Technology Graduate Development Programme with MI5 - EO - MI5

Location

London

About the job

Job summary

Flexible Working: This is an office-based role. We offer the opportunity to work flexitime covering core office hours.

About Us 

MI5 keeps the country safe from serious threats like terrorism and attempts by states to harm the UK, its people and way of life. We carry out investigations by obtaining, analysing, and assessing intelligence, and then work with a range of partners including MI6 and GCHQ to disrupt these threats. Through our protective security arm, we provide advice and guidance to government, businesses and other organisations about how to keep themselves safe. A role in MI5 means you'll do unique and challenging work in a supportive and encouraging environment, making a real difference to UK national security.

Job description

The Role                                                               

As the world moves to a new way of working, we are looking for innovators who would like to help us shape the future of technology at MI5. For us, technology plays a crucial and increasingly frontline role in safeguarding our nation from terrorism, espionage and cyber-attacks. Our Technology Graduate Development Programme offers you the unique opportunity to apply and develop your skills in this vital area of work. It is designed to fully equip you with the skills, knowledge and experience needed to be an effective part of MI5’s technology workforce, while making the UK a safer place for everyone.

You’ll be expected to complete the structured two-year development programme before taking on a Digital, Data and Technology role for a minimum of 24 months. Please note, you won’t be permitted to leave the programme early, so we’d ask that you ensure you’re able to commit to the full four years before applying. Successful applicants will start in Autumn 2026, and must be able to live in or commute to Central London. Further information about travel will be shared during the recruitment process. 

Upon joining as a Technology Graduate in your chosen role, the work and projects you undertake will combine your current knowledge whilst teaching you new skills to make a difference to MI5’s core missions.

No matter the team, you’ll play a key role, develop your skills and experience while working alongside friendly, welcoming and supportive colleagues in an inclusive environment. You’ll be given opportunities to take on responsibility that will give you the kind of exposure that you simply wouldn’t find on any other graduate scheme.

You may only apply for one role in totality for the programme, so please bear this in mind should you wish to apply for any of the roles detailed below or as also detailed in the MI6 Programme Job Description.

Business Analysis

Business Analysts use a structured approach to undertake research and analysis to understand problems and opportunities within MI5’s strategic context. By understanding business and user needs you’ll formulate options, considering the impact of these changes. You’ll work on various challenges – often unique and unusual – collaborating with a range of stakeholders and multi-disciplinary delivery teams to design a solution that delivers value.

Delivery Manager

You will cover a diverse range of activities to support the delivery of our products and services, working with software engineering teams (please note that this role doesn’t require software engineering knowledge, but it’s nice to have). You will build your ability in maintaining delivery momentum, planning, team collaboration, communicating between technical and non-technical teams, all while applying agile and lean practices and methodologies (e.g. Scrum and Kanban) to successfully take products through their lifecycles. The role will equip you with the skills and qualifications to grow in this profession. The roles and responsibilities are similar to other industry standard job titles such as Scrum Master and Agile Lead.

User Experience (UX) Design

Working as an Interaction Designer you will incorporate experience design into every stage of product development, delivering highly usable and accessible products that delight end-users. Whether providing unique insight, prioritising areas for change, focussing on the way users interact with products, or developing captivating visual concepts, you will be at the heart of designing MI5’s future mission capabilities.  

Engineering (Software & Data)

You will work as part of a multi-disciplinary product team to build and run secure applications and products that drive our investigations, analysis, and corporate functions. This programme will provide you with opportunities to gain experience working across a variety of teams. As the programme progresses, you will continue to learn and grow in your specialised role, whether that’s software engineering or data engineering.

As a data engineer, you might contribute to the design and implementation of data models and architectures that enable secure, efficient access to data, supporting analytics and informed decision-making across the organisation. As a software engineer, you would design, develop, and maintain robust, scalable applications and services that power our core systems and user-facing tools.

Our tech stacks vary between products and include technologies such as Java, C#, React, TypeScript, MongoDB, Python, and Oracle. We also make use of cloud platforms like AWS and Azure. Whatever you work on, it will be unique, varied, and will have a direct and rewarding impact on the success of our organisations.

Information & Cyber Security

You will develop knowledge and skills that will equip you to help protect our critical information and systems, such as researching cyber threats to and vulnerabilities in technologies that will impact the confidentiality, integrity and availability of data and systems. You will also identify and advise on technical and process security controls to mitigate identified risks. Working across multidiscipline security, engineering and business teams, you will ensure security is all-inclusive and embedded across the organisation. While the ability to communicate security risk to technical and non-technical stakeholders will be key to your success. 

Data Science (Machine Learning and AI)

You will learn to apply state-of-the-art data science and machine learning techniques to identify insights from our data at scale. Following a data science training pathway, you will work as part of a multi-disciplinary data science team to research, develop, test, and optimise machine learning capabilities, and have the opportunity to apply these capabilities to mission focussed requirements from across our organisation.

Person specification

About You 

To join the development programme, you will have a passion for technology and have (or be expecting) a 2:2 by September 2026 in a Science, Technology, Engineering or Mathematics (STEM) subject. We are keen to hear from you, whatever your background. 

Whether you have a specific skill set or are looking to try something new, we are keen to find people with a positive attitude to change and an enthusiasm to learn. Working on issues with real-world impact, you’ll bring your ideas, perspectives, and your experience to help us create an inclusive and forward-thinking culture.