Enterprise PKI Specialist (Contractor)
Qube Research & Technologies · London · hybrid
Enterprise PKI Specialist (Fixed Term Contract)
The Enterprise PKI Specialist is a senior technical specialist responsible for the design, implementation, governance, and evolution of Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) services across Qube Research & Technologies (QRT).
The successful candidate will serve as the organisation's primary PKI subject matter expert, providing strategic guidance, architectural leadership, hands-on engineering expertise, and technical governance across all PKI-related initiatives.
This is a highly specialised role requiring extensive experience designing, building, and modernising PKI environments within large enterprises. The successful candidate will have a proven track record of delivering PKI programmes from initial requirements gathering and architecture design through to implementation, operationalisation, and long-term governance.
PKI Architecture & Delivery
- Design and deliver enterprise grade PKI architecture and supporting operational model.
- Design and implement root and issuing Certificate Authority (CA) hierarchies.
- Define certificate policies, certificate profiles, naming standards, trust models, and operational controls.
- Design resilient, highly available PKI infrastructure and supporting services.
- Lead the implementation and migration of PKI platforms, tooling, and supporting infrastructure.
- Define disaster recovery, backup, recovery, and key protection requirements for PKI services.
- Design and oversee Hardware Security Module (HSM) integration and key management processes.
- Establish operational procedures for certificate issuance, renewal, revocation, recovery, and lifecycle management.
- Ensure solutions are scalable, supportable, and aligned with security and regulatory requirements.
PKI Subject Matter Expertise
- Act as the organisation's recognised PKI authority and trusted advisor.
- Provide expert guidance on certificate authority design, trust models, certificate lifecycle management, revocation strategies, and key protection.
- Advise engineering and platform teams on PKI integration requirements and best practices.
- Review proposed solutions and ensure alignment with established PKI standards and architectural principles.
- Provide technical leadership for complex PKI-related initiatives and problem resolution.
Machine Identity & Certificate Lifecycle Management
- Develop enterprise approaches for managing machine identities at scale.
- Design and implement automated certificate issuance, renewal, rotation, and revocation processes.
- Support certificate management across infrastructure, cloud, container, networking, and application environments.
- Reduce operational risk associated with certificate expiry and trust failures.
- Define standards for certificate discovery, inventory, monitoring, and reporting.
Stakeholder Engagement & Governance
- Work closely with infrastructure, engineering, cloud, security, risk, and operational teams.
- Translate complex PKI and cryptographic concepts into clear business and technical recommendations.
- Develop PKI standards, policies, procedures, and governance documentation.
- Support audits and regulatory reviews relating to cryptographic and PKI controls.
- Influence technical direction and ensure PKI considerations are embedded within strategic initiatives.
Essential Skills & Experience
- Proven experience designing and delivering enterprise PKI environments from inception through production operation.
- Extensive experience designing Root CA, Intermediate CA, and Issuing CA architectures.
- 10+ years of experience working with enterprise PKI, trust services, or cryptographic infrastructure.
- Strong understanding of offline Root CA designs, trust hierarchy models, certificate policy development, and PKI governance.
- Experience implementing and operating HSM-backed PKI environments.
- Deep knowledge of X.509 certificates, PKCS standards, CRLs, OCSP, certificate validation, and trust chains.
- Proven experience leading PKI programmes or transformations across multiple organisations.
- Ability to engage effectively with senior stakeholders, architects, engineers, auditors, and operational teams.
Desirable Skills & Experience
- Experience with Venafi, Keyfactor, DigiCert Trust Lifecycle Manager, Sectigo, EJBCA, HashiCorp Vault, or equivalent platforms.
- Experience with Microsoft Active Directory Certificate Services (AD CS) design and migration programmes.
- Experience implementing PKI within AWS, Azure, Kubernetes, and hybrid cloud environments.
- Experience supporting financial services, regulated industries, or large-scale enterprise environments.
- Relevant industry certifications in security, architecture, cloud, or cryptography.
Contract Details
- Fixed Term Contract
- Hybrid working model
- London-based role
- Competitive package dependent on experience