MI6’s chief wants spies who can code and recruit

Blaise Metreweli’s public blueprint for MI6 puts technical fluency inside the work of every officer. In her December 2025 speech, she said officers should become comfortable with code and human sources alike, and fluent in Python alongside other languages.

The recruitment list illustrates the service she described: linguists, data scientists, case officers, engineers, behavioural experts and technologists. Metreweli also drew on her own experience of recruiting and running agents in hostile territory.

Her argument connects technology to the risks of espionage. Digital traces and algorithmic decisions can affect the safety of officers and their agents. She described AI as a way to augment human skills.

She advocated calculated operational risks where the national interest and potential prize were clear. The speech describes plans, with no independent assessment of their implementation.