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OT, ICS & IOT SECURITY
OT, ICS and IoT security recruitment
OT security hiring fails when it is treated as IT security applied to factories. Plants have safety systems, maintenance windows measured in years and engineers who have run them for two decades. The hire has to be credible with those engineers before any control gets implemented.
What we place
- OT SECURITY ENGINEER
- Segmentation, monitoring and hardening in plant environments, working within maintenance windows and change control.
- ICS SECURITY SPECIALIST
- SCADA, DCS and PLC environments. Understands why the safety instrumented system is not in scope for patching.
- OT SECURITY ARCHITECT
- Purdue-aligned reference design, IT/OT boundary architecture and multi-site programme standards.
- OT MONITORING & DETECTION
- Passive asset discovery and detection with tooling such as Nozomi, Claroty or Dragos, and integration with the corporate SOC.
- IEC 62443 / COMPLIANCE
- Assessment against IEC 62443 and NIS2 industrial expectations, and the remediation roadmap that follows.
- IOT & PRODUCT SECURITY
- Connected product security for device manufacturers: firmware, provisioning, update paths and lifecycle.
How we screen
We ask whether a candidate has been on a plant floor, and what changed in their thinking afterwards. The answer distinguishes engineers who understand availability and safety constraints from IT security professionals who will propose an agent rollout on a control network in week two.
We look for one of two credible profiles: a controls or automation engineer who has moved into security, or a security engineer with real plant delivery experience. Both work. What rarely works is enterprise IT security with an industrial certification and no site time.
The market, honestly
South Africa has genuine demand and unusually relevant industry: mining, energy, water, manufacturing and rail all run large industrial estates, and Gauteng in particular generates most of our OT briefs. The candidate pool is small and largely known, so these searches are relational and often slower.
In the UK, regulatory pressure on operators of essential services drives steady hiring, and site-based or heavily travel-based roles narrow the field further. Rotational and residential roles need to be scoped honestly at the briefing.
A five-day-a-week office OT security role covering multiple sites is not a real job description. Travel expectation is the single most common reason these placements fall over.
Where we recruit
Cape Town and Johannesburg across South Africa, and London and the wider United Kingdom.
Common questions
Do you recruit OT security specialists in South Africa?
Yes, and it is a meaningful part of our work. Mining, energy, manufacturing and telecoms all run substantial industrial estates, with most demand concentrated in Gauteng and at operational sites.
Can an IT security engineer move into OT?
Sometimes, with plant exposure and a mentor. The constraint is not knowledge, it is credibility with control engineers. We are candid with clients about which profile we are presenting.
Does IEC 62443 certification matter?
It helps candidates communicate with engineering and assessment stakeholders, and it is often specified in regulated sectors. Site delivery experience matters more.
Do you place IoT and connected product security engineers?
Yes, mostly for device manufacturers and product companies. It is closer to product security than to plant security: firmware, provisioning and update integrity rather than segmentation.
Related disciplines
Talk to us about your search
A short conversation is usually enough to tell you whether we can help.