Network Component Product Owner

Job Title: Network Component Product Owner

Location: London/Northampton/Glasgow/Manchester - 3 days per week in the office

Salary/Rate: Up to £630 per day inside IR35

Start Date: 16/03/2026

Job Type: Contract until the end of the year

Role Purpose

The Network Component Product Owner is accountable for owning and delivering a defined network security component within a broader product domain, aligned to Global Network Services and Group Security strategy. The role translates enterprise security architecture, regulatory controls, and Zero Trust principles into a prioritised, delivery ready backlog that delivers measurable risk reduction, resilience, and business value. Operating within a product-led, agile model, the CPO partners closely with the Technical Product Owner, Engineering Leads, Security Architecture, Operations, and Control functions to ensure network security capabilities are designed, built, and operated in line with governance, regulatory obligations, and operational excellence standards.

Key Accountabilities

• Own a defined network security component (e.g. Zero Trust Network Access, Network Access Control, Network Segmentation, DDI, Egress/Proxy, SIEM integrations, or security automation).
• Translate security strategy, architecture designs, threat models, and risk/control requirements into clear epics, features, and user stories with well-defined acceptance criteria and Definition of Ready/Done.
• Prioritise backlog items based on risk exposure, regulatory commitments, threat landscape, and business outcomes, in alignment with the Technical Product Owner and Key Product Owner.
• Maintain strong backlog hygiene, ensuring transparency, traceability to controls, and readiness for delivery.
• Ensure all delivered capabilities align to Zero Trust Architecture (ZTA) principles, including identity-aware access, least privilege, continuous verification, and network segmentation.
• Work closely with Security Architecture to ensure designs align with industry standards and frameworks (e.g. NIST, ISO 27001/27002, CIS Controls).
• Support the definition and documentation of end-to-end security workflows, policy decision logic, and control evidence required for audit and regulatory assurance.
• Partner with Engineering and Operations to enable secure by design and secure by default implementations across physical, virtual, and cloud environments.
• Support DevSecOps and security as code practices, including backlog items related to automation, CI/CD enablement, configuration versioning, and policy lifecycle management.
• Coordinate and support UAT, operational handover, and service acceptance activities.
• Actively manage dependencies across network, cloud, identity, endpoint, SOC, and service management teams to ensure smooth end to end delivery.
• Engage proactively with stakeholders across Technology, Cyber Security, Risk, Compliance, and Audit to ensure alignment and early issue resolution.
• Provide clear, concise product reporting, including delivery progress, control coverage, and outcome based metrics.

Essential Skills & Experience

• Proven experience as a Product Owner, Technical Product Owner, or Senior Business Analyst within network security or infrastructure security domains.
• Strong proficiency with Agile delivery methodologies (Scrum/Kanban) and tooling such as Jira and Confluence.
• Demonstrated ability to manage complex backlogs, write high quality user stories, and drive delivery outcomes in regulated environments.
• Strong understanding of enterprise network security technologies and concepts, including: Zero Trust Network Access (ZTNA) and Secure Access Service Edge (SASE)
• Network Access Control (e.g. 802.1X, certificate based authentication)
• Next Generation Firewalls, IDS/IPS, and network segmentation
• Proxy and egress controls
• SIEM integration and security telemetry
• Ability to interpret and work with technical artefacts such as firewall policies, NAC rules, DDI designs, and security control baselines.
• Solid understanding of security risk management and control frameworks (e.g. NIST CSF, ISO 27001, PCI DSS).
• Experience working within ITIL aligned change, incident, and problem management processes, ideally using ServiceNow.
• Comfortable supporting audit, regulatory, and assurance activities through clear documentation and evidence.

Desirable Skills & Knowledge

• Experience with DevSecOps, GitOps, or infrastructure/security as code approaches.
• Exposure to cloud and hybrid security services (e.g. CASB, cloud firewalls, identity federation, cloud IAM integration).
• Familiarity with security metrics and SRE style reporting (e.g. MTTD, MTTR, deployment frequency, control effectiveness).
• Product Ownership: PSPO, CSPO, or equivalent.
• IT Service Management: ITIL 4 Foundation.
• Security or vendor fundamentals in relevant technologies (e.g. Cisco, Zscaler, Fortinet, Splunk, Infoblox, Forescout).

If you are interested in this opportunity, please apply now with your updated CV in Microsoft Word/PDF format.

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.