Location:Knutsford
Rate: Up to £450 a day
Start Date: Mid July
Job Type:Contract 6 months
The Opportunity
We are seeking an experienced Cryptography & Key Management Specialist to join a high-performing security team responsible for the delivery, support, and governance of enterprise cryptographic services. This role plays a critical part in ensuring the integrity, availability, and security of cryptographic infrastructure and key management services across a complex global environment.
The successful candidate will combine strong technical knowledge of cryptographic technologies with a risk and control mindset, supporting business-critical applications and services while maintaining compliance with security, audit, and regulatory requirements.
Key Responsibilities
Manage and support cryptographic infrastructure, including Hardware Security Modules (HSMs), key management platforms, and certificate services.
Generate, distribute, store, recover, rotate, and retire cryptographic keys in accordance with defined procedures and governance requirements.
Perform HSM configuration, installation, administration, and support activities.
Manage certificate lifecycles, PKI services, and SSH key management processes.
Support incident, problem, and change management activities, including root cause analysis and service restoration.
Maintain accurate documentation, operational procedures, audit records, and configuration inventories.
Ensure adherence to security standards, policies, controls, and regulatory requirements.
Provide operational support and governance for cryptographic services, including participation in out-of-hours support where required.
Produce management information, risk assessments, and control reporting.
Collaborate with internal stakeholders, vendors, and service management teams to ensure service continuity and delivery against agreed SLAs.
Support audit activities and remediation of control findings.
Drive continuous improvement initiatives across cryptographic operations and customer experience.
Essential Skills & Experience
Proven experience within Cryptography, Information Security, or Key Management environments.
Strong understanding of cryptographic concepts, key lifecycle management, and security controls.
Experience managing cryptographic hardware and key management processes.
Knowledge of PKI, certificate management, and enterprise cryptographic services.
Strong stakeholder management and communication skills, with the ability to engage technical and non-technical audiences.
Experience supporting risk, compliance, audit, and governance requirements.
Strong attention to detail with excellent documentation and record-keeping skills.
Ability to prioritise multiple activities and make informed decisions in a fast-paced operational environment.
Proficiency with Microsoft Office applications.
Desirable Skills & Experience
Experience with HSM technologies such as Thales, Entrust, Gemalto, or Cryptomathic.
Experience of enterprise PKI, certificate management, and SSH key management.
Knowledge of centralised key management solutions and HSM-backed environments.
Exposure to cryptographic services supporting applications, databases, platforms, and distributed systems.
Experience with Python or scripting for operational automation.
Understanding of ITIL processes and service management disciplines.
Experience with incident response, problem management, and change/release management.
Familiarity with SharePoint, Confluence, and JIRA.
Unix and Windows operating system knowledge.
Relevant security certifications and/or project management qualifications.Disclaimer
Notwithstanding any guidelines given to level of experience sought, we will consider candidates from outside this range if they can demonstrate the necessary competencies.
Square One is acting as both an employment agency and an employment business, and is an equal opportunities recruitment business. Square One embraces diversity and will treat everyone equally. Please see our website for our full diversity statement
Salary description
£380.00 - £450.00 per day