debt, resilience issues, and supportability risks arising from the loss of service knowledge and lack of structured support arrangements.
• Develop and assess architectural options for addressing identified risks and vulnerabilities.
• Evaluate options such as:
  • Remediation of the existing solution.
  • Incremental modernisation.
  • Partial service redesign where justified.
  • Future strategic replacement considerations (for information only where appropriate).
• Assess costs, risks, benefits, complexity, timescales, and operational impacts of each option.
• Provide recommendations on the preferred architectural approach.
• Support GRIP engagement and service design discussions.
• Assess service criticality and determine whether the service should be classified as a Tier 1 service.
• Support determination of whether additional assurance activities such as IT Health Checks are required.
• Review the existing security posture of the Defra Text Alert Service.
• Assess findings from previous CCoE reviews and security investigations.
• Validate identified vulnerabilities and determine the associated business and technical risks.
• Establish the level of security assurance required to support remediation activities.
• Translate security findings into actionable remediation requirements. Define required security controls and design principles.
• Work with Solution Architecture, Developers and CCoE engineers to ensure security controls are proportionate and aligned to the agreed architectural approach.
• Provide security guidance for infrastructure, identity, secrets management, data protection, monitoring and access control. Support testing and assurance activities.
• Lead the security assessment and assurance activities for the Defra Text Alert Service, ensuring identified vulnerabilities are fully understood, remediation options are appropriately designed, and the service meets Defra security, cloud, data protection, and assurance requirements before implementation proceeds. The role is responsible for defining the level of security assurance required and producing the evidence needed to support governance and risk-based decision making. Define required security controls and remediation activities.