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 4 operational areas:
Cyber Security Operations Unit (CSOU)
Cyber Delivery Unit (CDU).
Cyber Improvement Programme.
Chief Information Security Office Function (CISO)
To support our strategy to improve NHS England’s cyber resilience, we are recruiting for aCyber Security Analyst who is a Threat Hunting specialist. This role is within the Cyber Security - Threat Hunting team, which is one of three core pillars of the Threat Operations pod within NHS England’s CSOU. The Threat Hunting team is responsible for several key functions:
• Multi-Platform Threat Hunting at Scale– Run hunting queries and analytics across large datasets using a variety of cloud-based and hybrid security solutions.
• Custom Analytic and Detection Development– Writing and reviewing custom rules to deploy against national monitoring solutions to provide specialised monitoring to NHS bodies against common threat actor tactics and techniques.
• Specialist Incident Support– Providing technical support to CSOU IM function and NHS organisations where appropriate during high complexity incidents.
Main duties of the role include:
• Threat Hunt in Extended Detection and Response (XDR) and SIEM tooling.
• Deputies for the Cyber Security Senior Analyst (Threat Hunting) in their absence.
• Develop capability in support of Threat Operations requirements, including coding and technology development.
• Act as a technical support in advanced forensic investigations in support of Security Operations function.
• Simulate adversary tactics, techniques, and procedures in support of detection development.
• Perform dynamic & static analysis of malicious programs and tools where relevant in support of detection development.
• Development of automation workflows and playbooks to support threat hunting team workload.
Our work supports the NHS to deliver high quality services for patients and best value for taxpayers.
Our staff bring expertise across hundreds of specialisms — including clinical, operational, commissioning, technology, data science, cyber security, software engineering, education, and commercial — enabling us to design and deliver high-quality NHS services.
We lead the NHS in England by:
• Enabling local systems and providers to improve the health of their people and patients and reduce health inequalities
• Making the NHS a great place to work, where our people can make a difference and achieve their potential
• Working collaboratively to ensure our healthcare workforce has the right knowledge, skills, values and behaviours to deliver accessible, compassionate care
• Optimising the use of digital technology, research, and innovation
• Delivering value for money
Earlier this year, the Government announced that NHS England will gradually merge with the Department of Health and Social Care, leading to full integration. The aim is to create a smaller, more strategic centre that reduces duplication and eliminates waste.
If successful at interview, we will initiate an Inter Authority Transfer (IAT) via the Electronic Staff Record (ESR). This retrieves key data from your current or previous NHS employer to support onboarding, including competency status, Continuous Service Dates (CSD), and annual leave entitlement. You may opt out at any stage of the recruitment process.
You can find further details about the role, including key responsibilities and accountabilities, alongside the organisational structure and person specification in the attached Job Description and other supporting documents.
Please ensure your supporting statement includes demonstratable evidence and specific examples on how you meet the criteria for each of the key skills specified. This will be used in both the shortlisting and interview processes
Important: Please be aware there are residency requirements you need to meet:
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.
Please make sure you meet these requirements before applying for this role. You don’t need to have SC already, however, failure to achieve the requirements for SC after offer will result in the job offer being withdrawn. For further advice please check
Please be aware that should you be successful in this position, you will be hired to the job title of Security Advisor/Analyst and this job title is advertised to attract the right skills needed for the role.
The post of Security Advisor/Analyst has been awarded a Recruitment and Retention Premia (RRP) in response to current labour market conditions. In recognition of this, the role attracts an additional monthly RRP payment equal to 20% per annum.
Please be aware that RRP is non-contractual and subject to review
Secondments
Applicants from within the NHS will be offered on a secondment basis only, agreement should be obtained from their employer prior to submitting the application.
Please note that the reason for the fixed term of this contract is short term vacancy
This advert closes on Wednesday 29 Oct 2025