Iran Open-Source Analyst

Position description

The Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office pursues our national interests and projects the UK’s role in the world.

We promote the interests of British citizens, safeguard the UK’s security, defend our values, reduce poverty and tackle global challenges with our international partners.

HMG Iran Unit is the FCDO department responsible for creating and delivering the National Security Council’s Iran strategy, working in an integrated way across Government. Our priorities are to prevent Iran from developing a nuclear weapons capability, reduce regional tension in the Middle East by countering Iran’s destabilising activity across the region, protecting UK citizens and interests from state threats from Iran, and defending our values and human rights objectives. The Foreign Secretary places high priority on delivering the Iran strategy. Iran Unit is part of the Middle East and North Africa Directorate, working closely with colleagues across the region. We also work extensively with Embassies in key capitals, including Washington, European capitals and Missions to the UN. 

This role will work across Iran Unit providing timely reporting on information flows, media narratives and their relationship to key foreign policy issues, to inform the effective policy making in Iran Unit and across other government departments. This is a rewarding and fast-paced role, working on policy issues at the top of the Government’s agenda.

Job description

Roles and Responsibilities
The successful candidate will lead the Unit’s open-source capability, working across His Majesty’s Government with other analysts to provide timely analysis and advice to policy teams. They will:

• Have strong Farsi and Arabic language skills to enable them to read local traditional and social media from Iran and the Region.

• Leverage their regional knowledge, deploy their Persian language expertise, and strong open-source analytical skills to create high value analytical products to help inform effective decision making in a priority area for UK foreign policy.

• Provide high-impact analysis to senior customers on Iran issues and help develop new tools and methods to expand our capability to analyse openly
available data.

• Working with the British Embassy in Tehran and other British Embassies in the region, as well as the UK government analytical community to create a forward
plan of analytical work that focus on the high priority areas of policy and current events.

• Share best practice with an external network of analysts and Iran specialists.

• Have the opportunity help shape HMG’s policy on countering disinformation and liaise with international partners to support understanding of and resilience to potentially hostile information operations.

Person specification

It is essential in your application that you provide evidence and proven examples in each of the following Minimum Criteria and Behaviours as far as you are able to do so. These responses will be further developed and discussed with those candidates invited for interview.

You must be a British Citizen at the time of application and, if invited to interview, you will need to bring proof of identity (British Passport/Driving Licence etc.) with you. This role requires you to attain Developed Vetting (DV) security clearance. 

Minimum Criteria

– Able to speak and read Farsi and Arabic fluently.

– Knowledge and experience in Open-Source Intelligence (OSINT) and relevant tools and tradecraft.

– Demonstrable experience of authoring complex analysis/reports and working in a policy environment.

– In-depth knowledge of both Iran’s domestic and foreign policy environment and its traditional and social media landscape.

Languages

Able to speak and read Farsi and Arabic fluently.

Behaviours

We’ll assess you against these behaviours during the selection process:

• Delivering at Pace
• Communicating and Influencing
• Seeing the Big Picture

Technical skills

We’ll assess you against these technical skills during the selection process:

• Motivation Question
• Language Proficiency Assessment

Benefits

Alongside your salary of £39,500, Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office contributes £10,665 towards you being a member of the Civil Service Defined Benefit Pension scheme. Find out what benefits a Civil Service Pension provides.

· A Civil Service Pension.
· 25 days Annual Leave per annum.
· 9 days Public and Privilege holidays per annum.
· Learning and Development tailored to your role.

See the attached candidate pack.

Application instructions

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