Applying for Jobs

Applying for Jobs

Am I eligible?

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Origin

Nationality

You must be a British citizen to be eligible to apply. 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.

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Age

18 or over

You can apply from the age of 17 years. If successful you will not be offered a start date prior to your 18th birthday.

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Living situation

UK resident

You’ll usually need to have been a resident in the UK for seven out of the last ten years before applying for a role with MI5. This is particularly important if you were born outside the UK. But we do assess each case individually. There are some common exceptions, like studying abroad, living overseas with parents, or serving with HM Forces. We’ll just need references for the time you lived abroad.

Discretion is vital. You should not discuss your application, other than with your partner or a close family member.

You should only launch your application from within the UK. Applying from outside of the UK will impact on our ability to progress your application.

Security best practice

Before you apply, we advise you to consider setting up a separate email address for your contact with us, to ensure your personal and application correspondence remain separate. Try to avoid having identifying features in your email address, such as your first and/or surname and date of birth. This is good practice and will help you to manage your application with us more discretely. 

MI5 ready quizzes

Why not test your skills to see if you could join MI5 in one of our investigative roles?

Mobile Surveillance

We have developed some tasks that reflect the nature of the work of our Mobile Surveillance Officers to enable you to assess your suitability for the role. Take this challenge to check your observation skills and ability to recall detail.

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Investigative Challenge

We have developed a challenge to help you to assess your use of information and analytical skills. The investigative challenge has been designed to give you a greater understanding of whether you would enjoy and be well-suited to the MI5 Intelligence Officer role. Although this isn’t a required part of the recruitment process, we strongly encourage you to complete the task as it will help you to assess some of your skills in relation to the job.

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Are you MI5 ready?

This quiz will give you some indication of MI5's values and culture and how well they match with you.

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Listening Quiz

Take this quiz, which reflects the nature of the work of our English Language Analysts, to check your listening skills and ability to recall detail, and to assess your suitability for the role.

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