AI Threat & Defence Analyst

The Role

Global Risk & Security (GR&S) enables Vanguard's business strategy by protecting our clients, colleagues, assets, and information while fostering a strong risk culture across the organisation. Our teams combine deep expertise, enterprise-wide insight, and trusted advice to help business leaders make informed, risk-based decisions.

Within GR&S, the Enterprise Security & Fraud function is responsible for protecting Vanguard's people, property, data, and client assets globally. As the threat landscape continues to evolve, we are investing in advanced capabilities to defend against emerging AI-enabled and autonomous threats.

We are seeking an experienced AI Threat & Defence Analyst to establish and lead a new capability focused on defending Vanguard against adversarial AI, autonomous attack techniques, and next-generation cyber threats. This is a rare opportunity to shape strategy, build a specialist team, and influence how AI security is embedded across the organisation.

In this role you will

- Establish and lead a strategic AI Security and Adversarial Threat Defence programme, defining its vision, operating model, governance framework, and technical roadmap
- Build, mentor, and develop a team of security specialists spanning threat research, reverse engineering, AI security, and detection engineering
- Design, test, and evaluate preventative, detective, and compensating controls against AI-enabled and autonomous attack techniques, validating effectiveness through realistic adversary simulation
- Develop and operate deception technologies, including honeypots, canary assets, and decoy environments designed to disrupt, misdirect, and detect sophisticated threat actors
- Create and maintain dedicated research and testing environments to simulate adversarial AI scenarios and continuously assess defensive effectiveness
- Conduct malware analysis, reverse engineering, and forensic investigations to identify attacker capability, intent, behaviour patterns, and indicators of compromise
- Develop AI-enabled analysis and intelligence workflows to improve efficiency across threat intelligence, threat hunting, incident response, and security operations
- Translate threat intelligence into automated detection, response, and containment capabilities to identify and disrupt attacks at scale
- Assess emerging AI-related threats and model likely attack paths to inform security investment and defensive priorities
- Lead complex incident investigations involving AI-enabled threats, including forensic analysis, root cause identification, and executive reporting
- Partner with AI/ML engineering, cloud security, identity and access management, enterprise architecture, and technology teams to embed security controls into AI solutions from design through deployment
- Define programme KPIs and maturity measures, reporting progress and risk exposure to senior leadership, governance forums, and risk committees
- Ensure alignment with recognised frameworks and standards including NIST AI RMF, MITRE ATT&CK, MITRE ATLAS, OWASP LLM Top 10, ISO 27001, the EU AI Act, and evolving UK regulatory requirements

What it takes

- Significant experience within Cyber Security, Threat Intelligence, Incident Response, Red Teaming, Adversary Emulation, or Offensive Security
- Experience building or leading specialist security capabilities, programmes, or teams
- Strong technical expertise in malware analysis and reverse engineering across Windows platforms, including x86/x64, .NET, and scripting frameworks
- Hands-on experience conducting cyber investigations, digital forensics, and incident response activities
- Strong Python development and security automation skills
- Understanding of large language models (LLMs), autonomous agents, AI security risks, and adversarial attack techniques
- Experience designing and implementing security monitoring, detection engineering, or deception capabilities
- Strong stakeholder management and communication skills, including presenting to senior executives and governance committees
- Degree qualification in a relevant discipline, or equivalent professional experience

Special Factors

- Vanguard is not offering visa sponsorship for this position
- This is a hybrid position and would require you to work in the office 3 days per week (Tuesday, Wednesday & Thursday)
- Please note that we review applications on a rolling basis and may close this role early if there is a high level of interest. To avoid missing out, we recommend applying as soon as possible

Why Vanguard?

This is an opportunity to build and lead a pioneering AI Security capability within one of the world's leading investment management organisations. You will play a central role in shaping how Vanguard identifies, assesses, and mitigates AI-enabled threats while influencing enterprise-wide adoption of secure and responsible AI practices.

Working alongside experienced security, technology, and risk professionals, you will help define the future of AI defence in a rapidly evolving threat landscape.

How We Work

Vanguard has implemented a hybrid working model for the majority of our crew members, designed to capture the benefits of enhanced flexibility while enabling in-person learning, collaboration, and connection. We believe our mission-driven and highly collaborative culture is a critical enabler to support long-term client outcomes and enrich the employee experience.