With language coaching work expected to be done on-site during standard office hours (9-5). Some opportunity for non-standard hours, including remote or home working, e.g. to prepare training material.
Salary: £35.00 per hour, with travel costs reimbursed.
About Us
GCHQ is an intelligence, cyber and security agency, with a mission to keep the UK safe. We use cutting-edge technology, ingenuity and partnerships to identify, analyse and disrupt threats. Working with our intelligence partners in MI5 and MI6, we protect the UK from terrorism, cyber-attacks and espionage. At GCHQ you’ll do varied and fascinating work in a supportive and inclusive environment that puts the emphasis on nurturing and encouraging people to learn and grow.
The Role
As a part-time Mandarin Linguist, you’ll work on a flexible basis to bring your language and cultural expertise to our team. This is a role for those passionate about language and developing others, as you’ll be providing language training and support to less experienced Language Specialists. You’ll share your knowledge of Mandarin language and culture to create training and assessment materials, and translate and transcribe materials to develop our language technology tools.
You’ll work as part of a friendly, supportive and thriving community of Language Specialists who share your passion for Mandarin. In this unique language environment, you’ll take on individual projects combined with training other linguists, so there’ll be plenty of interaction and knowledge-sharing. Your training and mentoring will help enhance our language capabilities in support of the UK’s national security, and you’ll be welcomed and valued for the expertise you bring.
The role is flexible; however you will be expected to carry out your language coaching work on-site within standard office hours. There’s also the opportunity for remote or home working, such as when you’re preparing your teaching materials, and this could be outside of standard office hours depending on your preference. Occasionally, you may also be required to travel to London or other locations.
About You
You’ll speak and write Mandarin to a minimum of good C1 Level in CEFR terms, but ideally C2 level, as well as being fluent in English. No specific professional requirements are necessary; however, you will have some experience of teaching, mentoring or training in a language-based environment. For example, you might already work in academia, tutoring or as a translator. This role could complement a portfolio of other employment.
You’ll be supportive and encouraging of others, and bring a genuine passion for language to the role. With a good eye for detail, you’ll give timely and targeted feedback to support your colleagues’ ongoing language development. You’ll be IT literate and will enjoy the challenge of learning how to work independently on language technology projects.
Training and Development
Upon joining, you’ll attend a team induction where you’ll meet your new colleagues and learn more about the role and the organisation. After this, you’ll meet the linguists you’ll be coaching.
You’ll be assigned a line manager who’ll be responsible for any support or guidance you need. Though this role is with GCHQ, it’s based as part of a team that operates across all three of the UK’s Intelligence Agencies meaning there’s a possibility it could be extended to MI5 or MI6 in future.
Rewards and Benefits
You’ll receive an hourly rate of £35.00 per hour, plus paid travel expenses to our Manchester office. The role is based in Manchester City Centre, and you will be able to claim reasonable public transport costs as an expense. You will be expected to use the most cost-effective travel route and ticketing arrangements. Please note we do not offer relocation costs.
At GCHQ, 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, ethnicity, 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.
What to Expect
Our recruitment process is fair, transparent, and based on merit. Here is a brief overview of each stage, in order:
1. Application sift, looking at your motivation for the role and the organisation.
2. Language test, assessing your Mandarin skills in both translation and transcription.
3. Assessment centre, including competency interview and a practical exercise.
4. If successful, you will receive a conditional offer of employment, subject to vetting.
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 GCHQ you need to be a British citizen or hold dual British nationality. You can read our full eligibility criteria here.
To work in this role, you will need a certain level of security clearance, known as SC+ (Enhanced Security Check). It’s something everyone in the UK Intelligence Community has to go through and it can take some time.
As part of this process, you will be asked to fill in a detailed questionnaire and attend an interview with a vetting officer. In your interview the vetting officer will have a thorough, compassionate and honest discussion with you about you as a person and your life experiences, to ensure holding an SC+ (or in some cases a higher level of DV) clearance is right for you.
You don’t need to do any preparation for your vetting interview, just be honest and be yourself. All applicants who go through vetting are treated impartially and consistently, irrespective of gender, race, disability, religion, age, sexual orientation and other protected characteristics.
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.
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.
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