Product Technical Lead: Exercise and Training

Thales is a global technology leader with more than 83,000 employees on five continents. With over 7,500 people in the UK, operating across defence, space, aerospace, and digital security, we help build a future we can all trust. Thales supports the security and stability of our nation by providing extraordinary technology to our customers, as well as delivering social value to the UK with our products and services.

Location: Ebbw Vale, Reading, Crawley, Bristol, Templecombe, and Cheadle (any Thales office)

Step into a role where your cyber expertise shapes national‑level resilience and the future of secure critical systems!

What the role has to offer

• Enterprise-wide technical influence – …

• Own the Exercise and Training technical strategy, defining the product and services SCT offer to UK customers.

• Lead architecture design of OT Range capabilities, including identity, segmentation, continuous verification, and policy-driven access.

• Define and evolve Exercise and Training products, including the classification, tagging, encryption, and attribute-based access control strategies.

• Drive inclusion of Thales wider solutions into Exercise and Training capabilities, including Thales security products and solutions.

• Develop defensible design patterns, for OT Exercising and assurance capabilities within the Ebbw Vale facility.

• Provide technical leadership to engineering teams, guiding implementation, testing, and assurance of Exercise and Training offers.

• Engage with senior stakeholders, translating complex exercise and training concepts into clear, actionable decisions.

• Shape internal standards, patterns, and governance, ensuring consistency across programmes.

• Represent the organisation externally, contributing to working groups, standards bodies, and partner ecosystems.

• Innovation leadership – driving next‑generation of exercise and training capabilities, defining and using new technologies and architecture patterns such as leveraging AI opportunities, and shaping Thales’ long‑term OT cyber, Exercise and Training strategy.

Our Opportunity

You will lead the technical direction for our Exercise and Training capability, shaping how we design, assure, deliver, and deploy Exercises for cyber resilience to Thales’ customers and OT Training capabilities operated out of the Thales UK Ebbw Vale facility. The role shall include the definition of the technologies Thales UK will implement into a Cyber Exercise product offer. In addition, the role will work closely with the technical leads in Ebbw Vale to define the product needs and architectures for OT Training as a product offering out of the Ebbw Vale office in support of our MOD customers.

This is a role for someone who can operate at architecture engineering, and governance levels simultaneously – an individual who can define the blueprint, assure the implementation, and influence the organisation.

About You

At Thales, we are committed to equal opportunities and welcome all talented individuals to consider joining our team. So even if you don't match every statement below but feel you have some of the experience, knowledge or skills needed for this role, we encourage you to apply. It will take all of us working together to deliver solutions to the world’s most critical challenges.

Essential Skills:

• Degree in Cyber Security, Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, Control Systems Engineering, or a related technical field

• Proven experience acting as a Technical Authority, Design Authority, or equivalent senior engineering role

• Deep expertise in modern security engineering practices

OT & Industrial Skills:

• Strong understanding of:

  • ICS/SCADA environments

  • Industrial operations and processes

  • PLC/DCS/SIS environments

  • Industrial networking

  • Remote access in OT

  • OT incident response

  • Industrial safety considerations

• Knowledge of:

  • Purdue model

  • OT resilience principles

  • High-availability operations

  • Critical infrastructure environments

Cyber Security Skills:

• OT threat landscape awareness.

• Knowledge of:

  • MITRE ATT&CK for ICS

  • Adversary behaviours

  • Industrial ransomware threats

  • OT detection and monitoring concepts

• Incident response coordination.

• Risk communication and cyber awareness delivery.

• OT security governance and assurance understanding.

Training & Facilitation Skills:

• Exercise facilitation and scenario management.

• Adult learning and instructional design principles.

• Development of technical training material.

• Executive briefing and communication skills.

• Workshop and stakeholder facilitation.

• Ability to simplify complex technical topics for varied audiences.

Leadership & Business Skills:

• Programme leadership.

• Cross-functional stakeholder engagement.

• Organisational change management.

• Strategic planning and roadmap development.

• Strong written and verbal communication.

• Ability to influence operational and executive stakeholders.

• Ability to design and review high-assurance architectures for regulated, mission-critical environments.

• Proven ability to lead complex technical decisions, challenge suppliers, and provide defensible recommendations.

• Proven ability to build trusted relationships with senior stakeholders and maintain a strong external network.

• A strong commitment to continuous learning and professional development.

Desirable:

• Postgraduate degree (MSc/MEng) in Cyber Security, Systems Engineering, Industrial Automation, or a related field

• Experience in regulated environments such as defence, healthcare, policing, utilities, manufacturing, or critical infrastructure

• Professional certifications such as GICSP, GRID, ISA/IEC 62443, CISSP, or CISM

• Motivated by contributing to a safer, more secure world through Cybersecurity & Trust

If you’re ready to lead, influence, and engineer the next generation of OT cyber security, we’d love to receive your application.

Benefits:

• Performance-related bonus

• Half day every Friday, usually finishing around 13:00

• 28 days annual leave (plus bank holidays) with opportunity to buy up to 40 hours/year (pro rata)

• 24 hours volunteering paid for

• Private healthcare

• Pension scheme

• Life cover

• 24/7 Employee Assistance Program and access to mental wellbeing app

• Employee discount shopping schemes on major brands and retailers

• Gym membership discounts

Security Clearance Statement:

This role will require SC Clearance. It would be advantageous if currently held, however, if not currently held, it is a requirement that the successful applicant will undergo, achieve, and maintain SC Clearance. Please visit the UKSV website for further guidance.

To be eligible for full SC, you generally need to have resided in the UK for the last 5 years.  In some circumstances, a minimum of 3 years’ residence in the UK over the last 5 years may be accepted, with additional overseas checks.

For further details of the evidence required to apply for Baseline and Security Clearance please refer to the National Security Vetting (NSV) Agency –

United Kingdom Security Vetting - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)

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At Thales, we ensure equal opportunities, pay and working conditions for all. The benefits we offer include private medical insurance, buying or selling annual leave, cycle to work schemes, employee discounts, paid volunteering day, stocks and shares, annual bonus and much more depending on the role. Read more about our benefits here.
 

We are committed to creating a workplace where everyone feels valued for who they are and the unique strengths they bring. Discover more about our programmes, employee networks, wellbeing policies, and inclusive features here.

If this role isn’t quite right for you, we encourage you to join our talent community where your details will be shared with our recruitment teams for other potential opportunities. Join the Talent Community here.

Join Thales in the UK – Innovate with us and shape the future!