Security Specialist

Janes; Manchester; On-site; GBP 50,000 - 70,000; Full time

Job summary

A leading security and defense company in Manchester is seeking a knowledgeable Security Specialist to oversee compliance and vulnerability management. You will lead programs aligned with security standards, conduct risk assessments, and collaborate with technical teams to resolve security issues. The ideal candidate has over 6 years of experience in Information Security and is well-versed in industry standards. This full-time role offers a chance to work in a dynamic environment with a focus on security and innovation.

Benefits

27 days of annual leave

Healthy half (0.5 day leave every 6 months for wellbeing)

Private medical insurance – Bupa

Maternity leave (100% of basic salary for the first 26 weeks)

Paternity leave (100% of basic salary for 6 weeks)

Life cover

Access to LinkedIn Learning

Access to an on-site gym (Only in Croydon)

Qualifications

• 6+ years experience in Information Security, Risk and Compliance.
• Knowledge of security and compliance standards like ISO 27001, Cyber Essentials, NIST, CMMC.
• Expertise in Defender/Azure, Microsoft 365 & AWS Security controls/compliance.
• Experience with vulnerability / attack surface monitoring tools.
• Experience of Supply Chain compliance.

Responsibilities

• Own and coordinate the security testing roadmap.
• Responsible for leading ISO27001 & Cyber Essentials programmes.
• Conduct regular risk assessments to identify potential security threats and vulnerabilities.
• Lead on security assessment of suppliers.
• Recommend appropriate mitigation strategies.
• Monitor and audit IT systems for compliance.

Skills

Information Security

Risk Management

Compliance

Vulnerability Management

Problem Solving

ISO 27001

Cyber Essentials

Cloud Security

Job description

Join or sign in to find your next job

Join to apply for the Security Specialist role at Janes

Janes Manchester, England, United Kingdom

Janes empowers military, government, and defence leaders to act with confidence in an increasingly complex world. Our trusted defence, security, and geopolitical information delivered through seamless digital platforms and system integrations—turns overwhelming data into clear, actionable intelligence and insight. By filling critical information gaps, Janes helps customers analyse threats, accelerate decisions, and stay ahead of emerging challenges.

Job purpose:

We are seeking an experienced Security Specialist to lead on our compliance and vulnerability activities, with expertise in implementing and maintaining security monitoring and compliance programmes. They must have a strong background working with development teams and cloud‑based service providers, supporting resolution of vulnerabilities and security risks. They must be able to support technical teams in implementation of solutions by breaking down complex problems and support prioritisation of issues.

You will be working as part of a team based in Manchester. You should be self‑motivated, a natural problem solver, and used to operating independently.

How you will contribute at Janes:

• Own and co‑ordinate the security testing roadmap, and provide key support to the overall Security strategy
• Responsible for leading ISO27001 & Cyber Essentials programmes
• Conduct regular risk assessments to identify potential security threats and vulnerabilities.
• Lead on security assessment of suppliers
• Recommend appropriate mitigation strategies, both internal and within the supply chain.
• Monitor and audit IT systems and processes to ensure ongoing compliance with internal policies and external regulations.
• Responding to security questionnaires from customers
• Share knowledge, promote and coach standards and best practice

The ideal skills and experience for this role are:

• 6+ years experience in Information Security, Risk and Compliance
• Knowledge of security and compliance standards across InfoSec (e.g. ISO 27001, Cyber Essentials, NIST, CMMC)
• Expertise in Defender/Azure, Microsoft 365 & AWS Security controls/compliance
• Experience of vulnerability / attack surface monitoring tools
• Experience of Supply Chain compliance
• 27 days of annual leave
• Healthy half (0.5 day leave every 6 months for wellbeing)
• Private medical insurance – Bupa
• Maternity (100% of basic salary for the first 26 weeks followed by Statutory Maternity Pay)
• Paternity (100% of basic salary for 6 weeks)
• Life cover
• Access to LinkedIn Learning
• Access to an on‑site gym (Only in Croydon)

Our Mission:

Creating trusted open‑source intelligence has always been our focus. Janes foundational defence intelligence, across military capabilities and order of battle, equipment, events, and defence industry, is verified and validated using our human‑centric tradecraft to deliver the highest levels of assurance.

While open‑source data is readily available to analysts and decision makers, it can be unmanageable in structure and volume, is not assured, and can be manipulated either intentionally or unintentionally. Janes open‑source intelligence is verified and validated through our Tradecraft processes within our Single Intelligence Environment (SIE). Janes uses a multi‑faceted approach to open‑source intelligence, developed over 120 years, with all sources assessed for bias/objectivity, reliability, and level of certainty.

We excel at capturing and making sense of open‑source information to regularly reveal new and timely insights. We provide clients with a definitive source of the ‘what’, the context to understand the ‘why’ and, particularly within our dedicated forecasting products, a prediction of what will happen in the future. Our news provides both a factual journal of record and commentary in order to add the necessary context behind the facts.

Our goal is to ensure our journalism and analysis is better, sharper, more relevant, more comprehensive, and more useful than other open‑source providers. We achieve this through employing more than 250 analysts supported by many hundreds more freelance experts to source and verify information. Our experts are supported by technologies such as natural language processing, web scraping and monitoring, data visualization, and other analytical tool sets. A key value we provide is topic selection: deciphering what is salient, standing up the facts, and setting events into context.

Technology at Janes:

To support our Tradecraft we need the best technology solutions and capabilities, particularly in an increasingly complex world with exponentially accelerating volume of relevant information accessible. To respond to this challenge Janes has invested heavily in Technology, both in terms of people and software development.

Our vision is to operate a modern, commercially focused in‑house Technology Team that is core to business success through effective partnering with Sales, Product, Research and Data teams to produce best in class OSINT data and product platforms that enable the mission.

We achieve this through our collaborative, supportive team oriented and delivery focused culture, utilising agile methodologies. Our technology group is comprised of cross‑functional multi‑disciplinary teams located across Croydon and Manchester, led by Phil Smith (Phil Smith | LinkedIn).

Given the complexity of our data and Tradecraft processes we use a broad range of specialist technologies and approaches including AI, ML, graph and document databases, search platforms, serverless technologies and event processing platforms, customer portals, visualisation platforms, Geospatial systems as well as general purpose AWS platform capabilities.

Our world suits those who enjoy working within an empowered, disciplined development environment delivering complex solutions that require genuine problem solving and innovation. We are rightly proud of our culture which is reflected by our very high staff retention rate, which in turn reflects our friendly culture, interesting work, and the importance of our mission.

Seniority level

• Mid‑Senior level

Employment type

• Full‑time

Job function

• Information Technology
• Information Services, Defense and Space Manufacturing, and Technology, Information and Media