As a childhood reader of spy novels, I acquired high expectations of the secret world. British spies would be flamboyant and exceptional Bond-types. But looking around the post-university scene, I realise that all the people I knew who became spies are dull. There was the humdrum civil service fast streamer who mysteriously ended up living in Portsmouth, the location of MI6’s training camp, for a few months. Another vanilla acquaintance abandoned post-university travels plans to move to Cheltenham, home of GCHQ. There was an unmemorable trainee Army officer whose digital footprint disappeared without trace.
The four main British intelligence services — MI5, MI6, GCHQ and Defence Intelligence — employ around 20,000 people. And yes, a lot of those work in IT. But with a bit of quick maths you can say that around one in every 2,000 working-age Briton is in some sense a spy. And how dull they must be to keep their secrets. The intelligence services’ own consciously grey recruitment adverts now offer applicants the chance to “fulfil all their career ambitions” and enjoy “an excellent range of benefits”.
