For employers
Fee payable: c.£1000 per day, dependent upon attendance
Location: Required to attend meetings at sites across the UK.
Time commitment: Up to 20 days a year - 9 board meetings plus a strategic away day, plus any board committee commitments and sub-committees.
Allowances: Reasonable travel & subsistence (we are a public sector body and bound by public finances, ethics, and integrity in how public money is spent)
Term: Three-year period with a formal review point after two years.
Notice: 3 months
Clearance: DV clearance required.
Shaping the future of UK intelligence.
About Us
GCHQ is an intelligence, cyber and security agency with a mission to keep the UK safe. We use cutting edge technology, ingenuity and partnerships to identify, analyse and disrupt threats. Working with our intelligence partners MI5 and MI6, we protect the UK from terrorism, cyber attacks and espionage. At GCHQ you’ll do varied and fascinating work in a supportive and inclusive environment that puts the emphasis on teamwork.
Our GCHQ strategy focuses on:
Further information can be found here.
About the Role
We are seeking a Non-Executive Director to join our Board of Directors with recent and extensive experience of large scale digital and technological delivery and innovation.
This position complements the balance of skills, experience, and perspectives of our existing Board. Working with our executive and non-executive directors in a dynamic and demanding environment, you will help to shape, scale, and promote the long-term sustainable success of GCHQ.
As a Board member you will contribute your knowledge and expertise to the Board’s collective decision making, formulating strategy, providing direction and assessing performance. You will help us achieve cultural change and our Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) ambition.
You will act as a critical friend to the Director, and coach executives as required. You will bring independent and constructive challenge, along with advice, to help set our future direction navigating complex digital modernisation and responding to the opportunities and risks of AI at the pace of the frontier.
Key responsibilities:
As the Tech and Digital Lead NED, you will also be expected to:
About You – Person Specification
Experience
We are seeking recent and extensive experience of:
Desirable:
Skills and Qualities
KEY TERMS
Fee payable: c.£1000 per day, dependent upon attendance
Location: Required to attend meetings at sites across the UK.
Time commitment: Up to 20 days a year - 9 board meetings plus a strategic away day, plus any board committee commitments and sub-committees.
Allowances: Reasonable travel & subsistence (we are a public sector body and bound by public finances, ethics, and integrity in how public money is spent)
Term: Three-year period with a formal review point after two years.
Notice: 3 months
Selection Process and Timetable
Our recruitment process is fair, transparent, and based on merit.
The closing date for applications is 23rd October 2026 at 10am. We ask that you submit your applications as early as possible to ensure that they are processed before this deadline; any late applications received are unlikely to be considered.
Please note that you will initially be required to complete a short eligibility application and Situational Judgement Test, before you are invited to complete the full application form which will include the submission of:
The application process in in depth and can take significant time to complete, so we strongly advise leaving plenty of time in advance of the closing date to complete and submit your application.
Application Stages:
You must successfully pass each stage of the process to progress to the next.
Please note that these dates are subject to change, and we do ask that you employ flexibility throughout the process with regards to your availability.
For more information about the role or a confidential discussion please contact confidential@recruitmentoffice.org.uk
Eligibility
To be eligible to apply, you must be a British Citizen. One of your parents must be a British Citizen or must have the nationality or citizenship from our approved list of countries. If you hold dual nationality, of which one component is British, you will nonetheless be considered. You can apply at the age of 17 years, if successful you will not be offered a start date prior to your 18th birthday.
For more information, visit here.
Candidates must normally have been resident in the UK for seven out of the last ten years. This is particularly important if you were born outside the UK. Candidates will, however, be considered if they have, for example, served overseas with HM Forces or in some other official capacity as a representative of Her Majesty’s Government, studied abroad or lived overseas with their parents. Further guidance around eligibility can be sought from us around candidates with private sector experience who have spent significant periods in the last 10 years working abroad.
Successful candidates will have to hold or obtain Developed Vetting – this is the highest form of security clearance. As part of the vetting process, candidates will have to complete a number of vetting forms including a financial questionnaire and have a confidential security interview with a trained vetting officer. Developed Vetting clearances are subject to review.
We have a strict drugs policy, so once you start your application, you cannot take any recreational drugs and will need to declare your previous drug usage at the relevant stage.
Discretion is vital. You should not discuss your application, other than with your partner or a close family member. Successful candidates would not normally be able to disclose that they are a NED for the organisation.
There must be no conflict of interest(s), including other roles in your portfolio, or national security conflicts.
You should only launch your application from within the UK. If you are based overseas, you should wait until you visit the UK to launch an application. Applying from outside the UK will impact on our ability to progress your application.
Equal Opportunities
Diversity and inclusion are critical to our mission. To protect the UK, we need a truly diverse workforce that reflects the society we serve. This includes diversity in every sense of the word: those with different backgrounds, ages, ethnicities, gender identities, sexual orientations, ways of thinking and those with disabilities or neurodivergent conditions. We therefore welcome and encourage applications from everyone, including those from groups that are under-represented in our workforce such as women, those from an ethnic minority background, people with disabilities and those from low socio-economic backgrounds.
Find out more about our culture, working environment and diversity on our website.
We’re Disability Confident
We are proud to have achieved Leader status within the DWP’s Disability Confident scheme. This is aimed at encouraging employers to think differently about disability and take action to improve how they recruit, retain and develop disabled people. Being Disability Confident, we aim to offer a person-to-person interview to any candidate who self-identifies as disabled and meets the essential criteria for the role. This is our ‘Offer of Interview’ (OOI). To secure an interview for this vacancy, the essential criteria (in order of application process) are:
There is a wide range of extra support available throughout the recruitment process to enable you to do your best, see our website for information on reasonable adjustments we can offer.
Right to Withdraw Statement:
Please be aware that we withhold the right to bring forward the closing date for this role from the original closing date once a certain number of applications have been received. Please be mindful of this and submit your application at your earliest convenience to avoid disappointment.
Dublin, IE
£77,242 per annum
London, UK
£92,315 per annum
London, UK
Office based
A little flex time
Cheltenham | London | Manchester
#2 BEST WORKPLACE CULTUREMultiple Locations (UK)
Hiring in countries
United Kingdom
Office Locations
