Roles and skills

Intelligence analysis offers intellectual stimulation, career mobility and deep satisfaction in knowing you play a role in keeping our country safe. You can turn raw data into actionable intelligence. You will evaluate information from multiple sources, monitor trends and interpret events related to specific countries or issues. Analysts provide decision-makers with the information they need to make critical decisions. Skills central to the profession include critical thinking and logical reasoning, the ability to communicate clearly and the ability to objectively analyse all sides of any given issue.

To maintain a capability edge over our adversaries, we need professionals who can solve complex problems, test innovative approaches and research new solutions. We then need the skills to take innovative ideas and convert them into robust and proven capabilities.

In these roles, you'll manage the whole life cycle of contracts for goods and services, from planning and execution to administration and closeout—all to support a mission of keeping the nation safe. You will interact with customers to solicit and evaluate proposals, conduct cost or price analysis and implement acquisition strategies. You may research and evaluate potential contractors or vendors to determine the best fit with government needs, considering capabilities and costs. You may manage contracts of several types and dollar values, ranging from simplified purchases to multimillion-dollar awards.

One of our primary tasks is to convey information to our customers in the most effective form we can. This increasingly involves us using innovative graphic and multimedia approaches to convey our analysis and messages. Working in words or images, online or print, you know how to articulate ideas and craft communication products that tell a story. Whether your specialty is visual communication, writing, editing or web development, you will facilitate internal or external communication to achieve National Intelligence Community goals. You will become a part of a team that oversees communicating vital information to multiple audiences.

All agencies in the National Intelligence Community have a role to play in our cyber landscape. Your next career could be focused on a defensive mission, helping to protect Australian information systems from cyberattacks, or it could be focused on an offensive mission, gathering intelligence from foreign adversaries and preventing them from using their systems to attack us. No matter where you start, you will study many sides of cyber and move from one agency to another to expand your skill sets.

Our technologists work on how the National Intelligence Community can build game-changing common platforms and capabilities, such as secure cloud platforms and specialised tools. We need information architects, business analysts and project managers who understand how to design, integrate and build flexible and scalable systems.

Data science professionals in the National Intelligence Community have opportunities that rarely are matched in the private sector.As a computer or data scientist in the Intelligence Community, you will research, test and support new solutions to storing, manipulating and presenting information. Depending on your skill set, you may manipulate and analyse large datasets to find patterns and relationships, develop computational algorithms and statistical methods to create reusable, repeatable operations or communicate findings with decision-makers.

Whatever road you choose, you will immerse yourself in big data analytics, machine learning, natural language processing, predictive analytics and specialised data operations that won't be matched elsewhere.

All intelligence agencies collect, analyse and share data from a wide range of sources from across the globe. A solid understanding of world events and foreign targets is critical to every mission. This is why we need professionals with deep knowledge of foreign languages, dialects, contexts and cultural nuances.

Depending on your skills, you may translate, transcribe and report foreign or security intelligence, research foreign intelligence targets and how they operate, craft written assessments that provide insight into foreign target intentions or design and develop products to enhance understanding of mission-critical foreign languages.

The National Intelligence Community operates in an extremely complex arena that is governed by international and domestic laws, rules, regulations and standards. As a law and legal service professional, you will use your knowledge of the law and applicable standards, rules and regulations to advise leadership and guide policymakers on the legal issues facing us today and in the future.

Our work is defined by our people. We need to attract, recruit and retain the best talent if we are going to produce the insights and innovation we need to deliver on our mission. As part of this, we are committed to developing innovative recruitment and retention strategies and providing the highest level of care and support for our staff and their families.

We work across the National Intelligence Community on common human resource challenges, including workforce planning, diversity and inclusion initiatives and talent attraction. To do this work, we need human resources professionals who want to support and grow highly talented individuals. We offer unique, challenging work in organisations where human resources skills are recognised and valued.

Our in-house psychologists play an important role in ensuring the well-being of our staff and their families. Working in the intelligence community can present unique challenges and our psychologists provide direct, highly valued support on a daily basis. You will deliver a range of psychological services using your analytical, assessment and psychological risk knowledge with tasks potentially including:

• psychological assessments, including advice regarding suitability for employment;

• management of a small caseload (employee assistance), providing brief solution-focused interventions for a range of personal and vocational challenges;

• staff and leadership development delivered through a range of in-house programs in accordance with the strategic direction of each NIC agency;

• undertake research, project work and provide analysis on current psychological trends in organisational health, insider threat psychology and staff wellbeing

• provide other services and specialist input to management and stakeholders on behavioural science related issues as required to support intelligence operations

• contribute to organisational change management initiatives.

Security professionals in the Intelligence Community protect the people, information, facilities and the systems that protect our nation. We depend on security personnel to protect our employees and agencies. Our personnel must be safe, and our classified information must remain protected. 

Our work can be highly sensitive, so the honesty and integrity of our people is essential. That’s why we rely on our vetting analysts to identify those who can keep Australia’s secrets safe.

As a vetting officer, you’ll make recommendations on individuals' suitability to hold security clearances and work with us. To do this, you’ll conduct in-depth interviews, analyse information and produce detailed reports.

Central to the role is connecting with other people, as well as maintaining the privacy and dignity of those you assess. Everything you do will support an increasingly diverse workforce and the safety of Australia.