Senior Software Assurance Consultant - Brimpton (Berkshire) - Outside IR35 - 5 days

Software Assurance & Governance Consultant Brimpton (Berkshire) Outside IR35 £550pd

Start Date: ASAP

Location: Brimpton, Berkshire (Onsite)

IR35: Outside

Rate: £550pd

Duration: 1 Week Initial Engagement

The Candidate

Our client is seeking an experienced, independent specialist to carry out a one-week review of their software development and release pipeline. The purpose is to provide objective assurance that their controls for protecting confidential data particularly the separation of data between different customers of a multi-tenant application are operating effectively and reflect current good practice. The reviewer must be genuinely independent: with no prior involvement in the systems under review and no ongoing relationship with the delivery team.

Key Responsibilities

• Assess the end-to-end pipeline: test planning, code review, automated testing in CI/CD, and release sign-off gates.
• Verify hands-on that automated controls work as intended including automated/AI-assisted code review and automated regression tests rather than reviewing documentation alone. This includes confirming that the test suite detects a deliberately re-introduced fault.
• Judge whether controls are genuinely effective or have become nominal through familiarity, and identify gaps a fresh outside perspective would surface.
• Report prioritised findings and recommendations to senior stakeholders.

Essential Skills & Experience

• Secure software development background, with the ability to read a code diff and reason about the security consequences of changes including the silent removal of access-control or permission logic.
• Strong SQL Server/T-SQL and experience with database unit-testing frameworks (eg tSQLt), sufficient to run or witness a fault-injection test.
• Understanding of multi-tenant/customer data-segregation architecture and its failure modes.
• Experience assessing CI/CD pipelines, release gating, and DevOps work-item traceability.
• Understanding of Claude AI within development workflows.
• A track record of independent process or control-effectiveness assurance reviews and clear reporting to senior audiences.

Desirable

• Financial services or other regulated, data-sensitive sector experience. A recognised assurance or security credential (eg CISA, CISSP, Crest) or equivalent demonstrable experience.
• Implementation of ISO standards

Deliverables

• A written report with prioritised findings and recommendations, critical items clearly distinguished.
• Explicit confirmation of the outcome of the hands-on verification of the automated controls.