Reports have suggested part-time computer experts will work one or two days a week at intelligence agency GCHQ, although the agency says the plans are not yet concrete.

The suggestion comes as GCHQ has found it difficult to attract and retain talent in the face of higher private sector salaries and the rise in demand for such professionals generally.

Reports suggest that cyber security staff will be offered part-time work at the Cheltenham-based organisation, with a statement from GCHQ admitting it is “constantly examining new ways to harness and attract the talent of cyber security specialists we need”.

As Recruiter reported yesterday, there has been a steady rise in cyber security jobs in the US over the last few years, while a survey of 540 IT professionals from industry jobsite CWJobs saw 71% of respondents saying that the rise of ‘big data’ had created more jobs for IT workers.

Of those, 60% said that they thought security professionals were in the greatest demand, the leading sub-sector of IT, ahead of analysis (58%) and management (49%), with government the second most likely employer, thought 14% of respondents, following the presumably more lucrative finance industry (41%).

But such flexible working arrangements, which might allow workers to combine the benefit of financial services pay and spy work – the London Evening Standard suggests that IT workers leaving GCHQ find work outside “less rewarding” – was “purely speculative”, the spokesperson added. 

A pity for headline writers and pun aficionados, with the London Evening Standard calling such workers “the spy who came in one day a week”, while The Daily Telegraph went for “iPlods”.