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TELECOMS
Cyber security recruitment for telecoms
Telecoms is the one sector where the network is the product, which changes the whole hiring profile. Security here means core infrastructure, subscriber data and carrier-scale operations, and the strongest candidates come from network engineering rather than from enterprise security.
What these teams hire
- NETWORK SECURITY
- Carrier-scale engineering: peering, DDoS mitigation, segmentation and secure connectivity.
- CORE & MOBILE SECURITY
- Signalling, roaming and core network security — a narrow specialism with very few candidates in either market.
- SECURITY OPERATIONS
- Large, mature SOC functions with detection engineering and, in some operators, customer-facing managed services.
- FRAUD & ABUSE
- Subscriber fraud, SIM swap and revenue assurance, which sit close to security and are hired alongside it.
- CLOUD & PLATFORM
- Cloud security engineers supporting virtualised network functions and digital service platforms.
- REGULATORY & RISK
- Lawful intercept obligations, subscriber data protection and operator risk management.
What is different about hiring here
Scale is the screen. A candidate who has secured a corporate network has not necessarily reasoned about traffic at carrier volume, upstream peering, or a mitigation that must not drop legitimate subscriber traffic. We ask about the largest environment someone has actually operated in, and what changed about their approach because of it.
Operators also hire from an adjacent pool. Strong network engineers with real security interest often outperform enterprise security candidates here, and we present that profile deliberately rather than apologetically.
The market, honestly
South African operators run some of the largest and most mature security functions in the country, and several also sell managed security to enterprise clients, which means they hire both in-house and delivery-side. That depth makes the mid-level market reasonable and the specialist market — core, signalling, DDoS at scale — very thin.
In the UK, operator and ISP hiring is steady and increasingly shaped by telecoms security regulation, with resilience and supply chain requirements pulling in governance as well as engineering candidates. Competition for carrier-experienced engineers is limited but the pool is correspondingly small.
Core and signalling security is a handful of people per market. If that is the brief, plan an approach-led search over months rather than an advert over weeks.
Where we recruit
Cape Town and Johannesburg across South Africa, and London and the wider United Kingdom.
Common questions
Do you recruit for ISPs as well as mobile operators?
Yes, along with fibre network operators, data centre providers and satellite operators. The engineering problems overlap heavily.
Are network engineers suitable for these security roles?
Frequently the best fit. Carrier-scale intuition is harder to teach than security fundamentals, and we are explicit with clients when we are presenting that background.
Do you place fraud and revenue assurance roles?
Yes, where they sit alongside security. SIM swap, subscriber fraud and account takeover are hired with security more often than not in this sector.
What about core and signalling security specialists?
We recruit them, and we set expectations accordingly. The pool is very small in both markets and these searches are relational and slow by nature.
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Talk to us about your search
A short conversation is usually enough to tell you whether we can help.