The posting
Job Description
At AJ Bell, our purpose is to make investing feel good by making it easier and more accessible. As Identity and Access Management Lead, you’ll help support that purpose by strengthening how identities and access are managed across our business.
Working closely with our Chief Information Security Officer, Senior Information Security Manager, GRC, and teams across Technology and the wider business, you’ll lead the governance and ongoing improvement of Identity and Access Management (IAM), covering identity lifecycle management, access certification, privileged access and emerging areas such as agentic AI and non-human identities.
What you'll do
- Develop, maintain and monitor IAM policies, standards and control requirements covering identity lifecycle management, access approvals, least privilege, segregation of duties and privileged access.
- Oversee joiner, mover and leaver controls and periodic access certification for human and non-human accounts, working with business and technology owners to define review scope, resolve exceptions and track timely access removal.
- Develop and maintain IAM metrics and reporting to assess control effectiveness, access review completion, identity lifecycle performance and remediation progress, highlighting material risks and coverage gaps.
- Provide day-to-day leadership for IAM activities, coordinating priorities and delivery across security, technology and business stakeholders, and preparing clear KPI, KRI and risk reports for senior management and governance forums.
- Monitor emerging identity-related threats, access risks and IAM good practice, advising relevant stakeholders on proportionate improvements to authentication, authorisation and access governance.
- Work with infrastructure, application development and security operations teams to embed IAM requirements into services and change, improve platform integrations and automation, and strengthen role models, entitlement ownership and privileged access controls.
- Coordinate IAM-related internal and external audits and assurance requests, maintain supporting evidence, and work with accountable owners to assess access risks and close agreed remediation actions, escalating material issues where required.
- Develop and maintain the IAM roadmap in support of the information security strategy, prioritising improvements to governance, platform coverage, automation and operating processes based on business needs, risk and assurance findings.
- Define and oversee proportionate IAM controls for agentic AI and associated non-human identities, working with technology and business owners to establish accountable ownership, approved and least-privilege access, boundaries for delegated authority, periodic review, traceability and timely access revocation.
- Supporting and enabling the business to achieve its regulatory requirements, including consumer duty.
- Perform other related duties and fulfil responsibilities as required.
What you'll bring
- Experience leading IAM governance and improvement activities, including identity lifecycle management, access certification, privileged access governance and assessment of access control effectiveness.
- Technical understanding of enterprise identity architecture, directories, cloud and on-premises access models, authentication, authorisation, single sign-on and multi-factor authentication.
- Practical knowledge of identity governance and administration and privileged access management platforms, including application onboarding, identity correlation, entitlement data quality, access workflows and control automation.
- Experience assessing identity and access risks, supporting audits and tracking remediation, with a sound understanding of least privilege, role-based access, segregation of duties and human and non-human account governance.
- Understanding of IAM considerations for agentic AI, including non-human identity ownership, delegated permissions, credential lifecycle management, access boundaries and auditability.
- Familiarity with information security principles, tools, processes, procedures, and frameworks such as NIST and CIS
- Ability to coach others to improve security knowledge and skills.
- Ability to deal with ambiguity in a very dynamic and high speed and complex business environment.
- Strong analytical thinking, written, and oral communication skills.
- Effective communication skills, both written and verbal
- Ability to plan, take ownership, organise, and follow through on assigned tasks and complete with little or no prompting from management.
- Ability to challenge approach, strategy, and implementation to ensure Information Security is consistently considered and improved.
About AJ Bell
At AJ Bell, we believe investing should feel good. Whether you're looking for an ISA, pension, or dealing account, whether you want to invest with the help of a financial adviser or do it yourself, we have easy-to-use solutions to suit people from all walks of life.
We're one of the UK's fastest-growing investment platform businesses, trusted by everyone from professional financial advisers to first-time investors.
Today, over 762,000 customers trust us to manage more than £121.5 billion of assets. By continually striving to make investing simpler and more accessible, we're helping more people take control of their financial futures.
We're proud to be recognised as a Great Place to Work® for the past two years, building on six consecutive years as one of the UK's Best 100 Companies to Work For. It's recognition we're proud of and a reflection of the supportive and collaborative culture we strive to create for our people.
What we offer
- 26 days holiday, increasing with service + buy/sell scheme + bank holidays
- 7% Pension with matched contributions
- Discretionary bonus scheme
- Share schemes (including free shares and BAYE)
- Health Cash Plan and discounted private healthcare
- Free gym
- Enhanced family leave (subject to qualifying criteria)
- Travel and bike loan schemes
- Employee Assistance Programme
Life at AJ Bell
- Regular social events including summer and Christmas parties
- Learning and development opportunities tailored to you
- Casual dress code
- Friendly, supportive team environment
Our ways of working
We offer hybrid working, with a minimum of 50% of your working time per month spent in the office.
For new starters, there’s an initial period of full-time office working to help you settle in and build relationships.
Inclusion & diversity
We’re committed to creating an inclusive environment where everyone feels respected and able to be themselves at work.
We welcome applications from all backgrounds and make hiring decisions based on skills, experience and potential.
Your application, reviewed by people
We believe great hiring starts with people. That's why every application is reviewed by a member of our Recruitment team, rather than screened by AI. It may take us a few days to get back to you, but please be assured that your application will be given the time and attention it deserves.
