MI5 seeks Q - applications in invisible ink optional

For years Britain's foreign intelligence service, MI6, had a Q - a figure, in fact and fiction, "whose team is responsible for innovative technology and gimmicks and gadgets and things like that," as one of its officers puts it.

Now, MI6's sister service, MI5, is following suit. It has decided to recruit its own chief scientific adviser to "ensure policy and operations are underpinned by excellent scientific and technology advice", officials said yesterday.

This person will liaise with MI6, whose gadgets include invisible ink, hidden cameras and cartridges that squirt packages of information through the ether, and with GCHQ, whose information-crunching computers are among the largest in the world.

Though some of the best counter-intelligence tradecraft relies on labour-intensive human activities, notably surveillance, MI5 wants to make sure it is also benefitting from the latest scientific and technological inventions when it comes to following mobile traffic, bugging conversations and email.

Professor John Beddington, the government's top chief scientific officer, said yesterday that MI5's scientists and engineers needed leadership. The new appointee will have to ensure British counter-intelligence stays one step ahead of the country's enemies, he said.

He told the BBC: "It will involve a sort of future gazing to see where technology will be taking us in a year or so. There is a really important role in providing scientific and technological advice on addressing problems agents in the field will face." The job will also include advising on protecting the "critical national infrastructure" - such as sources of energy and the national grid - and the proliferation of nuclear, biological and chemical weapons.

MI5's website says candidates for the "unique and challenging" role would need to have "world-class scientific expertise and credibility", "excellent strategic skills", "outstanding influencing and communication skills" and a successful track record of "managing critical projects and processes in a complex environment".

The post will take up two or three days a week. Applicants have until next Friday to respond. Vetting requirements mean that applications for what Beddington called an "extraordinarily exciting job" could take up to six months to process, MI5 warns.

• guardian.co.uk © Guardian News and Media Limited 2009