Head of Cyber Security Operations

Salary – Negotiable (depending on experience)

Closing date - Tuesday 27th January 2026

NATS is the UK’s leading air navigation service provider, handling over 2.4 million flights each year. We provide air traffic control services from two control centres and at airports around the UK. We also provide a wide range of commercial products and solutions internationally. Our people are at the heart of our purpose to advance aviation and keep the skies safe.

Job Purpose/Overview:

The Head of Cyber Security Operations directs the tactical delivery of the organisation’s security monitoring and response capability to ensure that real-time threats, vulnerabilities and potential incidents are effectively monitored, triaged, and communicated to the business areas to address.

The role maintains a perspective of global cyber threats and their potential to impact business operations and communicates situational awareness to key stakeholders within leadership and operations.

The post holder will form part of the security leadership team and will work with colleagues to drive forward the security objectives.

Key Responsibilities Include:

• Maintain a layered view of the attack surface, known assets, vulnerabilities and relevant security capabilities.
• Communicate tactical threats, security incident status and capability coverage to internal stakeholders.
• Work with service delivery managers to understand and respond to threats, vulnerabilities etc within the supply chain.
• Manage and prioritise security monitoring and threat detection, based on the highest threats and most critical assets.
• Own the capability for onboarding to the Cyber Defence Centre.
• Continuously improve and prioritise toolsets and data to enhance cyber security operations.
• Own cross-business playbooks for incident scenarios, to ensure timely and aligned responses and providing technical cyber leadership for the appropriate management of incidents.
• Support security leadership in discharging their security accountabilities across the organisation, working across a range of security related topics and providing support to the wider group in fulfilling the security objectives, including incident management support.
• Own benchmarking and information sharing relationships with peer organisations to enable continuous improvement.
• Provide Service Management for a core set of security technology services to secure business operations, to an agreed set of service agreements.
• Support NATS Major Incident Management needs by participating in Major Incident Management rostering plan and be available where possible to support the business operation out of hours where necessary.

Essential Skills and Experience:

• Degree in Cyber Security, Information Security, related field or equivalent experience, plus training relevant to the role. A cyber/information security qualification such as CISSP, CISM, CISA, SABSA is advantageous.
• Leadership experience in a Security Operations role.
• Experience in technical investigations and forensics, playbook development and coordinating incident response across multiple technical teams.
• Strong and credible people leadership (line management), including the ability to bring people together across different areas (including virtual teams) and motivate them to deliver common aims and targets.
• Demonstrates self-driven approach towards staying up-to-date with the latest security threats, attack techniques, and industry trends.
• Proven ability to prioritise resources and support decision-making in a fast moving operational environment.
• Experience working in collaboration with external agencies, such as the National Cyber Security Centre, and internal stakeholder groups to identify threats and appropriate mitigations.
• An accomplished and credible leader with a proven ability to set direction and make sound, timely decisions that deliver business outcomes. Provides clarity of purpose, inspires confidence, and fosters a culture of accountability and excellence.
• Builds strong cross-functional networks, aligning diverse disciplines and viewpoints to deliver results. Demonstrates diplomacy and resilience in overcoming resistance and securing commitment to shared goals.
• An excellent communicator with a proven ability to influence, challenge, and negotiate at all levels, both within the organisation and with external partners. Skilled at simplifying complex issues and ensuring consideration of both technical and business perspectives when shaping decisions.
• Demonstrates a commitment to continuous improvement and professional growth, actively developing self and others to build organisational capability and future leadership strength.

Additional Vacancy Information:

This role has 1 direct and 5 indirect reports.

We are proud to offer a fantastic total reward package to help you thrive both personally and professionally - for more information on what NATS can offer you please visit - Why NATS?

We have adopted agile working to provide greater flexibility and increased choice over working arrangements, with the opportunity for this role to work in our modern office facilities as well as remotely. Find out more here.

If you share our passion to advance aviation and keep the skies safe – we would like to hear from you whatever your age, sex, race, faith, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, visible or invisible disability. Individuals that bring different perspectives, skills, life experiences and backgrounds help us be at the forefront of our industry.

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