Surveillance Planning & Briefing Officer - Counter Terrorism Policing

West Midlands Police; Birmingham; On-site; GBP 32,000 - 45,000; Full time

Job summary

West Midlands Police is seeking a Surveillance Planning and Briefing Officer to coordinate CT surveillance assets and deliver operational briefings. The role interfaces with CTU departments and surveillance teams, ensuring briefings reflect the current intelligence picture and comply with guidelines.

Based near Birmingham Airport, you will manage documentation, evidential materials and briefing outputs, with core hours 8am–4pm and one 10am–6pm shift weekly, plus a weekend on-call rota and

Qualifications

• Experience in producing and delivering briefings to varied audiences.
• Ability to condense and analyse large amounts of information.
• Proven negotiation and communication skills with officers of all ranks.
• IT skills with PowerPoint, Excel and Word and adaptability to software packages.

Responsibilities

• Liaise with intelligence departments to gather documentation before covert deployments.
• Prepare and deliver operational briefings, handling sensitive information per guidelines.
• Review and process surveillance evidence daily to ensure evidential standards.
• Proofread surveillance logs and view records, offering planning comments.
• Assess covert imagery and create records of surveillance documents to standards.
• Manage retention and destruction of surveillance products per national guidelines.

Skills

Briefings delivery

Information analysis

Negotiation/communication

Discretion/confidentiality

Driving licence

Tools

PowerPoint

Excel

Word

Job description

Closing date: 18/01/2026 11:59pm

Salary: £38,169 - £44,700

Grade: 6

Type: Full time

Counter Terrorism Policing (CTP) is a collaboration of UK police forces working with the UK intelligence community to help protect the public and our national security by preventing, deterring and investigating terrorist activity.

Counter Terrorism Policing West Midlands (CTP WM) Surveillance department sits within the Pursue section of the 4 P’s. Whether investigating a highly sophisticated international plot, or a lone individual preparing an attack, our teams of professionals are ready to deploy a wide range of skills, including utilising expertise in Surveillance.

We are looking for a staff member to be based in our modern offices near to Birmingham Airport to be responsible for the planning and co-ordination of CT Surveillance assets, ensuring deployments provide the maximum benefit to the investigation. The core hours of work will be 8am to 4pm and one 10am to 6pm shift per week. You will also be part of a weekend on-call rota (Fri – Sun).

Due to operational reasons, there may be short notice changes to hours and the requirement to work outside of normal office hours, including the possibility of working away from home.

The role

As a Surveillance Planning and Briefing Officer, you’ll be the interface between CTU departments and the Surveillance teams, producing necessary documentation required for deployments. You’ll liaise with Senior Investigating Officers and partners and develop sufficient understanding of the intelligence picture, to ensure the operational briefing document is current and relevant.

Delivering Operational briefings to surveillance operatives, you’ll work alongside the Operational Intelligence Management Unit (OIMU) to assess threat, harm and risk matters, community impact and operational awareness and communicate these in support of the briefing and information sharing protocols.

You’ll be required to evidentially process, list and store all product obtained from the deployment, including summarising material to support the investigation and meet disclosure obligations. You’ll be responsible for proof reading the surveillance record and processing imagery, disseminating material obtained during deployments to support other evidential and identification objectives.

Responsibilities

• Liaising with intelligence departments to request, collate and research all documentation required prior to a covert deployment.
• Preparing and delivering operational briefings, ensuring all sensitive information is handled in accordance with Departmental, Force and National Guidelines, including importing images from various overt and covert sources, editing, enhancing and annotating images to populate any operational briefing.
• Reviewing and processing all surveillance evidence produced on a daily basis, ensuring the accuracy and evidential standard as required by the Investigating Officers.
• Proof reading all surveillance logs and viewing records to ensure accuracy and offer surveillance planning advice/comments within the current National Security Surveillance Report (NSSR).
• Viewing and providing first line assessment of all covert imagery obtained during a surveillance deployment.
• Creating accurate records of all accountable evidential surveillance documents within departmental spreadsheets in accordance with national standards. Managing retention and destruction of all surveillance product in line with national guidelines.
• Ensuring all physical exhibits are processed in accordance with national policy.
• Ensuring compliance with Force Policy on Equality and Diversity matters and that all best practices in covert criminal investigations are explored.

Skills and competencies

Essential

• Experience in the production and delivery of briefings, at a variety of levels.
• Ability to condense, analyse and select relevant information from a large amount of research material.
• Proven negotiation and communication skills to be able to converse with and brief officers/staff of all ranks.
• IT skills including using Power point, excel and word and the ability to adapt to various software packages.
• Ability to prioritise, manage competing demands and respond effectively to workstreams with a quick turnaround
• Working on own initiative, demonstrating the ability to meet deadlines.
• Experience in working with intelligence with the ability to recognise sensitive information and always maintain discretion and confidentiality.
• Possess a high degree of commitment, dedication and flexibility.
• Hold a full UK driving licence.

Desirable

• Previous experience of working within covert investigations, including where surveillance has been utilised.
• Investigatory experience.
• Experience or working knowledge of Exhibits and/or Disclosure
• Knowledge of current developments / advancements in surveillance technology and techniques.

Security Clearance

This role requires British Nationality (some dual nationalities may be ineligible) and a Developed Vetting clearance.

You will need to undergo additional security clearance checks, with the offer of employment being conditional on obtaining all of the necessary security clearances.

There are limitations on travelling to a small number of countries once in post.

Diversity and Inclusion

Diversity and Inclusion Vision: “Maximise the potential of people from all backgrounds through a culture of fairness and inclusion to deliver the best service for our communities, whilst protecting them from harm”

We are a Disability Confident Leader - the highest level an organisation can achieve under the scheme run by the Department of Work and Pensions. As part of our commitment we operate a "Disability Confident Interview Scheme" - all candidates who declare a disability and meet the essential criteria for the role will be offered an interview.

It is important to note that there may be occasions where it is not practicable or appropriate to interview all disabled people who meet the essential criteria for the job. For example, in certain recruitment situations such as high-volume, seasonal and high-peak times, the employer may wish to limit the overall numbers of interviews offered to both disabled people and non-disabled people. In these circumstances, the employer could select the candidates who best meet the essential criteria for the job, as they would do for non-disabled applicants.

Advertisement Closing Date

We reserve the right to close this advertisement early if the maximum volume of applications has been reached. Candidates with unsubmitted applications will not be informed prior to the advert closing.