At GCHQ, MI5 and SIS, we protect the UK from threats including terrorism, espionage and serious crime. Whilst we all have slightly different specialisms, one thing remains the same – the vitally important work our Language Analysts do.

Your linguistic skills, cultural expertise and IT knowledge could open up a fascinating role in UK Intelligence as a Language Analyst. Your role will go well beyond translation and transcription, it takes knowledge of the culture, history, politics, ideology and country itself to fully understand the original material. It’s incredibly challenging and rewarding work, where you’ll translate unique material and provide intelligence insights. Applying your unique skills and opinion will help us to tell the whole story and enable the right operational decisions to help safeguard national security.

At GCHQ, MI5 and SIS diversity and inclusion are critical to our mission. To protect the UK, we need a truly diverse workforce that reflects the society we serve. This includes diversity in every sense of the word: those with different backgrounds, ethnicities, gender identities, sexual orientations, ways of thinking and those with disabilities or neurodiverse conditions. We therefore welcome and encourage applications from everyone, including those from groups that are under-represented in our workforce.

THE ROLES

The Intelligence agencies are looking to recruit part-time linguists on a contractual basis to use Eastern European Languages, including Russian. The role would require you to work on an ‘as and when required’ basis and would ideally complement a portfolio of other employment. You’ll combine language, technical and analytical skills to produce intelligence to help keep the UK and its citizens safe and secure from external threats. The threats facing the UK come in a variety of languages, so you’ll use your deep knowledge of specific languages to piece together snippets of information collected from a variety of digital communications sources. The role requires you to be IT literate and able to work with a variety of IT systems and packages. You’ll be responding to changing world events and using your cultural expertise to provide valuable insights to colleagues and seniors.

The role will include some of following elements:

• Using your language and cultural knowledge to produce summaries and/or transcriptions or translations into English of material assessed as being of intelligence value, some of which might be highly technical or specialist in nature;

• Applying your interest in technology, the internet and online behaviour to achieve real-world results;

• Producing good written English language reports, using various IT tools;

 
Our flexible working policy ensures a healthy work-life balance. Wherever possible, we accommodate hours in line with other work commitments, but this is balanced against business needs.


REQUIREMENTS

We’re looking for talented, flexible and committed individuals from a diverse range of backgrounds who bring with them the breadth of skills and experience that we require. An in-depth knowledge and understanding of a variety of communities and languages isn’t just an advantage, it is crucial for our work.

You’ll need linguist ability of a very high order to carry out the duties of transcription, translation, analysis and research, and we’d love to hear from you if you have native or heritage speaker capability in the following languages:

• Albanian
• Romanian
• Bulgarian
• Lithuanian
• Greek
• Russian

No formal qualification in these languages is required, but you must have the ability to write in clear, fluent English and have a good understanding of the language you are applying for.

Whether you have developed your language skills at home as you were growing up, whilst living or working abroad or through academic study, you will have a genuine passion for languages. You’ll thrive on the challenge of applying your language skills in this environment.  To ensure you pass our language tests, you will need to be able to comfortably read newspaper articles, understand news broadcasts in the language and you’ll be able to translate from the language into clear, well drafted English.

SALARY
£32.00 per hour, plus travel costs

LOCATION
London/Manchester

Before you apply
To join, you need to be a British citizen. We have a strict drugs policy, so once you start your application, you can’t take any recreational drugs and you’ll need to declare any previous drug usage at the relevant stage.

Giving misleading information and omitting or concealing information during the recruitment and vetting process is viewed very seriously.

Due to the sensitive nature of our work, you’ll need to be discreet, and you should not discuss your application, other than with your partner or a close family member. But don’t worry - while you can’t tell your friends what you do, you can continue to use social media and lead a completely normal life.

Eligibility

To be eligible to apply, you must be a British Citizen and be at least 18 years of age. Candidates must normally have been resident in the UK for four out of the last five years. This is particularly important if you were born outside the UK. Each case will be carefully considered on its own facts.
 
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. 


RECRUITMENT PROCESS

Our recruitment process is outlined below (in order):

• Eligibility Questions & Initial Form: If you wish to apply for these roles, the first thing we will ask you to do is complete our pre-screening questions to see if you meet our initial eligibility criteria of nationality, residence and security. If you do, we will then ask you to complete an online application form.

• Full Application Form: As well as basic biographical details and your education & employment history to date, you will need to provide details of your language skills and to what standard you can speak, read and write these languages. You will also be asked about your interest in the language and culture, and what appeals to you about using your language skill in your work. We will sift through the applications and invite of number of you to language testing and interview.

• Language Test and Interview: You will undertake written and audio tests in your chosen language, with the emphasis being on translation and transcription into good, clear English. On the same day you will undergo a short interview where we will be assessing you on our core competencies and exploring your suitability and motivation for wanting to work with the intelligence agencies. Our core competencies include:
  - Working with others
  - Planning and delivery
  - Communicating and influencing
  - Problem solving and judgement
  - Learning and change.

Language Testing and interviews are likely to take place from 21st -31st March 2022, to please keep these dates free.

• Vetting. To work in this role, you will need a certain level of security clearance, known as SC+. It’s something everyone in the UK Intelligence Community has to go through and it can take some time. As part of this process, you will be asked to fill in a detailed questionnaire and attend an interview with a vetting officer. In your interview the vetting officer will have a thorough, compassionate and honest discussion with you about you as a person and your life experiences, to ensure holding an SC+ (or in some cases a higher level DV) clearance is right for you. You don’t need to do any preparation for your vetting interview, just be honest and be yourself. All applicants who go through Vetting are treated impartially and consistently, irrespective of gender, race, disability, religion, age, sexual orientation and other protected characteristics.

• Join the team. Once you’ve completed the vetting process successfully, which can take up to 6 months, you’ll be given your final offer to join us.

We regret that we are unable to provide feedback to unsuccessful candidates.

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