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A one-off Recruitment Bonus of up to £2000 may be payable on joining, subject to assessment of skills at interview. Skills will be assessed at interview and if applicable a skills payment of up to £4,420-£8,840 may be paid in addition to the above. Skills payments are subject to periodic review.

Hours: We offer compressed and part-time hours, and depending on business needs are remote-working friendly.

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

In this extremely varied role you could sometimes be working in a small team of infrastructure specialists and engineers solving specific challenges, and at other times be part of a larger group focused on bigger problems. Whoever you’re working with, you’ll be supporting, maintaining and developing new capabilities and infrastructure solutions that underpin all our internal user services. These range from hardware to innovative technology and the Cloud, and in addition to supporting detailed design activities, you’ll work on a range of unique projects in an ever-changing environment.

Day-to-day, you could be focusing on Cloud computing, networks, operating systems, applications, databases, data transfer, cyber security, identity management or project discovery. Working with external industry partners as well as our own IT teams and partners from other security agencies, we’ll expect you to use all your skills as you develop Cloud native technologies, deploy applications and provision infrastructure. You’ll also assist with our drive to automate ‘infrastructure as code’ techniques and technology, and identify the innovations that will shape the way we work.

About You

Enthusiastic and motivated, and with the desire to stay on top of technology and learn new skills, you’ll be good at prioritising and remaining focused under challenging circumstances. Capable of adapting to change and reprioritising your work in a changing environment, you’ll have a strong customer focus and be ready to communicate clearly to share your knowledge and insights with a range of stakeholders. You’ll be able to analyse problems and develop creative solutions and have experience of working collaboratively as part of a team.

We work with a number of key technologies: Cloud services including IaaS, PaaS, SaaS, Cloud native CI/CD workflows and tools such as Jenkins, Concourse, Bamboo and Code Deploy (AWS), and programming, scripting languages and automation including Powershell, Python, Ruby and goLang. We also work with Physical, Virtual and Cloud and Container-based infrastructure – VMWare and AWS, operating systems such as Linux, Windows, macOS and iOS, WAN/LAN technologies and authentication and authorisation such as OpenID Connect. Infrastructure Engineers could be working with some of these technologies, but you don’t need to be familiar with all of them as we’ll offer you all the training and support you’ll need. Our Specialist Engineers should have worked with some of these technologies already, and have knowledge, understanding and experience of the practical application of the skills required to be an expert in one or more of them.

Training and Development

We offer a full training package tailored to your needs. This could be in the form of structured external training, bespoke internal training courses or self-guided learning. You’ll be encouraged and supported to pursue training to suit your needs and role throughout your career, and we’ll even cover the cost of your training. Examples include ISC2 CISSP, AWS Solution Architect, CISCO CCNA and CCIE. Along the way, you’ll also obtain the evidence needed to apply for professional registration with the IET or BCS. You’ll be offered opportunities to attend relevant supplier conferences where this adds value to the business and to your own development.

We also have an internal mentoring scheme where you’ll be paired up with mentors for both technical and personal development. There are opportunities to join internal, informal groups for wider knowledge exchange and for mutual support. In the future, you’ll have opportunities to develop and expand your career which could include moving to different career steams, other security agencies, or may include opportunities to work abroad.

Rewards and Benefits

• 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
• Excellent pension scheme
• Cycle to work scheme
• Facilities such as a gym, 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/diversity-inclusion.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, assessed at application sift (in order of application process) are:

Entry Level Roles

• Able to demonstrate a passion for IT – either by work experience or extra-curricular learning.
• Able to demonstrate a keen interest in new and emerging technologies
• Comfortable working independently as well as within a team.

Senior Level Roles

• Evidence of professional working experience, applying technical knowledge for business impact. This may be in several technical roles or over a prolonged period of time’
• Comfortable working either independently or leading a team of Infrastructure professionals.
• Passionate about continuous improvement, learning and investing in yourself. You keep your own knowledge of new and emerging technologies under review.
• Able to work unsupervised within guidelines and able to supervise and give guidance to others.

Principal Level Roles

• Demonstrate an ability to solve complex problems and build solutions
• Examples of leading architecture work, design and development of large-scale infrastructure
• Strong understanding of information risk principles and secure design
• An ability to collaborate with others of different technical skillsets and experience levels.

What to Expect

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

• Application sift
• Online Interview including informal presentation (estimate interviews to start W.C 5th June)
• If successful, you will receive a conditional offer of employment

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 to 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 roles are based in London, Cheltenham, Scarborough, Bude or Manchester, 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 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.