GCHQ starts hunt for tech-savvy apprentices

British intelligence agencies have launched a recruitment drive for “technically minded apprentices”. For prospective programmers and tech-savvy talent, the British Intelligence Higher Apprenticeship in IT, Software, Internet and Telecoms would offer an alternative to a university degree – and a unique start to a career. The …

[Ashton Black]

Interesting.

Hmm, I think the younger me would have loved to do something like this. (I joined the army, rather then go to uni.) Plus you wouldn't come out with massive debts!

Good luck to them, I just hope the quality of the education is as promised!

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Interesting.

The younger me would have tried to hack the evil guberment for e-peen and lulz.

[Prst. V.Jeltz]

you can? is the work hard to find?

{edit} a downvote! what? honest enquiry! trying to figure out what direction to branch out in before i get to old and lazy. Thats why i even opened this GCHQ apprenticeship article , despite being 43

[psychonaut]

you and me both mate

@Prst. V.Jeltz

im 40 and getting mightily bored...let me know if you find anything.

nod to the hhgttg ref too....

[Aldous]

a few years back the starting salary for a grad was something like 22k. Then they were moaning as to why they could get no talent when most of the big companies pay a lot more for there grad schemes, didn't need to rubber glove check your history or require leaving your morals at the door

[Anonymous Coward]

a few years back the starting salary for a grad was something like 22k.

Aldi's graduate scheme pays a starting whack of £42k, and at the end of every day their graduates can go home knowing they've done a fair days work, and not undermined democracy.

But let's be realistic. GCHQ know their offer is pitiful, but what they're hoping to get is some pointy heads, people who are exceptionally clever, exceptionally focused, but so narrow in their outlook that they neither know nor care that GCHQ are paying not much above the "living wage", and indifferent to the societal impact of their work so long as they get to play all day with computers.

[x 7]

this isn't a graduate starting salary

this is a paid degree course - a damned sight cheaper than massing up the usual student loans. On that basis its an easy start for any student who wants an IT degree. Presumably GCHQ also pay the student fees to the sponsoring University

Effectively its like the old company-sponsored degree schemes, with the exception the Manchester based full honours degree is three years (not four) while the Cheltenham based foundation degree is only two (with an optional third year Honours)

I can think of several kids who would jump at the chance, assuming they recruit in the same way in subsequent years

Whats not clear is who are the sponsoring Universities - I'd guess at Manchester and Cranfield/Shrivenham but thats really only a guess

[Naselus]

"this isn't a graduate starting salary

this is a paid degree course "

Entirely this. Sure, 18k a year is below a grad starting salary. But it's a damn sight better than a non-grad starting salary is, and astronomically better than paying out 27k for a degree.

[Anonymous Coward]

Really? As an 18 year old with no degree and no experience and being based in Cheltenham / Bristol? £17.5k, whilst not great, is reasonable given it's essentially an apprentice role.

I'd probably have gone for this. I'd still like to work there (hence anon) but the salaries are a bit crap once you're a decade into your career.

[Anonymous Coward]

my salaries still a bit crap two decades into my career .

What i learned - if it looks like you're not going anywhere - Leave and try somewhere else.

If you fail *any* internal job promotion interviews - Leave and try somewhere else.

[Anonymous Coward]

GCHQ looks brilliant on your CV, but the pay and conditions are a bit of a pisstake.

Great place to start your career though. Go in, learn some useful and marketable skills, then get out and work somewhere else at actual market rates.

[Anonymous Coward]

Do they have a recruitment poster ?

Poster...

[Anonymous Coward]

Eh?

If you want to persuade the youngs to work for the baddies you'll have to pay them more than that!

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Eh?

“Students will be part of a team that helps ensure that UK Government can operate in cyberspace, playing vital roles in GCHQ’s mission to tackle terrorism, organised crime and cyber threats.”

They would be better off mentioning the other stuff - the ability to commit serious organised crime with impunity, the intercepting of millions of private webcam images etc.

That would appeal far more than the tired "help tackle terrorism, organised crime and cyber threats" cliche to the technically competent but morally challenged youngsters they are looking for. Who could turn down a job where you get to hack foreign telecommunications companies and look at other people's private amateur porn all day?

[Mark 85]

Re: Eh?

So it's actually a state-sponsored education for aspiring malware writers and miscreants?

[x 7]

Re: Eh?

"So it's actually a state-sponsored education for aspiring malware writers and miscreants?"

But what fun......imagine the thrills crashing all those centrifuges during practicce

[0laf]

I suppose it's better than racking up student debt but they'll have to pay a lot more than they currently do to retain these guys at the end of their apprenticeship.

[x 7]

I can see a problem here. When filling in CVs its easy to disguise a short term job which you don't want people to know about, but disguising academic credentials is harder.

