Trainee cyber security engineer (security trainee)

Trainee Cyber Security Engineer (Security Trainee)

Cyber Operations purpose is to support safe care and build public trust by building NHS England's cyber resilience and enabling the wider health system to be cyber resilient, supporting Transformation Directorate's purpose of delivering the best care and outcomes for the NHS.

The Cyber Operations sub-directorate consists of four operational areas:

• Cyber Security Operations Unit (CSOU)
• Cyber Delivery Unit (CDU)
• Chief Information Security Office Function (CISO)

As a Trainee Cyber Engineer, you will work within the Cyber Security Operations Centre (CSOC), supporting day-to-day operation of core cyber platforms under senior guidance. You will assist in maintaining and monitoring security tooling across identity, access, network and XDR technologies, ensuring system health and data flow.

You will support multi-tenant threat platforms such as XDR and SIEM solutions, helping maintain analytics, queries and dashboards, and flagging issues or improvements. You will assist onboarding by supporting data ingestion, enrichment and integrations.

You will contribute to implementing approved changes through formal change processes and appropriate supervision. Working with senior engineers and service leads, you will help maintain service reliability, documentation and runbooks, while building your technical skills through hands‑on experience and training.

Main duties of the job

The main duties you would be involved with are as follows:

• Work within the Cyber Security Operations Centre (CSOC) providing technical engineering support to core security platforms and services, ensuring systems are operational, monitored and maintained in line with service requirements.
• Assist in the day-to-day operation of CSOC platforms, including monitoring platform health, managing data ingestion issues, maintaining detections and responding to system-generated alerts.
• Provide technical input into the handling of cyber and IT security incidents, supporting investigation, containment and recovery activities in line with agreed incident management processes.
• Assist with the diagnosis and resolution of service incidents relating to security tooling (e.g. SIEM, XDR, logging pipelines), escalating issues where appropriate and contributing to root cause analysis.
• Assist in the delivery of approved changes to cyber security systems, tooling and configurations through formal change management processes, ensuring changes are implemented safely and documented.
• Contribute to routine service activities including system checks, access management, user support requests and the maintenance of standard operating procedures and technical documentation.

About us

NHS England has a wide range of statutory functions, responsibilities and regulatory powers. These are focused on supporting the wider NHS to deliver high quality care, as well as doing those things that are best done once for the whole NHS.

Our staff bring expertise across clinical, operational, commissioning, technology, data science, cyber security, software engineering, education, and commercial specialisms -- enabling us to design and deliver high-quality NHS services.

In March 2025, the Government announced that NHS England and the Department of Health and Social Care will increasingly merge functions, ultimately leading to NHS England being fully integrated into the department.

Important Residential Requirements

All NHS England Cyber Security personnel must hold Security Clearance level as a minimum. To meet National Security Vetting requirements, SC clearances require 5 years continuous UK residency. In certain cases, this can be reduced to three years continuous UK residency, with additional overseas checks for the previous two years. Candidates who were posted abroad for service with HM Government, Armed Forces or within a UK government role – will still be considered.

Failing to meet these requirements after an offer will result in the job offer being withdrawn.

No Visa Sponsorship

We cannot offer visa sponsorship for any vacancies.

Person Specification

Knowledge

• Basic knowledge of the tools and processes for maintaining application security; ability to design and implement security programs to prevent data loss and access intrusion from web and mobile applications.
• Basic knowledge of the modules, processes and technologies of Information Security Operation Centre (ISOC); ability to detect, respond and utilise related platform and applications to perform cyber security initiatives.
• Basic knowledge of tools, techniques and processes of intrusion detection and prevention; ability to detect, resolve and prevent intrusion behaviours to protect organisational networks.

Skills & Experience

• Basic knowledge of technologies and technology-based solutions dealing with information security issues; ability to apply these in protecting information security across the organisation.

Qualifications

• NHS England Academy apprenticeship graduation or equivalent cyber security experience, which equates to degree level equivalent / vocational qualification level 6 or equivalent experience.

Disclosure and Barring Service Check

This post is subject to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act (Exceptions Order) 1975 and as such it will be necessary for a submission for Disclosure to be made to the Disclosure and Barring Service (formerly known as CRB) to check for any previous criminal convictions.

Employer name

NHS England