Psychologist (Occupational Psychology) Ref. 3736

Job Description

Flexible working: we support full time, part time, compressed hours and other flexible working patterns. This is an office-based role and, due to the nature of the work, home or remote working are not available.

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.

The role
As a Psychologist, you’ll apply your specialist knowledge, skills and experience to support MI5 and its people. This is an applied, delivery focused role, operating within an internal consultancy model, where psychological evidence is used pragmatically to address real organisational needs.

You’ll deliver defined consultancy projects and pieces of work, supporting scoping activity with customers, managing delivery, and providing clear, evidence based advice and guidance. Working with stakeholders across the organisation, you’ll build effective working relationships and act as the primary point of contact for allocated work, ensuring outputs are high quality and appropriate to the organisational context.

The role operates within complex and, at times, sensitive organisational environments. You’ll apply occupational psychology across areas such as job analysis, assessment design, training delivery, skills framework development and wider people processes, where accuracy, professional judgement and ethical practice are critical. While methodological rigour is expected, the emphasis is firmly on applied delivery with evidence used to inform effective and timely decision making.

On a day to day basis, you’ll engage with customers to understand their needs, design and carry out data collection activities, and translate findings into practical tools, guidance and recommendations. You’ll contribute to the development, evaluation and continuous improvement of people processes, ensuring learning from your work is captured and applied to future activity.

You’ll work collaboratively within a close knit occupational psychology team, sharing knowledge, supporting colleagues and contributing across a varied portfolio of work. Success depends on effective teamwork, consultation and constructive challenge, alongside developing confidence and independence in delivery as your experience grows, supported by guidance from more senior practitioners.

About you
You’re a psychologist with a grounding in applied occupational psychology and experience in using your psychology knowledge and skills to address real organisational challenges. You hold a postgraduate qualification in Occupational Psychology (or equivalent) with eligibility to complete Stage 2 of the Qualification in Occupational Psychology.

You will have experience working on occupational psychology related projects within the public or private sector or a consultancy setting. You’re comfortable using evidence to inform decisions that are fair, proportionate and defensible. You understand the importance of professional standards and ethical practice, and you’re an accredited test user, or eligible for accreditation, recognising the importance of assessment quality and governance.

Your consultancy skills are credible but developing, and you enjoy working with customers to understand complex people and organisational issues. You can scope and deliver defined pieces of work, gather and analyse data, and translate psychological evidence into clear, practical recommendations that add value. You’re confident working with guidance and supervision while taking increasing ownership of your work.

You’ve applied occupational psychology across areas such as job analysis, skills frameworks, assessment or wider people processes, balancing methodological rigour with pragmatic delivery. You communicate clearly with non specialist audiences and value teamwork, knowledge sharing and ongoing professional development within a supportive occupational psychology team.

Training and development
We’re committed to supporting your development as an applied occupational psychologist and helping you build confidence delivering high quality consultancy work in complex organisational environments. On joining, you’ll receive an induction to the team, organisational context and areas of work you’ll be contributing to, giving you a clear understanding of how your role supports wider objectives.

You’ll be supported through close working with more senior occupational psychologists, with access to coaching, feedback and reflective practice. This support will help develop consultancy skills, professional judgement and applied delivery capability as you take increasing ownership of defined pieces of work.

Alongside on the job learning, you’ll have access to continuing professional development aligned to progression towards chartership. Development at this level focuses on building strong foundations for long term practice, within a collaborative and supportive professional team.

Rewards and benefits
You’ll receive a starting salary of £50,985 plus other benefits including:

• 25 Days Annual Leave automatically rising to 30 days after 5 years' service, and an additional 10.5 days public and privilege holidays
• a dedicated development budget
• opportunities to be recognised through our employee performance scheme
• an interest-free season ticket loan
• an excellent pension scheme
• a cycle to work scheme
• facilities such as a gym, restaurant, and on-site coffee bars (at some locations)
• paid parental and adoption leave

Equal opportunities
At MI5 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
MI5 is proud to have achieved Leader status within the Department for Work and Pensions 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 fair and proportionate number of person-to-person interviews 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:

1. You will be required to reach the minimum pass mark for the Online Situational Judgement Test (SJT), which assesses your ability to problem solve
2. You will be required to meet the minimum pass mark on questions about your motivation for the organisation and the role (assessed at application sift)
3. You will be required to meet the minimum pass mark on questions relating to your skills, experience and qualification required for the role. (assessed at application sift)

There is a wide range of extra support available throughout the recruitment process to enable you to do your best, visit our application process page for information on reasonable adjustments we can offer.

What to expect
Our recruitment process is fair, transparent, and based on merit. Here is a brief overview of each stage, in order:

1. Online Situational Judgement Test (SJT) rating the appropriateness of your responses to a series of short scenarios. The SJT tests criteria important for all roles in our organisation
2. An initial online application form including pre-screening questions to ensure you meet our eligibility criteria
3. An in-person technical and competency-based assessment, including an interview and other work sample type activities
4. If successful, you will receive a conditional offer of employment

Please note, you must successfully pass each stage of the process to progress to the next. Your application may take around 6 to 9 months to process including vetting, so we advise you to continue any current employment until you have received your final job offer.

Before you apply
To work at MI5, you need to be a British citizen or hold dual British nationality. Read about our eligibility criteria.

This role requires the highest security clearance, known as Developed Vetting (DV). It’s something everyone in the UK Intelligence Community undertakes. Find out more about the vetting process.

Please note we have a strict drugs policy, so once you start your application, you can’t take any recreational drugs and you’ll need to declare your previous drug usage at the relevant stage.

Before you apply, we advise you to consider setting up a separate email address for your contact with us, to ensure your personal and application correspondence remain separate. Try to avoid having identifying features in your email address, such as your first and/or surname and date of birth. This is good practise and will help you manage your application with us more securely.

The role is based in Central London, so you’ll need to live within a commutable distance. Please consider any financial implications and practicalities before submitting an application. An interest-free loan is available to assist with relocating into privately rented accommodation to take up the offer of employment.

We offer reasonable reimbursement of travel costs for candidates attending in-person interviews or assessments during the recruitment and vetting process. Full details will be provided with your interview or assessment invitation.

Reimbursement is discretionary and will only be made in line with the Candidate Expenses Policy, as amended from time to time. Candidates must book their own travel, using the most economical option, and provide original hardcopy receipts for reimbursement.

Please note, 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. You should not discuss your application, other than with your partner or a close family member.

Right to withdraw statement:
Please be aware that we reserve 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.