Senior Wellbeing Advisor

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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 about 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

Our Wellbeing team helps us to look after our most important asset - our people. In these challenging and exciting roles, you'll support and promote staff wellbeing. Working with a multi-disciplinary team of outreach delivery, clinical psychologists, counsellors, occupational health nurses and workplace adjustment advisors, you'll ensure staff wellbeing remains a key priority within the intelligence community.

As a Senior Wellbeing Advisor, you'll lead on the triage and prioritisation of referrals, and deliver one-to-one and group interventions to complex cases. You'll manage a varied workload and you'll be familiar with how to manage risk in the context of mental health and wellbeing. You'll either have existing management experience, or have the skills and experience required to make the step up. You'll enjoy working with autonomy and be comfortable managing your time and prioritising tasks.

You'll also be required to join an on-call rota for one in every eight weeks (on average, and subject to change based on staffing levels), where you will respond to urgent calls.

You'll share your insights and experience across a variety of tasks. This could be enabling delivery of our input in relation to our Psychological Risk Management policy and processes or overseeing wellbeing projects. You'll also shape the delivery of training and psychoeducation initiatives by feeding external best practice into our service development. Plus, you'll provide proactive support across people services and mission areas.

You can expect to be travelling between national sites once a month. There may also be opportunities to travel abroad, so flexibility may be required.

Please note that you will be employed by MI5, regardless of where you are based in the role.

About You

You'll be empathetic and calm under pressure, with a genuine interest in people and the skills to engage and build rapport. You'll have a background of working in mental health or wellbeing environments and experience delivering one-to-one and group interventions. This could be in the public or private sector. Management of risk in the context of mental health and wellbeing will also be a key part of your competencies. Your knowledge will include working with adults and delivering support services in different formats including guided self-help, face-to-face and online.

In addition, you'll have Mental Health First Aid or Mental Health Awareness training, enabling you to be able to deal with complex cases and risk management. There may also be the potential to manage a team of Wellbeing Practitioners. You'll enjoy working with autonomy and be comfortable managing your time and prioritising tasks. Most importantly, you'll be a compassionate and resilient leader, able to deliver projects and inspire and empower those around you.

Training and Development

You'll receive plenty of opportunities for internal training across a wide range of subjects, including risk management, triage, supervision, specific interventions provided by wellbeing psychology colleagues (as required, based on the individual), motivational interviewing and listening skills. You'll be provided with supervision and clinical oversight and support in order to deliver your role.

You won't be expected to take on all your responsibilities immediately. You'll be given an incremental approach to the full role, supported with internal training. Upon joining, you'll also be given an induction to the organisation and your team.

Rewards and Benefits

You'll receive a starting salary of £41,795 plus other benefits including:
- 25 Days Annual Leave automatically rising to 30 days after 5 years' service, and an additional 10.5 days public and privilege holidays
- Opportunities to be recognised through our employee performance scheme
- Personal Learning Budget
- Interest-free season ticket loan
- Excellent pension scheme
- 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 here :

We're Disability Confident

MI5 are proud to have achieved Leader status within the DWP'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. Being Disability Confident, we aim to offer a person-to-person interview 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:
• Meeting the eligibility criteria
• Meeting the qualification criteria
• Demonstrating the skills referenced for the role at the CV and covering letter sift

What to Expect

Our recruitment process is fair, transparent, and based on merit. Here is a brief overview of each stage, in order:
• The first thing we will ask you to do is complete our pre-screening questions to find out if you meet our initial criteria.
• Our recruitment team will conduct a sift of your application. Successful applicants will be invited to an interview, where you will have the opportunity to demonstrate key behaviours relevant to the role.
• If you are successful at this stage, we will then start the vetting process, which includes a Security Interview. This interview is an important part of the selection process. It's an interview to explore your life and experiences, and it's not a competency or capability-based interview.

Please note, you must successfully pass each stage of the process to progress to the next. Your application may take around 6 - 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. You can read our full eligibility criteria here .

This role requires the highest security clearance, known as Developed Vetting (DV). It's something everyone in the UK Intelligence Community undertakes. You can find out more about the vetting process here .

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 discretely.

The role is based in Manchester or Cheltenham, so you'll need to live within a commutable distance. Please consider any financial implications and practicalities before submitting an application.

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 withhold 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.