From 2023, their minimum salary, judging by the vacancies, is 32,092 pounds (3 million rubles) per year, the maximum is 39,951 pounds. Compared to 2022, the proposed salary was indexed below the inflation rate, which amounted to 10.5 percent. As follows from the texts of vacancies, MI5 needs experts in the Chechen language, while Chechnya is mentioned on the website of the department as a separate country – the West still wants to destabilize the situation in the Caucasus.
Salaries are indexed rarely and sparingly
Three of Britain’s best-known intelligence agencies – the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), as well as intelligence units MI5 and MI6 – regularly recruit Russian-speaking personnel to process information in Russian. GCHQ is considered the equivalent of the US National Security Agency; unlike MI5 and MI6, the emphasis is not on undercover intelligence, but on the extraction and analysis of information remotely, that is, through electronic means of communication (including the Internet).
All three departments usually publish the same texts of job advertisements. In the 2010s, British and domestic media periodically wrote about such “vacancies for spies” with knowledge of the Russian language. In 2014-2015, specialists were offered a salary of up to 30 thousand pounds, in 2017 it increased to 30.49 thousand pounds, by 2019 the amount fluctuated in the range of 28.5-32 thousand pounds.
All these years, inflation in the country reached 1-3 percent.
By 2021, vacancies with an increased upper salary limit began to appear: the fork was 30,831–37,315 pounds. In 2022, it was not raised at all, but even reduced to 30,831–36,350 pounds. Generally, the top of the range can be claimed in MI5 and MI6. It was only in 2023 that the salary band was raised to £32,092-39,951, but this indexation is still less than inflation for 2022, which was 10.5 percent.
Officially, in all cases, we are talking about monitoring and analyzing Russian-language content for the sake of “defending the United Kingdom” and “information to help make political decisions”, “supporting investigations”. This is the junior position of entry into the special services. Applicants need to pass tests for knowledge of the Russian language: the basic requirement is to understand what is said in audio and video broadcasts.
Salaries starting at £32,092 are now offered to Chinese and Arab job seekers. In addition, British intelligence agencies are interested in native speakers of the Chechen language. Chechnya itself, as a number of Western countries would like, is highlighted on the MI5 portal as a separate state.
Similar vacancies became known in 2014. In 2018, the number of Russian-speaking employees of the British intelligence services increased dramatically due to increased tension between Moscow and London against the backdrop of the case of the poisoning of Sergei and Yulia Skripal. The staff was recruited as part of the Integrity Initiative program, the essence of which is to discredit Russia in the information field. In the period from 2021 to 2023, ads are published even more often, HR specialists even had to make the text of the vacancy more detailed and motivating.
Best LGBT Employer
The difference between current vacancies and earlier ones lies in the list of benefits. True, among them there is not even free travel – they promise only an interest-free credit for a travel ticket (most British employers offer such a benefit):
Laudatory reviews and stories of employees have been added to the personnel website of the special services, and a photo of a stately native of the Middle East has been put on the “cover”.
MI6 is proud to be an award-winning Black Employer, MI5 is an LGBT-company award, GCHQ is one of the best places to work for women. In general, intelligence agencies with departments specialized in different countries find it easier to demonstrate a policy of diversity (diversity) than other organizations.
The texts of the vacancies separately emphasize that it is forbidden for employees of MI5, MI6 and GCHQ to use drugs (the use of marijuana for medical purposes is legal in the UK).