Suppose you wanted to apply for a job overseas......having a first degree as BSc (Hons) awarded by GCHQ could be a heck of a stigma. Would make a lot of sense if they awarded it through Cranfield instead

[Your alien overlord - fear me]

I hear there's a kid from Northern Ireland who might be available :-)

[Valeyard]

ah

I always wondered where henchmen come from in the bond films, I suppose people just need the money and have no morals

i wonder if you became an absolute c**nt as part of the GCHQ onboarding or if it's a gradual change

[45RPM]

Prospective recruits (who need to be 18 and above) need a strong interest in programming and technology and questionable morals when it comes to respecting other peoples privacy.

Fixed that for you.

[Anonymous Coward]

and questionable morals when it comes to respecting other peoples privacy.

To be fair, I think you need to differentiate between the junior oiks, most of whom simply believe the official line about "protecting the country", and whose crime is simple naivety, and the more senior people, who know that what is being done is an affront to democracy. That latter category includes whining DCI Andrew Gould, now jointly famous for his lack of success in tackling cybercrime and his thin skin.

[ukaudiophile]

Do you actually know anything about the course?

I have more than a passing familiarity with this course, and I can say that those who attend it are given training to an exemplary level, and I would not hesitate in recommending this to anyone looking for an excellent degree course in IT, it's far better then spending three years being bored senseless by lefty lecturers who've never earned a decent salary in their lives whilst racking up massive debts. It should also be noted that GCHQ employs the vast majority of those who complete this course, so it'snot just a pointless vanity exercise, but has a real job at the end of it.

As for being employed elsewhere, with this on your CV can you show me an IT company who wouldn't employ someone with the kind of training they'll receive? I would suggest any graduate from this course would be in very high demand, especially in any IT company which dealt with networking or security.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Do you actually know anything about the course?

lefty lecturers who've never earned a decent salary in their lives

Or, "people who do something useful for society rather than just grabbing the money" as I like to think of them.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Do you actually know anything about the course?

Sounds more like it is 3 years of highly politicized brain washing and GCHQ centric technologies followed by a job paid far below industry standards which you won't easily be able to transfer out of because the course didn't cover general IT skills.

Personally I would rather get the qualification from a "lefty lecturer" without an agenda who is widely and highly regarded in their field at an accredited institution than some shady anonymous suit who tramples on the public's rights and privacy because they have lost sight that that is actually the thing they are supposed to be protecting.

[ukaudiophile]

Re: Do you actually know anything about the course?

Must disagree with pretty much everything you've said here.

As for "politicized brain washing", then trust me, the caliber of students that they demand would not be susceptible to any kind of brain washing. You will encounter far more brain washing from the BBC and John Snow on Channel 4 news in a night than you would in a month here, but what you get from BBC and Channel 4 is rather unfairly targeted, those watching that garbage don't have the intellectual tools to realise they're being fed a load of biased garbage.

The technologies being taught are far from purely GCHQ centric, that's why it leads to a recognised degree which can be used anywhere. The degree qualification does not use any technologies which are covered by the official secrets act, hence it's fully transferable, and the course does cover general IT technologies, I would suggest in a far more thorough way than almost any university does in the UK.,

As for 'lefty lecturers' no having an agenda, I'm yet to meet one who is not whingeing about their employment contracts, wanting more money or who is simply cruising to a gold plated retirement.

They don't use 'anonymous suits', GCHQ uses specialists in their field to actually deliver the lectures, and I'd rather be taught by a suit who actually deals with the tech on a day to day basis rather than a lecturer who was trained 20 years ago when he wasn't hanging out at student bars, and has barely looked at state of the art systems since.

[x 7]

Re: Do you actually know anything about the course?

@ukaudiophile

as you seem to be familiar with the course, do you know if this advert for an intake next year is a one-off, or will it be repeated in subsequent years? I'm thinking of a couple of kids for whom this would be ideal but are at present a year or two too young to apply

[ukaudiophile]

Re: Do you actually know anything about the course?

No, it's not a one off. GCHQ has an ongoing process to recruit apprentices, so whilst the number they hire might vary, the fact that they are hiring does not, so there will be positions available for the forseeable future. GCHQ are actually pretty open about the kind of people they're looking for, so it would do no harm to approach them directly even if the kids who you're thinking of are a year or two away from being the right age.

Good luck!

[Anonymous Coward]

Am I missing something here but why on earth would you do this?

You join GCHQ sign the official secrets that you can't speak about anything in relation to your work..

You decide at 30 for a career change because maybe you want more money, what exactly are you going to do? You can't work in I.T. because you can't discuss or use any of the skills/knowledge you gained.

or is that not how it would work?

[Warm Braw]

>What exactly are you going to do?

