Senior Information Security Consultant - UK

About this role

Location: UK (Remote) with occasional travel locally to client sites.
Salary:£50 000 - £60 000 per annum
About Cognisys

Cognisys is a cybersecurity consultancy specialising in Penetration Testing, GRC Consulting and Managed Security. We work with organisations across 30+ countries, helping them understand their security risks, strengthen their security posture and build practical, sustainable security programmes.
We are a small but growing team, and our consultants have the opportunity to work closely with clients, take ownership of meaningful work and make a visible impact.
The Opportunity
We are looking for an experienced Senior Information Security Consultant to join our GRC Consulting team and work across ongoing advisory, security improvement and specialist client engagements.
This is a consulting role for someone who brings genuine information security or cybersecurity experience and can apply that knowledge to complex client environments.
Rather than focusing primarily on helping clients achieve a particular certification, you will work alongside organisations to understand their security challenges, manage risk and continuously improve their security posture.
Your work may include ongoing security advisory, vCISO-style support, maintenance of existing security programmes, security improvement initiatives and specialist or additional consulting work. You will work with clients that may already have established security programmes and will help them improve, maintain and mature those programmes over time.
This requires more than knowledge of security frameworks. You will need to understand how security works in practice, be comfortable discussing real-world security challenges and use your experience and judgement to help clients determine the right way forward.
You will also need strong consulting skills. Our consultants work closely with client stakeholders, often across different functions and levels of seniority, so the ability to listen, ask good questions, communicate clearly and build trust is essential.
This role would suit someone with hands-on or industry information security experience who wants to apply that knowledge in a client-facing consulting environment. This is a predominantly remote role, with client site visits kept to a minimum and only where an engagement needs it.
What You'll Be Doing
Security Advisory & Consulting

• Deliver ongoing information security advisory engagements across a range of clients and industries.

• Provide practical guidance on information security risks, security programmes and improvement priorities.

• Lead vCISO-style advisory services and ongoing security programme development.

• Assess existing security programmes and identify opportunities to improve their effectiveness, maturity and sustainability.

• Help clients prioritise security initiatives based on risk, business objectives and available resources.

• Provide independent thinking and practical recommendations rather than simply applying a predefined framework or checklist.

• Support specialist information security projects and additional client work where your expertise can add value.

• Work with clients to understand complex security problems and develop realistic approaches to addressing them.

Security Programme & Risk Management

• Support the development, maintenance and improvement of information security programmes.

• Assess security risks, controls, processes and operating practices.

• Help clients develop and maintain security roadmaps, risk registers, remediation plans and improvement programmes.

• Advise on security governance, risk management, controls, policies, procedures and operating processes.

• Identify weaknesses or areas of risk and help clients determine appropriate remediation approaches.

• Apply relevant frameworks, standards, regulations and industry practices where they add value to the client's security objectives.

• Support security assurance and compliance activities where required as part of a broader engagement.

• Use GRC platforms and other security tooling where appropriate.

Client & Stakeholder Advisory

• Build trusted, long-term relationships with client stakeholders.

• Work confidently with technical teams, security professionals, operational stakeholders and senior leadership.

• Understand different stakeholder perspectives and translate security issues into language that is meaningful to the audience.

• Lead client meetings, workshops and advisory sessions, usually delivered remotely by video call.

• Ask thoughtful questions, challenge assumptions and help clients think through complex security decisions.

• Communicate risks, recommendations and trade-offs clearly.

• Manage expectations and proactively communicate progress, challenges and dependencies.

• Balance client needs with sound professional judgement.

Engagement Ownership

• Lead client engagements end to end, including scoping, delivery and quality.

• Manage competing priorities across multiple clients and projects.

• Plan and organise delivery to meet agreed timelines and outcomes.

• Identify risks and blockers early and take appropriate action.

• Act as the senior point of escalation and provide guidance to other consultants.

• Shape and scope additional client work, and support proposals and pre-sales.

• Maintain a high standard of quality across all client deliverables.

• Mentor and develop junior and mid-level consultants, including reviewing their deliverables.

Quality & Professional Standards

• Produce clear, accurate and commercially appropriate client deliverables.

• Apply Cognisys methodologies and quality standards consistently.

• Use professional judgement to ensure recommendations are practical, proportionate and aligned to the client's circumstances.

• Continuously look for ways to improve client delivery and consulting practices.

• Share knowledge and contribute to the development of the wider GRC consulting team.

What We're…