Business Relationship Manager - GCHQ

Flexible Working: We support full-time, part-time, and flexible hours in Cheltenham and London, with a mix of office and remote working dependent on business need (generally a 60% office 40% home-working split).

About Us 

At GCHQ, we unlock the complex world of data and communications to keep the UK and its citizens safe, both in the real world and online. Working closely with our British Intelligence partners in MI5 and MI6, we protect the UK from threats including serious organised crime, terrorism, and cyber-attacks. A role in GCHQ means you’ll have varied and fascinating work in a supportive and encouraging environment that puts the emphasis on teamwork.

The Role 

As a Business Relationship Manager, you’ll be working across all three intelligence agencies to build relationships with customers and ensure our services are meeting the needs of our mission and business areas. 

You’ll be helping us to answer questions like: who are our customers and what are their needs? What does “good” look like to them? Are there risks in our ability to deliver? How could we mitigate these?

This role is essential to our ability to deliver an excellent user experience to our customers. You’ll be the point of contact for both internal departments and other teams in the intelligence agencies, capturing business requirements, feeding insight back to our technical teams, and helping ensure the smooth running of our services. You’ll be the escalation point for issues, liaising during incidents and ensuring all relevant details are captured and prioritised.

You’ll also hold service review meetings, working closely with third-party suppliers, business stakeholders, and business relationship managers to drive quality and improvement. Seeking the best solutions for small to medium-sized business problems, you’ll be making a vital contribution to UK security, as you work across design and delivery of our strategic programmes and initiatives. 

It’s fascinating and challenging work, which varies depending on the grade you’re offered. As a Business Relationship Manager, you’ll take on smaller projects, bringing your strategic mindset and IT knowledge to the team. As a Senior Business Relationship Manager, you’ll work on larger projects, managing a team alongside identifying and understanding customer business outcomes, and translating these into senior-level reporting.

About You

You’ll have experience in a service delivery environment as an IT Manager or a Major Incident Manager, working in business relationship or supplier management. You’ll understand, or have qualifications in, Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL), plus experience working in an IT environment and an interest in problem resolution and change management within this context. 

An ability to manage professional relationships, handle escalations from customers and experience of working with technical teams to resolve issues, you’ll be comfortable communicating with lots of different audiences: both verbally and in writing. You’ll handle professional relationships with tact and sensitivity, working well with others as you make evidence-based decisions for the team.

You’ll have experience producing reports for senior stakeholders, translating business requirements into technical requirements, and identifying opportunities for service improvement. Although not essential, it would be beneficial to have experience of working within a matrix management environment, chairing meetings, and translating technical jargon into a customer-friendly format, alongside knowledge of IT services and their infrastructure. 

We’re keen to hear from people who can understand a technical service, review processes, and implement improvements, but it’s more important to be enthusiastic about new IT technologies and comfortable handling competing demands.

Training and Development

When you start, you’ll receive a welcome pack that provides a structured induction, including key contacts, useful links, HR, and team processes, alongside a section of recommended courses to attend. The pack allows you to record any objectives, which are discussed regularly during one-to-one meetings to support your development. You’ll also benefit from a buddy scheme and plenty of staff affinity groups to help you settle in.

There’s a huge range of opportunities to develop in this role, including the option to gain qualifications in Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL), Business Relationship Management Professional (BRMP), Kepner-Tregoe (KT), and Amazon Web Services (AWS) Fundamentals. 

Training and workshops are available too, which cover a range of areas from building rapport and trust, accessibility, business analysis, and stakeholder engagement to communicating and presenting with impact, leadership, and training related to equality, diversity, and inclusion. 

We’re committed to developing our staff, but we know this will look different for everyone. That’s why there’ll be lots of tailored training, coaching, and mentoring, as we work with you to build the skills you need to excel in your role, and throughout your career. 

Rewards and Benefits

You’ll receive a starting salary of between £36,836 - £45,676, plus other benefits including:

• 25 days Annual Leave automatically rising to 30 days after 5 years' service, and an additional 10.5 days public and privilege holidays
• Opportunities to be recognised through our employee performance scheme
• Interest-free season ticket loan (parking and travel)
• Excellent pension scheme
• Cycle to work scheme
• Facilities such as a gym and restaurant, and on-site coffee bars (at some locations)
• Paid parental and adoption leave

Equal Opportunities

At GCHQ 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, ages, ethnicities, gender identities, sexual orientations, ways of thinking and those with disabilities or neurodivergent conditions. We therefore welcome and encourage applications from everyone, including those from groups that are under-represented in our workforce such as women, those from an ethnic minority background, people with disabilities and those from low socio-economic backgrounds.

Find out more about our culture, working environment and diversity on our website:

https://www.gchq-careers.co.uk/life-at-gchq.html

We’re Disability Confident

GCHQ are proud to have achieved Leader status within the DWP’s Disability Confident scheme. This is aimed at encouraging employers to think differently about disability and take action to improve how they recruit, retain, and develop disabled people. Being Disability Confident, we aim to offer a person-to-person interview to any candidate who self-identifies as disabled and meets the essential criteria for the role. This is our ‘Offer of Interview’ (OOI). To secure an interview for this vacancy, the essential criteria (in order of application process) are: 

• Able to demonstrate a confident approach towards managing and building business relationships.

What to Expect

Our recruitment process is fair, transparent, and based on merit. Here is a brief overview of each stage, in order:

• Paper sift – you are advised to make full use of the word allowance for each question
• Interview
• Drugs Test
• Vetting Interview

Please note, you must successfully pass each stage of the process to progress to the next. Your application may take around 6 - 9 months to process including vetting, so we advise you continue any current employment until you have received your final job offer.

Before You Apply

To work at GCHQ, you need to be a British citizen or hold dual British nationality. You can read our full eligibility criteria here.

This role requires the highest security clearance, known as Developed Vetting (DV). It’s something everyone in the UK Intelligence Community undertakes. You can find out more about the vetting process here.

Please note 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 your previous drug usage at the relevant stage.

The role is based in London or Cheltenham, so you’ll need to live within a commutable distance. Please consider any financial implications and practicalities before submitting an application, as we do not offer relocation costs.

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 the UK will impact on our ability to progress your application. You should not discuss your application, other than with your partner or a close family member. 

Right to Withdraw Statement: 
Please be aware that we reserve 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.

When you are ready to apply for the role, return to the previous page, and click the submit button at the bottom of the page to start your application. You'll be able to select the role you want to apply for in the application form.