GCHQ has never appeared more appealing to those with the right skills.
According to “Chris” from GCHQ, people now see GCHQ as a much more technical savvy operation
GCHQ said it has only recruited about six people from the Cyber Security Challenge in recent years but it is looking to increase that figure significantly. Chris, who works on the information security side of GCHQ, said however that to attract the right people, it has to appeal to something other than financial remuneration: “We can’t compete with the big companies out there, that’s just not possible, but we have a very unique mission that few other organisations have, and people will come to us and be interested in us because of that mission.”
Chris said an apprentice scheme launched a couple of years ago was “massively oversubscribed” and it seems that it is now more appealing than ever.