Credit: Laurie Nevay/CC BY-SA 2.0

The Secret Intelligence Service is advertising a selection of roles that it claims will offer IT professionals “technical challenges – the likes of which you will never have seen before”.

The service – commonly referred to as MI6 – is seeking to recruit five enterprise architects, one of which will serve as team leader. The expanded enterprise architecture unit will “use agile and lean methodologies to innovate, deliver and upgrade systems” that underpin both field operations and the organisation’s corporate centre.

“The diverse nature of the enterprise means that our products are built using a variety of different technology architectures,” MI6 said.

Successful candidates will be given the opportunity to work in areas including “data analytics, knowledge systems, clandestine communications [and] technical operations capabilities”.

The job adverts added: “Architecture and technology are core to MI6’s successful operations and intelligence delivery. There is a constant need to develop and maintain capabilities that provide us with mission advantage in an ever rapidly changing, technology and data driven world. Digital transformation is key to ensure success and to enable MI6 to operate with digital government and partner intelligence communities.”

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The position as head enterprise architect offers a salary of up to £87,054. The role also comes with a responsibility to create and roll out an “Enterprise Technology Roadmap, making recommendations as to the order and prioritisation of work”.

The postholder will also spearhead “an initiative to improve the maturity of our enterprise architecture and business architecture practice and be the domain skills and profession lead”.

Other duties will include mapping the current state of MI6’s technology estate and establishing future targtes, as well as managing the risks posed by issues such as legacy technology.

Working underneath the team head, the Secret Intelligence Service is also seeking to add four enterprise architects, who will be charged with delivering the organisation’s technology strategies – a process which will involve “working with business customers to understand their changing needs and develop target state architectures, driving that strategic direction into change initiatives”.

Day-to-day duties will encompass conducting “architecture investigations… and proposing solutions to enterprise challenges”. The team will also support governance activities, “including assurance, compliance, interoperability, risk and change”, the job advert said.

The four positions each come with an annual pay packet of between £63,682 and £68,458.

Applications for all five architecture roles are open until 11.55pm on 25 October.

Headquartered in Vauxhall on the banks of the Thames (pictured above), MI6 has covert operatives around the world whose mission is to gather intelligence on national security across three key areas of focus: counter-terrorism; disrupting activities conducted by hostile states; and cyberthreats.