Yeah, the annual pay is £47k plus 007. Some civil servant’s idea of a joke. Hopefully, the job offer for a Wargaming Analyst isn’t.
The position, which is permanent and being offered by the Defense Science and Technology Laboratory, is taking applications up until Monday the 18th of October.
You’ll have to work with the British military, lead the delivery of small work packages and provide direction to academic partners.
The role looks legit. It’s on the .gov.uk site and begins by explaining why the UK government is interested in wargaming.
A wargame is a process of adversarial challenge and creativity, delivered in a structured format and usually umpired or adjudicated. Wargames immerse participants in an environment with the required level of realism to improve their decision-making skills and/or the real decisions they make. Wargaming is a powerful tool, used within the Ministry of Defence to explore issues ranging from national strategic (such as current geopolitical decision-making) to the tactical (such as how to effectively use generation-after-next concepts on a future battlefield).
In an observation that will not surprise tabletop gamers, UK Gov recognises that wargames encourage analytical thinking and even mind games. They go on to say;
The Wargaming capability you would be joining uses wargaming as a structured analytical technique to understand conflict in order to provide advice to the Ministry of Defence and wider UK Government. Wargaming draws on people with a range of skills; quantitative and qualitative operational analysis techniques; communication; and player interaction in order to model adversarial scenarios to understand factors that can influence the outcome.
You won’t be alone. The project seems to be building a whole team of people, and the job page talks about “Analysts” with that second S.
In order to build a better wargaming capability, we need a team of people with a range of different skills and experiences to challenge established assumptions. Analysts brought in to the Defence Wargaming Centre will be developed using our Wargaming Development Framework to give a broad range of opportunities to develop the breadth of skills needed to be a professional wargamer. As well as building a broad range of skills, you will also be given opportunities to specialise in areas of wargaming which should align with your own passions/interests.
The job posting also stresses that you can’t be sexist or racist.
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Picture credit: Jamie Spaniol.
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