Principal Cyber Security Engineer

Overview

Principal Cyber Security Engineer role at UK Home Office. Salary: £76,117 plus skills allowance of up to £19,483 pending assessment. Location: Liverpool (hybrid with 60% office attendance). Advert Close: 11:55pm Tuesday 13th January 2026.

This role requires Security Check (SC) clearance, which would normally require 5 years’ UK residency in the past 5 years. Candidates must also hold or be prepared to undergo NPPV3 clearance. The Home Office Cyber Security team protects one of the UK’s largest government departments and its nationally critical digital infrastructure.

Responsibilities

• Lead and oversee the engineering, deployment, and lifecycle management of security tools and platforms across cloud, network, and endpoint environments.
• Support implementation in line with strategy, leading multiple engineering teams to ensure alignment with architecture principles and professional standards.
• Plan workforce needs and recruiting civil servants, building a strong technical talent pool; provide coaching and mentoring as required.
• Enable technical decision-making, contributing to roadmaps and overall strategy for the Engineering function in your area; present decisions clearly at all organisational levels.
• Coordinate with other engineering leads to build a cohesive community, acting as the central point of contact in your area and driving collaborative efforts.

Essential skills

• Deep expertise in security architecture, engineering, and modern security technologies (cloud, identity, endpoint, network).
• Strong leadership and team development capability across technical engineering disciplines.
• Ability to design and implement scalable, secure-by-design solutions for complex environments.
• Proficiency in automation, orchestration, and engineering best practices (IaC, CI/CD, DevSecOps).
• Excellent stakeholder engagement, communication, and influencing skills at senior levels.
• Capability to advise on future technology changes and innovations, defining best practice for continuous improvement.
• Commitment to key engineering principles and standards, with the ability to inspire others to adopt and uphold them.
• A civil service pension with employer contribution rates of at least 28.97%.
• In-year reward scheme for one-off or sustained exceptional personal or team achievements.
• Flexible working options that suit your work/life balance, plus potential future career break.
• Paid leave allowances including 25 days annual leave on appointment (rising with service), eight public holidays plus one additional privilege day.
• Comprehensive maternity, adoption, and parental leave provisions and related support policies.
• Support for guardians and kinship carers; corporate membership of Employers for Carers with a Carer’s Passport.
• Time off to deal with emergencies and certain other unplanned special circumstances.

Seniority level

• Mid-Senior level

Employment type

• Full-time

Job function

• Information Technology

Industries

• Government Administration

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Salary: GBP 76117 - 95500 per year

Experience: 5 years required