Security Officer

About this role

Manchester

Job Summary

As one of our Security Officers, you’ll be the first point of contact for visitors and staff entering our buildings. Working in a close-knit, supportive team, you’ll anticipate and reduce security risks, making sure our building and everyone in it stays safe.

You may be working in our Security Control Room, monitoring CCTV, or overseeing access to the building, or you could be carrying out physical searches or patrolling the grounds. Whether you’re responding to an alarm, giving first aid, or helping a visitor understand security procedures, you’ll always follow our policies carefully and keep clear, accurate incident logs.

In this role, your calm, friendly presence will be invaluable. Each day, you’ll greet people from all walks of life, including government officials and colleagues from our partner agencies, and guide them through any security processes they need to know. As the first person they meet at GCHQ, you’ll make a great first impression while completing the necessary checks and staying alert to anything unusual.

Job Description

You’ll be joining a team that’s as supportive as it is experienced. As you learn from your colleagues and develop your skills, you’ll have plenty of opportunities to grow. With the chance to work with MI5 and MI6, as well as other security teams throughout GCHQ, this could be the beginning of an exciting career within the UK Intelligence Agencies.

You’ll be joining a team that’s as supportive as it is experienced. As you learn from your colleagues and develop your skills, you’ll have plenty of opportunities to grow. With the chance to work with MI5 and MI6, as well as other security teams throughout GCHQ, this could be the beginning of an exciting career within the UK Intelligence Agencies.

Person specification

You’re motivated, proactive, and quick to spot problems before they emerge. Your strong situational awareness means you’re confident in responding to changing situations and making sound decisions under pressure. Along with your friendly manner and people skills, you’re also someone who communicates clearly and enjoys working with others.

You may already have experience in the security industry or come from a military, police, prison service, or other protective services background. Equally, you could have developed strong customer service or public-facing skills in another role. Whatever your background, you’ll bring a can-do attitude and a desire to contribute to vital work.

To Apply, You’ll Need

• security or customer service experience, as you’ll interact daily with visitors, colleagues and partner agencies
• an English Language GCSE at grade C/4 or above, or equivalent experience, which has developed your written and verbal communication skills
• basic IT and Microsoft Office skills to support your incident logging
• the ability to reliably commute for your assigned shift times

You don’t need a high level of fitness for this role, but there are some physical aspects to be aware of. You’ll need to be comfortable operating heavy doors, using stairs or lifts, and carrying out physical search and screening duties, which may include lifting or moving bags and equipment. Foot patrols will take you indoors and outdoors, sometimes over uneven ground and in all weather conditions.

This is a role where you’ll grow and develop over time. Ideally you will be someone looking for a career in security. You’ll be expected to remain within the security team for 18 months, but during that period, you can apply for a promotion or explore other roles within the team, subject to readiness and your line manager’s endorsement.

Training and development

From the moment you join us, you’ll be trained on everything you need to know to be an effective Security Officer at GCHQ. This will include Security Industry Authority (SIA) certifications and emergency first aid, along with a 1–2-week induction with the security team prior to starting your shift pattern. You’ll also be assigned a buddy on shift to support you as you get settled in.

You’ll receive a starting salary of £31,878 to £37,338, depending on role, including shift allowances 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
• an interest-free season ticket loan (travel and parking)
• an excellent pension scheme
• a cycle to work scheme
• facilities such as a gym, restaurant, and on-site coffee bars (at some locations)
• paid parental and adoption leave.

Artificial intelligence

Artificial intelligence can be a useful tool to support your application, however, all examples and statements provided must be truthful, factually accurate and taken directly from your own experience. Where plagiarism has been identified (presenting the ideas and experiences of others, or generated by artificial intelligence, as your own) applications may be withdrawn and internal candidates may be subject to disciplinary action. Please see our candidate guidance (opens in a new window) for more information on appropriate and inappropriate use.

Selection process details

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: Equality, diversity & inclusion , GCHQ

We’re Disability Confident

About

GCHQ is proud to have achieved Leader status within the Department for Work and Pensions' 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. As a Disability Confident Leader, we aim to ensure that a fair and proportionate number of disabled applicants who best meet the essential minimum criteria for this position, will be offered an interview, if it is practical for us to do so. (This is known as the Offer of an Interview.) To secure an interview for this role, the minimum criteria (in order of application process) are:

• You'll be required to reach the minimum pass mark for the online Situational Judgement Test (SJT), which assesses criteria important for all roles in our organisation.
• You will be required to reach the minimum pass mark set for the role specific Situational Judgement Test.

In addition, we encourage you to review the Physical Requirements section of the role carefully and consider whether you can meet the expectations outlined.

There is a wide range of extra support available throughout the recruitment process to enable you to do your best, see our website for information on reasonable adjustments we can offer.

What To Expect

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

• An initial online application form including pre-screening questions to ensure you meet our eligibility criteria.
• Online Situational Judgement Test (SJT) in which you rate the appropriateness of responses to a series of short scenarios.
• Full Application form.
• Application sift – looking at your motivation for the role and the organisation.
• Virtual interview.
• If successful, you will receive a conditional offer of employment, subject to vetting.