About the job

Job summary

As an important part of the Ministry of Defence, Defence Intelligence (DI) provides intelligence analysis, specialist outputs and advice that supports decision making across government. At the heart of DI is the National Centre for Geospatial Intelligence (NCGI).

One key area of the organisation is the Defence Open Source Intelligence Centre (DOC) who provide specialist and advanced, pioneering Open Source Intelligence (OSINT) to the Armed Forces and other Partners Across Government (PAG) through the Online Research Collection and Analysis (ORCA) Team.

In Defence Intelligence (DI) our people solve problems, create understanding and give perspective to the diverse and complex Defence threats and challenges in a rapidly changing world. Together our civilians and military personnel inform decision making in Defence, manage complex finance programmes and develop new technology.

In DI we believe your unique experiences, view and understanding of the world could provide a vital perspective and contribution to our work. We recognise that great minds do not think alike and are striving to increase our diversity representation at all levels. As an equal opportunities employer we hire, train and promote people based on merit and inspire to create an inclusive workplace free of discrimination. We also offer flexible working arrangements such as flexi-time, job share and compressed hours.

This position is advertised at 37 hours per week. 

Job description

The purpose of the ORCA is to produce and disseminate timely, relevant and credible open source reports, informing and developing understanding around multiple intelligence problem-sets, for a range of key intelligence customers.

The ORCA team operates in a constantly evolving environment that’s subject to rapid change. Analysts adapt and develop strategies to deliver timely and in-depth OSINT reports, often applying a trade craft intensive approach that goes above and beyond. As such, the intelligence requirements undertaken by ORCA are to challenge the capability, ensuring Defence’s OSINT capability remains at the forefront alongside our OSINT partners and allies.

As an ORCA Lead Analyst you will be responsible for standards and the output of your team, this will require directing all collection requirements amongst your team of analysts, quality checking their reports, mentoring analysts to enhance standards and the service we provide, and disseminating reports to customers. The position affords opportunities to visit, engage and brief various partners across Defence and wider Government, locally across the UK and abroad.

You will develop and enhance the OSINT capability, working closely with the DOC and industry partners to test and trial new or existing OSINT capabilities that enable DOC to maintain and improve the OSINT service provided to the Defence user community.

This role has line management responsibility for to 2 civilian staff and supervisory responsibility for up to 6 military staff.

All jobs advertised in DI are subject to fair and open competition.

Person specification

We are seeking confident communicators, comfortable engaging with a diverse range of individuals and teams both with their own and external organisations. Individuals with the want and ability to build and maintain positive relationships, collaborating to improve and drive the capability forward.

Strong verbal and written skills are vital as is having a high degree of digital literacy.

The successful candidate will need to have strong organisational skills with the ability to effectively prioritise, work to specific timeframes, producing accurate well-thought-out communications which are adapted to suit customer needs and provide the relevant information clearly and concisely.

This position will almost certainly expose individuals to graphic and distressing material online. Due to the nature of publicly available information, measures are taken to protect individuals, mitigating the risk where possible, and ensuring support is always available.

Operational needs may require the ORCA to support OSINT production outside normal working hours and this can include working weekends, evenings or early mornings or as part of a shift pattern. This would be subject to overtime or 'time off in lieu' arrangements being agreed and is entirely voluntary. Typical working pattern will be subject to typical daytime hours and subject to NCGI flexible working hours arrangement.

Essential criteria:

• Experience of OSINT capabilities and outputs and an understanding of how OSINT is collected and used.
• Knowledge of OSINT technology, innovation, data and data visualisation.
• Experienced in using online data sources for investigations, understanding biases, censorship, mis and disinformation.
• Awareness of Defence OSINT policy and legislation.
• Ability to brief at short notice to a range of partners, informing them of Defence’s OSINT capability.
• Proficient and confident with Microsoft Office.
• Able to adapt to evolving workloads, short notice tasks and delivering outputs to meet specific customer requirements.

Desirable criteria:

• Skills in coding and programming.
• Linguist ability - any languages welcome.

Benefits

Alongside your salary of £35,290, Ministry of Defence contributes £9,528 towards you being a member of the Civil Service Defined Benefit Pension scheme. Find out what benefits a Civil Service Pension provides.

Things you need to know

Selection process details

This vacancy is using Success Profiles (opens in a new window), and will assess your Behaviours, Experience and Technical skills.

Applicants should apply for this role online, via the website.

