Long-term friends of mine will know i have somewhat of a love-hate relationship with the British security services. It seems that MI6 (or SIS - Secret Intelligence Service), who’s motto “Semper Occultis” (”always hidden”) appears to be less and less hidden as the years go on. Since the government stopped denying its existence in the early 90s, SIS is more plural and family-friendly, which has led to them now recruiting openly from the public instead of quietly shoulder-tapping students at Oxford and Cambridge.

3 people i know are now ex-SIS - one who became a vicar, one who was gunned down in Africa, the last one who started a private security company outside London. I’ve known 4 people who’ve been selected, and had to be a referee for 2 during their positive vetting (PV).

So what can you expect? Not a Walter PPK, that’s for sure. SIS officers aren’t “spies”, they are generally “handlers” for informants they recruit to provide intelligence through being paid, manipulated or blackmailed. It’s predominantly a civil servant desk job (along with the crap CS pay grades) as the military ops are handled by a specific division from the SAS/SBS called the “increment”.

From what i understand, training is done at Fort Monkton in Gosport, and involves learning tradecraft and going out to pubs to get random people to give information like their passport numbers. Only your spouse can know what you do (SIS has a very high divorce rate) and if anyone asks, you’re at the British Embassy because you work for the Foreign Office. Other than that, you get to write lots of briefings that no-one really reads, passes on to British companies like BA or BP, or possibly uses to justify a politician’s desire for military action in another country.

Oh, and nobody will ever know what you do or how much effort you put in.

Or you can apply now:
http://www.mi6.gov.uk/output/Page591.html