Jobs with MOD/GCHQ etc.

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Hi All.
Am looking for a career change. Currently work in finance as an insight manager, so working with massive databases, on SQL, SAS, VB etc to get data out, and providing reporting, insight and analysis to the top of the company and external organisations etc.

It pays well, but being finance can never be all that interesting, or meaningful.

Have always liked the idea of doing a similar thing for the MOD, or GCHQ or someone like this. Something meaningful that actually benefits society.
However, haven't been able to find a decent jobs portal for this type of job, other than the generic graduate schemes etc, and given that I am a very experienced senior manager, was not really wanting to start off again at the bottom!

Does anyone work in this sector, or know of the approach to it?

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0000 said:

https://www.gchq-careers.co.uk/

Thanks 0s

I had looked on this, and took these to be the entry/low level vacancies.

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ewenm said:

The MOD recruitment process is massively biased to internal advancement. Every vacancy needs huge justification to go out to the open market and most don't get there.

In my experience the MOD desperately need some decent technical IT managers but the impetus to recruit from other industries is low. If you want to work in analytics with the MOD (or the NHS as another large organisation awash with data but struggling for meaningful information) I'd suggest doing it via a consultancy organisation rather than as an employee.

Edit: The CS Jobs portal is where all the jobs are advertised but as I say, many never make it to the open market: https://www.civilservicejobs.service.gov.uk/csr/in...

thanks for that. will have a look to see if I can work out which consultancies those are then. I assume there are a handful of preferred ones. I work with quite a few contractors, so will ask if they have any visibility of other opportunities like this. They prob look a this sort of work as not being well paid enough

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98elise said:

eliot said:

Posting this thread will probably exclude you from anything interesting so to speak.

I was thinking exactly the same thing. The last thing GCHQ would be looking for is someone advertising that want to work at GCHQ with access to data.

Good morning GCHQ

well guys I am absolutely going to blow your minds now...

https://www.linkedin.com/vsearch/f?type=all&ke...

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Jakg said:

If your looking at the analysis side, even at a management level, bear in mind the police also do something similar (civilian staff, not officers).

interesting, I hadn't thought of that.

I would also be interested in something more along the lines of scientific research, though have no idea how well my skills would fit in there!

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Thanks all, some really helpful suggestions here.

Also to note, financial data is just data. data is all the same, it's just how you handle it. Data is data. Whether dealing with millions of error/status codes and turning into availability, or turning billions of transactions into an explanation of 'why'.
It all starts from a base number and matters little what it actually represents. It's how you deal with it, process, manipulate and interrogate that matters. But it would be really nice if the numbers you are turning into a picture actually meant something worthwhile!

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twoblacklines said:

Just go on Reed or Indeed and look at jobs that require security clearance. Then email them and ask them if they have anything in your role. Then narrow down the yes' if there are any to those that are right near GCHQ addresses.

Though if you need to make a thread about it, chances are they won't be interested in you, considering you are supposed to find a codephrase within an image just to apply to Mi5, and GCHQ is leagues ahead in its cyber defence/programming skill (UK's version of NSA).

haha yes, that image is fun. thrown by the hex slightly, but got there in the end.