Copilot will find every file your permissions forgot. Hire the architect before it does.
FERG Search is a specialist recruiter for Microsoft security architects and engineers in Australia and New Zealand, permanent and contract: Microsoft Entra, Defender, Purview, Sentinel and Intune specialists, and the architects who make Copilot and AI agents safe to switch on. Every search is run by the founder, Fintan Ferguson.
Copilot answers from whatever a user can already open. In many tenants that includes years of overshared sites and files nobody remembers creating, and an agent that acts on that data can do more than read it. The security architects we place have cleaned up a tenant before a rollout, not after the first awkward answer.
First shortlist within 48 hours of an agreed brief.
The people who make AI safe to switch on.
- Microsoft security architects across Entra, Defender, Purview and Sentinel.
- Identity architects and engineers: Microsoft Entra, conditional access and privileged access.
- Data security and compliance specialists on Microsoft Purview.
- Security operations engineers on Microsoft Sentinel and Defender XDR.
- Azure cloud security engineers, and security leads for Copilot and agent rollouts.
Checked technically and commercially, before you meet them.
- The tenant they secured, and what they found before Copilot went live.
- How they handle identity for agents, not only for people.
- The Purview labels and policies they set, and how the business took them.
- The incident they ran, and what changed afterwards.
What the seat pays.
Security briefs stall when the seat is budgeted as an engineer who keeps the lights on and the job is designing the controls for AI.
Microsoft security bands are not in the first edition of the FERG Search Salary Guide. Until then, ask: we will give you the band we are seeing accepted, declined and countered for the seat you are briefing.
Agents are users now. They need an identity.
Microsoft now gives agents their own identities in Entra and a control plane in Agent 365, so the question of what an agent is allowed to do has moved into the security team. The architects who understand both identity and AI are a small group in Australia and New Zealand, and Microsoft partners and the businesses that run Microsoft want the same people.
Straight answers on Microsoft security architects.
Who recruits Microsoft security architects in Australia and New Zealand?
FERG Search recruits Microsoft security architects and engineers across Entra, Defender, Purview, Sentinel and Intune for Microsoft partners and end users across Australia and New Zealand, permanent and contract. The founder, Fintan Ferguson, runs every search from Melbourne.
What does a security architect need to do before a Copilot rollout?
Find and fix oversharing, set sensitivity labels and data loss prevention in Purview, tighten conditional access in Entra, and decide how agents will be identified and monitored. Copilot does not create new access. It makes existing access visible.
Is Microsoft security a separate hire from AI governance?
Usually, yes. The security architect owns the controls: identity, data protection and monitoring. The AI governance lead owns the decisions: which uses are allowed, how they are reviewed and who signs them off. Small teams combine the two. Once several agents are live, they split.
Do you place Microsoft security contractors?
Yes, permanent and contract. A clean-up before a Copilot rollout suits contract. The seat that owns identity and data protection afterwards is a permanent seat.
Brief a Microsoft security role.
Tell us what Copilot or the agent will be able to see, and who has checked.