You probably move sideways into one of the private sector companies that have a working relationship with GCHQ and move on from there. At least GCHQ now officially exists - rather harder to account for the apparent gap in your work history in the days when you couldn't mention its name.

And I imagine the young and innocent are more liable to be wide-eyed at the opportunity to join a secret society that separates them from the common herd and won't be thinking 10 years ahead anyway.

[Naselus]

"Am I missing something here but why on earth would you do this?"

Ask the entire Israeli private IT security sector. IT was built from much the same sort of initiative, and does rather well for itself.

[ukaudiophile]

No, That's not how it would work at all.

The degree is recognised and the technology used to attain that degree is in transferable technologies. At some point I am sure that there will be exposure to the technology inside GCHQ which cannot be spoken of, but I am also sure that is not critical to the course. It would, therefore, be easy to use the skills gained here elsewhere without coming anywhere near a violation of the official secrets act which, let's not forget, is there for a very good reason.

I am sure that there are many IT companies in the security and networking field who would welcome, with open arms, someone from this course. So should you want to leave GCHQ in the future, you have a transferable skill set which can be deployed in the civilian world, but, as was previously mentioned, GCHQ has technological alliances with many other private contractors and I am sure they would be delighted to hire from that pool of talent coming out of GCHQ.

[Dr Scrum Master]

You can't work in I.T. because you can't discuss or use any of the skills/knowledge you gained.

Not so. I used to work with an ex-GCHQ chap. There was plenty he could do in IT, just that there were a few areas he wasn't allowed to touch.

[simpfeld]

Many would have loved to have worked for them...except

Given the way the security services have arbitrarily ridden roughshod over our rights by slurping everything from everyone.

Plus the Tory government's technologically illiterate anti-encryption narrative and their grey haired, one foot in the grave supporter pleasing default Internet filtering publicity stunt policy.

I'd hope the best of the best especially in the free software end of things would never ever work for them.

[Third Electric]

Those who fail the interview process end up in a padlocked sports bag under their bathroom sink

[x 7]

"Those who fail the interview process end up in a padlocked sports bag under their bathroom sink"

You don't have to work for GCHQ for that to happen......there was that chap who was the editor of "Defence Helicopter Review" who asked too many questions about Exocets for Argentina, another chap who was close to Gerald Bull and Matrix Churchill, and at least three employees of British Aerospace / BAE Systems

[GrumpyKiwi]

17 thousand quid to help betray your fellow citizens? And there was I thinking the going rate was 30 pieces of silver.

[Anonymous Coward]

Interesting Work

Work for us to weaken the random number generator, work with us, help us to destroy the capitalist economy, learn the greatest an best in communist programming and never be allowed to implement strong cryptographic standards, only the Americans are allowed to do that, so they can read other peoples bank accounts and compile a huge database of there finger-prints and faces, then kill them with our Raytheon products. Do not ask about algorithms, such as Keccak, SandSTORM or Blue Midnight Wish with MD6, those are not for you. An never enquire as to why your Linux kernel has CA certificates for the Federal Reserve you are on a need to know basis and you do not need to know!

[Anonymous Coward]

Pay peanuts, get monkeys

I suspect that's all they want.

Last thing they want are ones with intelligence or a moral compass that isn't skewed towards paranoia and security over freedom or liberty.

Oh I suspect they'll also ask for undying loyalty to the royal family and the elites that runs the place.

1984? More like modern Feudalism.

[Panopticon]

Re: Pay peanuts, get monkeys

Mmm, an what really get's you and ticks you off is the Lie's about insecurity in there Operating Systems, see Feistel Networks - So named after the Lucifer algorithm, that would be the Bell-Topper and Bell-View...

A totally impenetrable database that emerged in 1959 and débuted the world in 1973...

It's called REAL Unix not fake BSD or fake Linux, funny how 4.3BSD was coded in ANSI-C the standard of the time, until it was given away for Free and then the dreaded Bash bug made it's debut along with the bugs in X.

Glenda brauns boob's appear to be crunching your Secure Sockets Layer as Assange dually noted. SSL layers from Robert Morris Bell-Labs & NSA (first ever PC worm too) that don't wrap properly on Windows, Macintosh, Linux or BSD.

They wrap correctly however on Genuine Unix, in point of fact they wrap around your own connection perfectly. Just think of all the cyber-fraud you could commit with that little Gem! Oh and Real Unix is Free, it got Open Sourced after they where caught abusing it. So it's only a matter of time before they all get spanked for being naughty!

See www.suckless.org and www.cat-v.org

Hackers (1995) - "A Rabbit is in the Administration System!" - "A Rabbit uh, it'll replicate till it overloads a file then it'll spread like Cancer!"

JavaScript, Haskell, C++, C# oh do behave "NO!"