Technology sits at the heart of everything we do at MI5, enabling us to disrupt serious threats to UK national security. We're currently looking for students who want to learn from experienced business analysts working within our pioneering technology department, working on a project for an 11-week summer placement.

Our Teams

We build products and make process improvements that provide capability aligned to our full range of MI5 business areas. Our multi-disciplinary teams are made up of business analysts who will work alongside product owners, software engineers and agile delivery colleagues to ensure MI5 business areas get the solution they need.  
We have a strong graduate programme that place more junior staff alongside experienced business analysts to support their development.
 
The Role — Business Analyst

In Business Analysis, you will help build the technology that MI5 needs to keep the country safe today and tomorrow.  To achieve this, we connect the customer (e.g. investigators) with the technologists in order to build tools that solve problems.  You will work with MI5’s business areas to understand their challenges and requirements for new software to improve MI5’s capabilities, effectiveness or efficiency. While gathering requirements, you will help design processes with the user at the centre, commission new software or make changes to existing tools to deliver the improvements you’ve identified.  You’ll work closely with agile delivery teams to explain the problems and ensure the solution created is suitable and effective by directing their work, designing user interfaces and organising testing.  You will work closely with business areas to ensure their readiness for the change.  By the end of your placement the output of your work could already be in use by our staff working on national security investigations.
 
Key Responsibilities:

• Engage with customer groups of varying seniority to understand the business problem, elicit detailed requirements, gain their views on the solution designed and complete user acceptance testing.
• Elaborate requirements using a variety of techniques and tools e.g write documents/packs, process flows, user stories, user journeys to communicate technical concepts amongst the agile delivery team.
• Liaise with software engineers and agile delivery colleagues and expert partners to communicate the customers’ requirements, design a solution and verify that the solution solves the business problem.
• Enhance your technical skills during the internship by learning from our talented cadre of permanent staff.
• Gain experience working in larger teams and in a wider engineering department.
 
The Person:

For success in this role, you'll be expecting to achieve by Autumn 2022, at least a 2:2 in your degree. No prior experience in business analysis is required, but a desire to solve problems, a logical approach, great communication skills (verbally and in writing) and a technical aptitude are all essential.  We’ll teach you the rest.

Eligibility Criteria

To be eligible to apply, you must be a British Citizen. One of your parents must be a British Citizen or must have one of the nationalities or citizenships from one of the following: British Overseas territory, British subject, British National (Overseas), British protected person, citizenship of the Commonwealth, EEA nationality, or citizenship of the United States of America. If deceased, have had such citizenship or nationality before death. If you hold dual nationality, of which one component is British, you will nonetheless be considered. If successful, you will not normally be required to give up your non-British citizenship but, as a condition of your employment or secondment, MI5 may impose restrictions on your postings, work travel and/or general use of that nationality. Candidates must normally have been resident in the UK for seven out of the last ten years. This is particularly important if you were born outside the UK. Each case will be carefully considered on its own facts. You can apply at the age of 17 years and 6 months, if successful you will not be offered a start date prior to your 18th birthday. Discretion is vital. You should not discuss your application, other than with your partner or a close family member. Please note, you should only launch your application from within the UK. If you are based overseas, you should wait until you visit the UK to launch an application. Applying from outside of the UK will impact on our ability to progress your application. Further information on our eligibility criteria can be found on the Applying section.

Recruitment Process

Please ensure you follow all our guidance, read about our vetting process and check you meet our eligibility criteria before you apply. If you omit, conceal or offer misleading information during the recruitment process, we’ll view it very seriously.

If you meet our initial criteria after completing our pre-screening questions you’ll begin your application by creating a personal account. You’ll set up a login with your full name, email address and a memorable password. Then you’ll complete an initial registration form, including contact details and equal opportunities monitoring information.

You’ll then complete the online application form. If you’re successful, you may also be asked to take an online Codility test dependant on the role you’ve applied for. If you pass these, we’ll invite you to an assessment centre, which will involve both competency and technical interviews. Succeed at the assessment centre and we’ll invite you to a security interview with a vetting officer.

Please note applicants will be required to come to London to attend our recruitment assessment centres which will take place between November 2020 and December 2020 and a separate security interview with our vetting officers.

Offer of Interview (OOI)

As part of our commitment to the ‘Disability Confident’ scheme we offer an interview to all candidates with a disability who meet the minimum criteria for the job vacancy that they are applying for.  This is known as the Offer of Interview (OOI).

Along with the standard eligibility requirements for this post, your application will be assessed on how far you meet the job requirements. Your application must score the minimum amount of points set.  On successful completion of this stage, you will be invited to interview.  This will normally be a telephone interview and is our offer of interview’

Confidentiality

Discretion is vital. You should only discuss your application with either your partner or a close family member.

Equal Opportunities

The UK Intelligence Agencies are Equal Opportunities employers, committed to reflecting the society we protect.  Our recruitment process is fair, transparent and based on merit. We are particularly welcome applications from Black, Asian and minority ethnic candidates.

Please be aware that we withhold the right to being forward the closing date for this role from the original closing date once a certain number of applications have been received. Please be mindful on this and submit your application at your earliest convenience to avoid disappointment.

To apply please click here.