Identity Management Consultant

Senior Identity & Access Management Specialist

Location: Warwickshire

Salary: Circa £80,000 - £90,000 + benefits +car allowance

Working Arrangement: Hybrid – 3 days remote per week

The Role

An established organisation is seeking an experienced Identity & Access Management (IAM) Specialist to join its Cyber Security function and take a key role in developing and strengthening its identity and access capabilities.

This is a senior opportunity for someone who wants to have a genuine impact on how identity is designed, managed, governed and secured across a complex enterprise environment.

Rather than simply managing an existing IAM service, you will be involved in assessing the current landscape, identifying areas for improvement, establishing the desired future state and helping to deliver the changes required to achieve it.

The position will sit across Cyber Security, Engineering, Architecture, Infrastructure and wider business functions, providing technical expertise while ensuring identity controls are both secure and practical. Your work will help protect systems, applications, data and services while ensuring users and technologies have appropriate access to the resources they require.

Initially, the role is expected to be approximately:

• 50% IAM design and development
• 30% governance and assurance
• 20% operational IAM activity

As the organisation's IAM capability matures, these priorities are expected to evolve.

You will have significant input into identity architecture, technical standards, lifecycle management, governance processes and the longer-term IAM strategy.

The wider environment supports up to approximately 18,000 users, with around 5,000 active users at any given time. The role therefore requires someone comfortable operating within a sizeable technology estate and working with a broad range of technical and business stakeholders.

Key Areas of Responsibility

You will play a central role in developing a more consistent, standardised and secure approach to identity and access management across on-premise, cloud and application environments.

Your responsibilities will include:

IAM Strategy, Design & Improvement

• Design, develop and enhance IAM capabilities, security controls and associated operating processes.
• Review the existing identity environment to identify weaknesses, risks, inefficiencies and opportunities for improvement.
• Help define the target state for IAM and contribute to the roadmap required to deliver it.
• Develop secure and scalable identity solutions across enterprise applications, cloud services, SaaS platforms and APIs.
• Establish appropriate authentication, authorisation, role-based access control, least-privilege and segregation-of-duties approaches.
• Support the organisation's transition from existing Microsoft identity services towards Microsoft Entra ID, ensuring security and control requirements remain appropriately maintained throughout the transition.

Identity Lifecycle & Access Management

• Develop and improve identity lifecycle processes covering joiners, movers and leavers.
• Ensure access is provisioned, amended and removed accurately, efficiently and with appropriate auditability.
• Support lifecycle management for employees, contractors, privileged users, service accounts and system identities.
• Identify opportunities to automate access requests, approvals, provisioning, reporting and other lifecycle activities.
• Improve consistency and standardisation across identity and access processes.

Governance, Risk & Assurance

• Strengthen IAM governance frameworks and associated control processes.
• Support access reviews, access recertification, role modelling and audit activities.
• Maintain appropriate evidence to demonstrate the effectiveness of identity controls.
• Support the management of privileged access, including privileged-account lifecycle processes and elevated-access workflows.
• Monitor identity-related security events, exceptions and control failures.
• Investigate access-related issues and escalate material risks through the appropriate incident, governance and assurance channels.

Architecture & Technical Collaboration

• Work closely with Engineering, Architecture, Infrastructure and Application teams to ensure identity security is considered within new technology and solution designs.
• Contribute to secure identity patterns and standards across applications, cloud platforms, integrations and enterprise services.
• Provide technical input into architecture decisions and technology initiatives where identity and access are key considerations.
• Help ensure identity controls remain scalable and appropriate as the wider technology environment develops.

Documentation & Stakeholder Engagement

• Produce and maintain technical documentation, IAM standards, guidance and operational procedures.
• Work alongside internal teams, external delivery partners and managed service providers to implement improvements and maintain effective IAM services.
• Provide specialist advice to both technical and non-technical stakeholders.
• Translate identity risks, security considerations and technical options into clear recommendations that can support informed decision-making.
• Build effective relationships across multiple areas of the organisation while constructively challenging existing approaches where appropriate.

What We're Looking For

The core requirement is strong technical expertise in either Identity & Access Management or Privileged Access Management, together with the interest and capability to develop broader experience across the identity-security landscape.

You do not need to have equal experience across both IAM and PAM. The organisation would consider an experienced IAM professional looking to broaden their PAM knowledge, or an established PAM specialist seeking greater exposure to IAM design, governance and lifecycle management.

You are likely to have:

• Strong hands-on experience designing, implementing or materially improving IAM or PAM capabilities within an enterprise environment.
• Experience establishing IAM services, transforming existing identity environments or helping less mature capabilities progress towards a defined target state.
• Strong knowledge of identity lifecycle management, particularly joiner, mover and leaver processes.
• Experience managing standard user, privileged and service identities across both cloud and on-premise environments.
• Practical experience with cloud-based identity services – cloud experience is essential.
• Knowledge of Active Directory, Microsoft Entra ID/Azure AD or a comparable enterprise identity platform.
• A solid understanding of authentication, authorisation, RBAC, least privilege, access governance and segregation of duties.
• Experience converting security policies, risk requirements and compliance obligations into practical technical controls.
• Experience collaborating with Engineering and Architecture teams to influence and improve secure solution design.
• Exposure to access reviews, recertification, privileged access controls, audit evidence and/or wider identity governance activities.
• The ability to investigate complex identity and access problems, assess available options and implement appropriate solutions.
• Strong communication and stakeholder-management capability, with the confidence to question established practices and influence outcomes.
• A proactive approach, with a clear focus on ownership and continuous improvement.

Desirable Background & Additional Experience

Experience within a manufacturing, engineering, regulated, safety-critical or similarly complex enterprise environment would be advantageous, although experience in these sectors is not essential.

Additional experience that would be beneficial includes:

• Privileged Access Management technologies, privileged-session controls and elevated-access workflows.
• Integrating IAM solutions with enterprise applications, SaaS platforms, APIs and cloud services.
• Identity Governance and Administration, including role modelling, access certification and policy-driven access controls.
• Security architecture, cloud security or enterprise technology strategy and roadmapping.
• Identity-focused incident response, security assurance or audit.
• Automating IAM workflows, identity lifecycle processes and access-request activities.
• Working with third-party suppliers, system integrators and managed service providers.
• Relevant professional certifications within identity, cyber security, cloud security or associated technologies.
• A degree or equivalent qualification in Information Technology, Computer Science, Cybersecurity or a related subject.

The Person

You will bring strong technical capability, a structured and analytical approach to problem solving and the confidence to operate effectively across different teams and levels of an organisation.

You will be comfortable balancing robust security requirements with the need to provide users with an efficient, straightforward and effective access experience.

A strong continuous-improvement mindset will be important. You should naturally look for ways to automate repetitive tasks, strengthen existing controls, improve processes and documentation, and increase the resilience of identity services.

Above all, you will be someone who takes ownership, communicates clearly and is comfortable dealing with complex, sensitive or high-impact identity and access matters.