Can you keep a secret? Meet the autistic MI5 intelligence officer

After the meeting, Liam took some time off from his job and spoke to several specialists. He learned he’d experienced autistic burnout, a state of physical and mental fatigue and heightened stress which had built up over years.

Some days he was relieved to understand what had happened – other days he was anxious about whether he would have to find a new job.

“I struggled being off work,” he says. “I was so tired, there were lots of thoughts running through my mind. I was worried how I would be viewed.”

Despite the anxieties, Liam was supported by colleagues when he returned to work. He was offered sessions with occupational health and well-being teams, and neurodiversity coaches helped him learn how to work with his autism.

He learned about the importance of doing one task at a time, having routines, and having conversations about what to prioritise.

Over time things got easier. Liam joined a neurodiverse staff network and was encouraged to share that he is autistic.

He says he can now see the strength in the way he approaches tasks and describes intelligence work as like solving a complex jigsaw puzzle, where neurodivergent people may be able to offer alternative perspectives, and help plug knowledge gaps.

He says his hyperfocus, attention to detail, and good memory have also proved fruitful in the field.

Keeping secrets is a big part of working for MI5 and only Liam’s close family know what he does for a living, but he says his burnout was never linked to this aspect of the job.

“I keep a lot of information inside,” he says. “Keeping secrets is never an issue for me.”

MI5 is a Disability Confident employer, which means it has taken steps to provide equal opportunities to disabled people. It employs about 5,000 people, about 4% of whom are disabled, according to figures released in 2022. The think tank, the Institute for Government, says this is below average for civil servants which in 2022 was 14% and 15.5% for the UK working population.

Historically, security services have found recruiting disabled people and other groups such as black and minority ethnic difficult, but MI5 says it has worked hard to change this. Its latest pay gap report shows a quarter of all new joiners in 2022/23 were from an ethnic minority background, and almost 48% were women.