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Department
Specialist Roles
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Location(s)
Cheltenham
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Salary
£78,270
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Job description
Flexible working: We support a range of flexible working arrangements, including compressed hours, flexible start and finish times, and part-time working where possible. Due to the sensitive nature of the role, opportunities for home or remote working are limited and considered on a case-by-case basis, based on business need.
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 on 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 Consultant Clinical Psychologist, you’ll lead the strategic development and delivery of psychological services within the Health and Wellbeing Team. Working in a multidisciplinary environment, you’ll ensure services are clinically robust, ethically sound, and aligned to organisational priorities.
This is a senior leadership position where you’ll shape how psychological support is embedded across the service. You’ll lead strategy, policy and clinical pathways, and provide expert consultation in high-risk or sensitive situations, including contributing to cultural improvement and organisational resilience. You’ll represent psychology and wellbeing at senior and critical meetings, contributing to decision-making where risk, resilience and wellbeing intersect. Drawing on your expertise, you’ll help shape organisational processes as the focus shifts from individual interventions to innovative, preventative approaches that strengthen resilience across teams and the wider organisation.
Alongside this, you’ll manage and develop a team of clinical psychologists, providing supervision, mentoring and professional leadership, as well as line management responsibilities. You’ll also support training, development and partnership working, ensuring continuous enhancement of capability across the service. In addition, you’ll oversee clinical governance and quality assurance to maintain consistent standards across service delivery.
Your work will span both direct and indirect clinical practice across individuals and teams. This includes delivering specialist interventions, reflective practice and wellbeing support, alongside in-depth assessments and consultation on complex and high-risk cases. You’ll contribute to multidisciplinary team working, including case discussions and supervision, while working with stakeholders across the organisation and wider intelligence community to ensure integrated and effective services.
A varied portfolio spans support to individuals and teams in challenging environments, alongside contributions to work on risk, resilience, trauma and wellbeing. Activity operates across both strategic and clinical levels, shaping organisational culture and capability in dynamic contexts where priorities shift. This is a highly evolving role, requiring comfort with ambiguity and the ability to work effectively in less structured environments, applying expertise to drive innovation, population-level approaches to wellbeing and organisational resilience.
About you
You hold a Doctorate in Clinical Psychology (or equivalent) and current HCPC registration, with significant post-qualification experience at senior level within complex organisational environments.
Extensive expertise in assessment, formulation and intervention underpins your practice, including experience of high-risk and sensitive cases. You deliver specialist psychological interventions, provide expert consultation and second opinions, and utilise a range of assessment tools. You have extensive experience in line management and supervision of other psychologists, alongside providing professional leadership across teams. Your contributions to service development, clinical pathway design and governance have led to measurable improvements in service quality effectiveness and outcomes.
Influencing senior stakeholders is a core part of your skillset, as is building and maintaining strategic partnerships and translating psychological insight clearly for non-specialist audiences. You’re comfortable in environments where priorities shift and structures are evolving, bringing sound judgement and a proactive, system-level approach. A deep sense of professional integrity and a genuine commitment to improving wellbeing underpin everything you do.
Training and development
A structured induction will introduce you to the organisation, the Health and Wellbeing Team, and the wider intelligence community, giving you the context needed to deliver psychological services and understand your role’s impact in a complex environment.
Development is flexible and evolves all the time, supporting non-linear career pathways tailored to your experience, interests and aspirations. A comprehensive onboarding process ensures you are well supported from the outset, with continued professional development embedded throughout your career.
Development here is shaped through practice, leadership and organisational engagement, offering variety, unpredictability and opportunities for strategic influence. Clinical supervision, peer networks and multidisciplinary collaboration provide a robust professional foundation. Access to in-house and external training supports your development in areas such as risk, resilience and trauma, keeping your expertise up to date with organisational priorities and emerging needs.
Rewards and benefits
You’ll receive a starting salary of £78,270 plus other benefits, including:
25 days’ 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
a dedicated development budget
an interest-free season ticket loan
an excellent pension scheme
a cycle-to-work scheme
facilities such as a subsidised 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, people from ethnic minority backgrounds, people with disabilities, and those from low socio-economic backgrounds.
Find out more about our culture, working environment and commitment to 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:
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
Have a Doctorate in Clinical Psychology or equivalent (accredited by BPS)
Hold registration as an HCPC Practitioner Psychologist
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:
An initial online application form including pre-screening questions to ensure you meet our eligibility criteria.
An Online Situational Judgement Test (SJT) in which you rate the appropriateness of responses to a series of short scenarios.
A CV and application sift, assessing your motivation for the role and organisation, as well as your relevant skills and experience.
An Assessment Centre, including a range of exercises such as situational role-plays, tasking exercises and an interview.
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 that 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 manage your application with us more securely.
The role is based in Cheltenham, so you’ll need to live within a commutable distance. Please consider any financial implications and practicalities before submitting an application, as we do not offer relocation costs.
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 hard copy 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.
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