Microsoft Cloud Engineer – Contract – FS or Insurance – Min 6 months Full Time NEW

City, London
Michael James Associates

We are seeking a Microsoft Cloud Engineer – Contract

SC-300 IAM Administrator

SC-200 Security Operations Analyst

3 Yrs Entra ID Defender Sentinel exp

KQL skills

MS Purview & Endpoint DLP skills

SC-100 MS Cybersecurity Architecture Design (Desirable)

Key responsibilities

• Own the security architecture across the group estate – current and target state across identity, endpoint, network, and data layers
• Configure and tune the Microsoft Defender XDR suite – Defender for Endpoint, Identity, Cloud Apps, and Office 365 – across all group entities
• Design and deploy Conditional Access policies including Token Protection, tiered device posture, and Legacy authentication blocking
• Build and operate Microsoft Sentinel – workspace design, data connector coverage, KQL detection rules, SOAR playbooks, and alert triage procedures
• Own the Entra ID estate – life cycle management, service principal hygiene, break-glass accounts, and cross-tenant consolidation across acquired entities
• Deploy Privileged Identity Management – approval workflows, just-in-time access, session limits, and quarterly access reviews
• Drive the passkey and phishing-resistant authentication rollout – FIDO2/platform passkey deployment across the organisation
• Act as internal technical counterpart to the MDR provider – validate detections, manage scope and SLAs, fill coverage gaps, and ensure no ongoing dependency on external resource for routine decisions
• Review and approve security designs produced by third-party delivery partners – ensure controls are built to the required architecture standard, not just minimum viable
• Transfer operational ownership of activated controls to the internal security team at each delivery milestone
• Implement PAM for privileged and service accounts – just-in-time access, vaulting, and PIM alert routing to the MDR provider
• Build the zero trust M&A onboarding playbook – a step-by-step integration approach from acquisition close to SRG security baseline, covering identity federation, device posture, app access, Defender deployment, and Sentinel ingestion; owned by the CTO, co-contributed with the Platform and Workspace Engineer

Long run of contract work