Employment Lawyer in Manchester

Salary: £66,581, plus £3,030 concessionary payment

Flexible working: Although this is a full-time role, we support flexible and compressed hours and welcome job share applications. This is an office-based role with limited opportunities for home working. Occasional travel between Cheltenham, Manchester and London will be required.

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, 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 emphasises teamwork.

The role: As an Employment Lawyer within GCHQ’s Legal Directorate, you’ll provide expert advice on employment law in a fast-paced and highly sensitive environment. Working at the heart of national security, you’ll help shape decisions that impact our people and our mission, managing a varied workload that spans casework, policy and litigation. Joining a small, collaborative team based in Cheltenham or Manchester, you’ll work closely with HR and Security colleagues, as well as lawyers from the other intelligence agencies, to deliver clear, well-considered advice on complex employment issues. From handling litigation to advising on security-related matters, your work will be intellectually challenging and often time-critical, requiring precision and adaptability.

You’ll develop your expertise through exposure to diverse legal work and structured training opportunities, taking on more complex matters as your experience grows. While much of your role will be office-based, you’ll collaborate across locations and disciplines, contributing to cross-agency projects and helping embed best practice across the organisation. Whether you’re drafting detailed advice, supporting investigations, delivering training or shaping policy, you’ll play a vital role in ensuring our employment practices remain robust, fair and aligned with national security priorities. This is a role that offers opportunities for professional growth and progression within a supportive, experienced and collaborative team.

About you: You’ll need to be a qualified solicitor or barrister/advocate in England and Wales, Scotland or Northern Ireland with at least three years’ post-qualification experience in employment law. You’ll bring excellent legal judgement, strong analytical skills and the ability to provide clear, practical advice in a fast-paced, high impact environment. With experience of managing a varied employment law workload, you’ll be confident working under pressure to meet tight deadlines. Proactive and motivated with the ability to pick up new areas of law quickly, you’ll combine technical expertise with creativity, offering risk-based solutions that balance legal requirements with operational needs. You’ll work closely with HR and Security teams, as well as lawyers from other agencies, so strong communication skills and the ability to build relationships across disciplines are essential. You’ll be comfortable explaining complex legal concepts in a clear, accessible way to non-specialist audiences.

Training and development: From the moment you join, you’ll be allocated a buddy and supported by a structured induction that introduces you to your team, your role and the wider organisation. You’ll take part in a formal onboarding programme and a bespoke induction into the Employment Law team, helping you build confidence and clarity as you settle in. You’ll have a wide range of learning opportunities, from on-the-job training and peer support to formal courses delivered through the Government Legal Profession. Whether you’re refining your expertise in employment law or exploring new areas such as security-related legal issues, you’ll be encouraged to shape your own development journey. We’ll also support you in attending the annual Legal Induction course and provide access to the Legal Information Online Network, which offers government training packages and bespoke sessions from external legal firms. Alongside this, you’ll benefit from regularly sharing knowledge and best practice across teams.

Rewards and benefits: You’ll receive a starting salary of £66,581, plus £3,030 concessionary payment, plus other benefits including: 25 days annual leave automatically rising to 30 days after 5 years’ service, and an additional 10.5 days public and privilege holidays; Opportunities to be recognised through our employee award scheme; An interest-free season ticket loan; A cycle to work scheme; Facilities such as a gym, restaurant and on-site coffee bars (at some locations); Paid parental and adoption leave.

Equal opportunities: 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, ethnicities, 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.

We’re Disability Confident: GCHQ is proud to have achieved Leader status within the Department for Work and Pensions' Disability Confident scheme. This is aimed at encouraging employers to think differently about disability and take action to improve how they recruit, retain and develop disabled people. As a Disability Confident Leader, we aim to ensure that a fair and proportionate number of disabled applicants who best meet the essential minimum criteria for this position, will be offered an interview, if it is practical for us to do so.

What to expect: Our recruitment process is fair, transparent, and based on merit. Here is a brief overview of each stage, in order: CV and application sift, looking at your motivation for the role and the organisation; In person Assessment Centre, including situational presentation and interview; If successful, you will receive a conditional offer of employment. 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 to continue any current employment until you have received your final job offer.

Before you apply: To work at GCHQ, you must be a British citizen or hold dual British nationality. Read the full eligibility criteria. This role requires the highest level of security clearance, known as Developed Vetting (DV). It’s something everyone in the UK Intelligence Community undertakes. Find out more about the vetting process.

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 securely.

The role is based in Cheltenham or Central Manchester, so you’ll need to live within a commutable distance. Please consider any financial implications and practicalities before submitting an application, as we do not offer relocation costs.

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 reserve 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.