Lead Consultant - Defence

Job Description:

Lead Consultant – Defence

Salary Range: £59,400 - £90,000

Your impact

Your work at Leonardo UK will see you take the lead in solving customer problems in an agile, innovative and team-centric manner. The role may involve a blended hybrid working model, with a mixture of working from home and working on site at one of our Leonardo offices or customer premises to ensure close collaboration with the wider team and with our customers.

Leonardo UK is seeking a Lead Cyber Consultant to join the Cyber & Security Solutions Division Consulting team.

This role will involve leading the capture, development and delivery of our cyber consulting offering to the UK Ministry of Defence (MoD). This is a varied role that will involve a mixture of business winning and bid writing activity, project oversight, and product development, working in conjunction with other business functions as needed.

What you will do as a Defence Lead Consultant:

• Relate - Our customers and their problem are at the heart of what we do. As a Consultant you will help to actively listen and empathise with our customers to build intimacy.
• Understand – We add value by solving problems. As a Consultant you will help define potential solutions to these problems with only limited information based on your experience and technical knowledge.
• Assess – At Leonardo we adopt a risk-based approach to any security problem. As a Consultant you will need to understand and frame threats and other security concepts through the language of risk to help customers to make the link back to their objectives.
• Treat – Managing risk is the technical core of our offering. As a Consultant you will assist in defining appropriate and proportionate security solutions across people, process and technology, showing how those solutions enable customers to achieve their objectives.
• Assure – Giving our customers confidence that security is where it needs to be is a key requirement across heavily regulated industries. As a Consultant you will assist in defining, implementing and performing assessments of our customer’s environment against a given set of criteria spanning people, process and technology.
• Develop – All our offerings are based on a core set of products. As a consultant you will assist in building a viable offering as part of the Leonardo business winning process for a customer as well as help in the technical development of our products to be used across our customer sectors.
• Support and Manage - Line Management of a team of Cyber Consultants at various grades from Principal Consultant to Apprentice, providing performance management, training and pastoral care.
• Utilisation - Managing the day to day utilisation of your team.
• Business Winning - Support bid activities within Cyber Consulting and provide Cyber expertise and advice to wider business winning activities.

What you’ll bring

This is an exciting opportunity to be a core part of our campaign into MoD, with significant potential for further progression depending on the success of the campaign. You will work within the Cyber Consultancy Practice and in close conjunction with the Sales, Commercial and Finance functions within the business, as well as the Head of Cyber Consulting.

In addition to a passion for cyber and information security, you must have:

• Skills
  • Core consulting skills – building client relations; adaptability to changing schedules; reliability and quality of task delivery; flexibility in working hours and locations; team player.
  • Bid writing skills – demonstrable experience and ability to write technical responses to bids, ideally in a MoD context.
  • Specialist skills in any of: Risk and Governance and/or Security Architecture.
• Qualifications

• At least 2 Recognised professional certifications in Cyber Security such as CISM, CISSP, Sec+, CRISC, CASP, CEH.
• Chartered membership with a recognised cyber security body.

• Knowledge and Demonstrable Experience

• Significant experience of directly managing project delivery and associated metrics such as time, cost and quality.
• Experience of and ability to manage multiple stakeholders and their needs with empathy, finding an appropriate balance between listening and speaking.
• An ambitious and creative drive to help safeguard UK national security and become a recognised cyber expert.
• Demonstrated leadership experience, with the ability to guide teams and influence stakeholders.
• Technical bid writing experience ideally in a MoD context, including designing and communicating solutions to a customer problem articulated in a bid.
• Experience working with/for MoD and/or associated Arms Length Bodies and Agencies.
• Demonstrable experience in core security concepts. Specialisms can be either in Risk and Governance or Security Architecture, or a combination of security disciplines.
• Significant experience managing the pastoral and administrative components of consultants and People Leaders day to day.
• Ability to proactively contribute to Practice Management activities.

This is not an exhaustive list, and we are keen to hear from you even if you might not have experience in all the above. The most important skill is a good attitude and willingness to learn.

Security Clearance

This role is subject to pre-employment screening in line with the UK Government’s Baseline Personnel Security Standard (BPSS). An additional range of Personnel Security Controls referred to as National Security Vetting (NSV) may apply, this could include meeting the eligibility requirements for The Security Check (SC) or Developed Vetting (DV). For more information and guidance please visit: https://careers.uk.leonardo.com/gb/en/security-and-vetting

Why join us

At Leonardo, our people are at the heart of everything we do. We offer a comprehensive, company-funded benefits package that supports your wellbeing, career development, and work–life balance. Whether you're looking to grow professionally, care for your health, or plan for the future, we’re here to help you thrive.

• Time to Recharge: Enjoy generous leave with the opportunity to accrue up to 12 additional flexi-days each year.
• Secure your Future: Benefit from our award-winning pension scheme with up to 15% employer contribution.
• Your Wellbeing Matters: Free access to mental health support, financial advice, and employee-led networks championing inclusion and diversity (Enable, Pride, Equalise, Armed Forces, Carers, Wellbeing and Ethnicity).
• Rewarding Performance: All employees at management level and below are eligible for our bonus scheme.
• Never Stop Learning: Free access to 4,000+ online courses via Coursera and LinkedIn Learning.
• Refer a friend: Receive a financial reward through our referral programme.
• Tailored Perks: Spend up to £500 annually on flexible benefits including private healthcare, dental, family cover, tech & lifestyle discounts, gym memberships and more.
• Flexible working: Flexible hours with hybrid working options. For part time opportunities, please talk to us about what might be possible for this role.

For a full list of our company benefits please visit our website.

Leonardo is a global leader in Aerospace, Defence, and Security. Headquartered in Italy, we employ over 53,000 people worldwide including 8,500 across 9 sites in the UK. Our employees are not just part of a team—they are key contributors to shaping innovation, advancing technology, and enhancing global safety.

At Leonardo we are committed to building an inclusive, accessible, and welcoming workplace. We believe that a diverse workforce sparks creativity, drives innovation, and leads to better outcomes for our people and our customers. If you have any accessibility requirements to support you during the recruitment process, just let us know.

Be part of something bigger - apply now!

Primary Location:

GB - Bristol - Coldharbour Lane

Additional Locations:

GB - Southampton

Contract Type:

Permanent

Hybrid Working:

Hybrid