Government Security Profession

The Government Security Profession supports over 14,000 security professionals across the Civil Service and Public Sector to develop their skills and capability and build rewarding careers.

The Profession is part of the Government Security Function, which is responsible for the oversight, coordination, and delivery of protective security within all central government departments, their agencies, and arm’s length bodies.

We work with a diverse range of security partners to develop strategies for security and security capabilities. These include:

  • National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC)
  • National Protective Security Authority (NPSA)
  • UK National Authority for Counter-Eavesdropping (UKNACE)
  • Security Education and Awareness Centre (SEAC)
  • UK Cyber Security Council (UKCSC)
  • College for National Security.

The Profession maintains the Government Security Career Framework, setting out the roles and skills which contribute to the disciplines of Government Security, including Physical, Personnel, Cyber and Technical Security, and enabling roles in Resilience, Governance and Compliance, and Leadership. The career framework also highlights the different career paths professionals can take to achieve their career goals and promotes technical accreditation to support their career progression.

Our 7 distinct profession areas are:

Cyber Security protects information systems; hardware, software, their associated infrastructure, the data on them, and the services they provide, from unauthorised access, harm or misuse. Both intentional and accidental.
Personnel Security seeks to mitigate the risk of workers (insiders) exploiting their legitimate access to an organisation’s assets for unauthorised purposes.
Physical Security is security measures to protect assets, including people, services, infrastructure, systems, places, equipment and networks.
Technical Security holistically protects sensitive information and technology from close access, acquisition or exploitation by hostile actors, as well as any other forms of technical manipulation.
Governance & Compliance ensures security policies and strategies are observed, establishing and maintaining secure foundations for security through its processes, strategies and compliance.
Resilience involves the cross-disciplinary identification of threats and mitigation, to ensure the capability to mitigate and respond to incidents and risks and enable robust business continuity.
Leadership recognises those in senior roles with ultimate responsibility for shaping and delivering the security agenda within their business areas. This includes ‘Heads of…’ and other senior leaders who set strategic direction, drive cultural change and ensure alignment with government priorities. These individuals play a pivotal role in securing outcomes that protect and advance Government Security. 

By promoting best practices and establishing common standards, we strive to achieve improved security outcomes across government, ultimately benefiting the citizens we serve.

The Security Profession has a range of accreditation partners including; UK Cyber Security Council, The Security Institute, The Worshipful Company of Security Professionals and the Register of Security Engineers and Specialists. More information can be found here. 

The contracts delivering the current Learning Frameworks service end on the 30 April 2026. Because of this, some profession and function-recommended products may not be available for booking. The prospectus pages for the products this effects have been updated, and will state a last booking date as part of the product description.

These changes are happening across a series of waves and more information can be found here. The products in Wave 1 will not be available to book from 30 June 2025.

We anticipate you will be able to start booking these products again from May 2026, when the next contract is live.