Website MI5
London
£34,414
Full-time or Part-time (3 days per week)
At MI5, we keep the country safe. We collect intelligence from within the UK to protect Britain’s people, interests, and businesses from threats such as serious organised crime, people and drugs trafficking, terrorism and cyber-attacks. Our Language Specialists play a key role in our operations. They help us to understand these threats – and play a significant role in the success of our mission.
As a Pashto Language Specialist, you’ll use your linguistic skills as well as your wider knowledge of Afghan culture to identify, contextualise and deliver key intelligence insights. With your keen eye for detail, you’ll support investigations by providing core language analysis on both Pashto and Dari materials. You’ll help our teams understand different threats by ensuring Pashto and Dari intelligence is accessible and understandable to others. In doing so, you’ll influence the decisions that safeguard our national security.
This role is about more than simply translating and transcribing. You’ll be a great collaborator, who’ll play an active role in directing projects, driving forward operations and shaping UK government policy. Importantly, your judgement will be supported by your well-rounded knowledge of Afghan history, religion and politics.
You’ll be encouraged to develop your own career path as you focus on the areas that most interest you. It could be assessments, investigations or agent running – we’ll help you fulfil your potential, offering comprehensive training (both classroom-based and hands-on) across language, analysis and technology. Whatever your career path, you’ll be working alongside and learning from talented Language Specialist committed to protecting the UK and its interests.
In return for your expertise, we offer a range of benefits including 25 days’ annual leave (rising to 30 days after 5 years’ service), an excellent pension scheme and access to our on-site facilities. We’re proud of our inclusive, welcoming and supportive culture. In addition to our sports and social societies, we have a growing number of affinity groups including gender, ethnic minority, faith, mental health, disability and LGBTQ+ networks – so you can feel confident bringing your whole self to work.
To join, you’ll need language skills in both Afghan Pashto and Dari. You might have grown up in a multi-lingual family, or undertaken language training as part of your higher education or military experience. You’ll undergo language tests where you’ll need to comfortably read newspaper articles and understand news broadcasts in both Pashto and Dari.
This is a unique opportunity to work as part of a community of linguists – and to make a significant contribution to our national security. Find out more and apply here.
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:
To be eligible to apply, you must be a British Citizen. If you hold dual nationality, of which one component is British, you will nonetheless be considered. 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. You can apply at the age of 17 years, if successful you will not be offered a start date prior to your 18th birthday. Full eligibility details can be found on our website www.mi5.gov.uk/careers/applying-for-jobs