Assessment at sift and interview will be based on meeting any defined skill/qualification requirements along with a Success Profile element assessment, as detailed in the job advert. The Success Profile elements to be assessed will be outlined within the job advert. The Civil Service Success Profile Framework is available here:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/success-profiles

At sift, applicants will be sifted against their experience by competing a CV and personal statement,500 words. 

When completing your personal statement, please read and understand the requirements described in the Person Specification section thoroughly, as this is what your written evidence will be assessed against.

Applicants should include evidence that demonstrates the essential and desirable criteria requested within the job advert.

Your layout is entirely your preference; you may choose narrative, bullets, etc.  You may choose to address each criteria separately or have examples that cover and evidence several criteria. Please ensure you evidence the requirements and what you have done that relates to the requirements.  You don’t have to explain the whole process, focus on what you have done and the skills and experience you have used.  Share with us what makes you suited to this role and why, what you can do and the technical and behavioural skills you have that correspond to the requirements, and life experience or passion you have that are linked to this role.

At interview, applicants will be assessed against 3 Civil Service Behaviours and tested against 2 Professional Head of Intelligence Assessment (PHIA) Technical ability skills, the PHIA ability will be assessed by way of a 10 minute presentation.

 Interview Behaviours:

• Seeing the Big Picture 
• Leadership 
• Developing Self Others

We would generally expect CS Behaviour evidence to follow the Situation, Task, Action, Result (STAR) format and encourage candidates to use this throughout their application.

PHIA Technical skills:

At the interview, the candidate will be given 10 minutes to present their findings and answer questions on one of the two topics below:

• The opportunities and challenges of collaboration with The Five Eyes (FVEY) partners.
• The opportunities and challenges for OSINT in Defence.  

 The presentation will be marked against two PHIA competencies: 

• Gathering, Organising and Evaluating intelligence & information - Level Proficient
• Verbal Communication of Intelligence Assessment - Level Proficient

Application/Interview Scoring System

NCGI adopts a scoring system of 1-7 for Behaviours, Technical skills, and Experience.

7- The evidence provided wholly exceeds expectation at this level

6 - Substantial positive evidence; includes some evidence of exceeding expectations at this level

5 - Substantial positive evidence of the competency or behaviour

4 - Adequate positive evidence and any negative evidence would not cause concern

3 - Moderate positive evidence but some negative evidence demonstrated

2 - Limited positive evidence and/or mainly negative evidence demonstrated

1 - No positive evidence and/or substantial negative evidence demonstrated

The sift should take place within 2 weeks of the job closing and candidates will be informed of the results, at all stages, via the website. Interview dates are to be confirmed.

Feedback will only be provided if you attend an interview or assessment.  

If the successful candidate does not hold the necessary clearances, they will be made a provisional job offer and asked to undergo our vetting procedures. Once the relevant clearances have been obtained a formal job offer will be made and start dates can be discussed. Should the candidate fail to obtain the relevant clearances the provisional job offer will be rescinded. It should be noted that this process can take several months.

The Civil Service embraces diversity and promotes equality of opportunity. There is a Disability Confident Scheme (DCS) for candidates with disabilities who meet the minimum selection criteria. If you need to advise us that you need additional help or reasonable adjustments for the recruitment process, please contact: DBSCivPers-Resourcingteam3@mod.gov.uk . 

As a result of the changes to the UK immigration rules which came into effect on 1 January 2021, the Ministry of Defence will only offer sponsorship for a skilled worker visa under the points based system, where a role has been deemed to be business critical.  

The role currently being advertised has not been assessed as business critical and is therefore NOT open to applications from those who will require sponsorship under the points based system. Should you apply for this role and be found to require sponsorship, your application will be rejected and any provisional offer of employment withdrawn. 

Feedback will only be provided if you attend an interview or assessment.

Security

Successful candidates must undergo a criminal record check. Successful candidates must meet the security requirements before they can be appointed. The level of security needed is developed vetting (opens in a new window).

See our vetting charter (opens in a new window). People working with government assets must complete baseline personnel security standard (opens in new window) checks.

Nationality requirements

Open to UK nationals only.

Working for the Civil Service

The Civil Service Code (opens in a new window) sets out the standards of behaviour expected of civil servants.

We recruit by merit on the basis of fair and open competition, as outlined in the Civil Service Commission's recruitment principles (opens in a new window). The Civil Service embraces diversity and promotes equal opportunities. As such, we run a Disability Confident Scheme (DCS) for candidates with disabilities who meet the minimum selection criteria. The Civil Service also offers a Redeployment Interview Scheme to civil servants who are at risk of redundancy, and who meet the minimum requirements for the advertised vacancy.