Safety and Fire Lead Ref. 3787

Flexible working: full time, with flexible working and compressed hours possible. There will be very limited home working opportunities, dependant on business needs, so this should not be expected on a regular/weekly basis. Please visit our work-life balance page to find out more.

About us
MI5, MI6 and GCHQ are the UK’s Intelligence Services. We work together to safeguard Britain’s people, interests and businesses from various threats at home, overseas and online, including cyber-attacks, espionage, terrorism, and organised crime. Working across our vital missions, you’ll deliver impact at the heart of national security, all within a supportive and inclusive environment that allows everyone to thrive.

The role
As Safety and Fire Lead, you’ll be responsible for managing and coordinating fire safety as well as general health and safety activities across our organisations. You’ll act as the primary safety and fire point of contact and the principal safety and fire subject matter expert, ensuring robust governance, consistent standards and effective assurance across the UK’s Intelligence Services.

You’ll manage risks while maintaining independence from the risk owner and decision-making process. In short, you’ll oversee risk assessments, maintain fire systems, and ensure all procedures and legal requirements are met. Day-to-day, you might be developing mitigation plans, implementing fire safety procedures or ensuring compliance with the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005 and the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974. With your technical expertise, you’ll provide expert guidance, conduct investigations and identify areas for improvement.

You’ll sit within the Safety, Fire and Wellbeing team and work with management, colleagues and partners to communicate fire and safety information across our organisations. Whether you’re developing and delivering training programmes, conducting regular audits or identifying areas for improvement, you’ll ensure peoples’ safety, health and wellbeing is at the very heart of our operations.

Please note, this role requires frequent national travel to all UK Intelligence Service locations.

About you
To apply, you’ll need a National Examination Board in Occupational Safety and Health (NEBOSH) diploma, National Vocational Qualification (NVQ) Level 6 diploma or National Compliance and Risk Qualification (NCRQ) Level 6 diploma in Occupational Health and Safety Practice. This will be supported by either an Institution of Occupational Safety and Health (IOSH) certification, or an International Institute of Risk and Safety Management (IIRSM) certification – these need to be to the Certified or Chartered level of status.

You’ll have extensive experience overseeing safety and fire risk management in complex environments, as well as previous safety industry experience in an auditing, assurance or risk assessment role. With your background, you’ll have a working knowledge of legislation, regulatory frameworks and governance standards. And, you’ll have prior experience operating within a Three Lines of Defence model – as this role operates in the second line of defence.

Collaborative and communicative, you’ll have the confidence to deliver training programmes and challenge stakeholders where you identify room for improvement in our processes. You’ll take a proactive, analytical approach to your work as you ensure safety arrangements and controls are implemented, maintained and reviewed to remain effective.

Training and development
Upon joining, you’ll receive a full induction into our organisation and ways of working. You’ll also be assigned a ‘buddy’ to help you settle into the role and answer any questions you might have.

We’ll support you in growing your career with us, tailored to your own development needs. You’ll be encouraged to undertake Continuing Professional Development (CPD) and train in other areas of Wellbeing, Safety and Fire. Plus, we’ll offer funding for you to pursue industry qualifications (subject to finance being agreed), such as IOSH or equivalent suitable professional memberships.

Rewards and benefits
You’ll receive a starting salary of £61,463 in London or £59,829 in Cheltenham, plus other benefits including:

• 25 days of annual leave automatically rising to 30 days after 5 years' service, and an additional 10.5 days of public and privilege holidays
• 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 Pension’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. As a Disability Confident Leader, we aim to ensure that a fair and proportionate number of disabled applicants who best meet the essential minimum criteria for this position, will be offered an interview, if it is practical for us to do so. (This is known as the Offer of an Interview.) To secure an interview for this role, the minimum criteria (in order of application process) are:

• You'll be required to reach the minimum pass mark for the online Situational Judgement Test (SJT), which assesses criteria important for all roles in our organisation
• Meet the minimum pass mark for your motivation for the role and organisation - to be assessed at application sift
• Demonstrate the ability to handle corporate liability, enforce regulatory compliance and manage major incident investigations without supervision – to be assessed at application sift

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.

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) in which you rate the appropriateness of responses to a series of short scenarios.
2. Application Sift, looking at your CV, motivation for the role and the organisation.
3. Virtual Interview, including scenario and competency-based questions.
4. If successful, you’ll 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 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 practice and will help you to manage your application with us more securely.

The role is based in London or Cheltenham, 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 appointments 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.