Secret Intelligence Service

British foreign intelligence service

Secret Intelligence Service
Logo	SIS headquarters, London. Photograph: Steve Cadman.
Type	Foreign intelligence service
Founded	1909, as the Foreign Section of the Secret Service Bureau
Headquarters	Vauxhall Cross, London (from 1994)
Area served	United Kingdom; overseas intelligence collection
Services	Foreign human and technical intelligence collection
Key people	Blaise Metreweli — Chief, identified on the official site in November 2026
Website	Official website
Remarks	Chief accountable to the Foreign Secretary; originated in the Foreign Section of the Secret Service Bureau

The Secret Intelligence Service (SIS), commonly known as MI6, is Britain’s foreign intelligence service. Its Chief is accountable to the Foreign Secretary; the official SIS website identifies Blaise Metreweli as Chief when checked on 6 November 2026.

People

Chiefs of the SIS (C or CSS)

The sequence comprises 18 heads from 1909 to the present, including the acting tenure listed below.

Chiefs of the Secret Intelligence Service

Head	Tenure and context
Mansfield Cumming	1909-1923
Rear Admiral Hugh Sinclair	1923-1939
Major-General Sir Stewart Menzies	1939-1952
Major-General Sir John Sinclair	1952-1956
Sir Dick White	1956-1968
Sir John Rennie	1968-1973
Sir Maurice Oldfield	1973-1978
Sir Arthur Temple Franks	1978-1981
Sir Colin Figures	1981–1985
Sir Christopher Curwen	1985-1988; his successor’s 2007 biography gives April 1989 for the handover
Sir Colin McColl	1988/1989–1994; the 2007 Business Threat Awareness Council biography gives April 1989
Sir David Spedding	1994-1999
Sir Richard Dearlove	1999-2004
Sir John Scarlett	2004-2009
Sir John Sawers	2009–2014; predecessor of Alex Younger, whose appointment as his successor was announced in October 2014.
Alex Younger	2014–2020. His appointment was announced in October 2014; in July 2020 the government announced that Richard Moore would succeed him that autumn.
Richard Moore	2020–2025. In his final speech as Chief in September 2025 he referred to Blaise Metreweli and her team taking over from October.
Blaise Metreweli	announced as Moore’s successor on 15 June 2025; identified as Chief on the SIS website checked on 6 November 2026.

Notable senior officers

Vice-Chief of Secret Service (VCSS)

• Claude Dansey 1942-1945
• John Sinclair 1945-1952
• James Easton 1952-1958
• George Kennedy Young 1958

Deputy Chief of Secret Service (DCSS)

• Valentine Vivian 1939/40-1943
• John Bruce-Lockhart -1967
• Maurice Oldfield 1967-

Assistant Chief of Secret Service (ACSS)

• Claude Dansey c.1940-1942
• James Marshall Cornwall 1943-1945
• James Easton 1945

In more recent times the title of Assistant Chief has been used to refer to:

• Nigel Inkster - 'Assistant Chief and Director of Operations and Intelligence (2004-2006)'.

The following posts do not appear in published accounts of MI6 structure, most of which refer to the 1990s at the latest, but have been referred to or implied in official and media accounts of MI6 officers' biographies. The actual titles and structure may be uncertain.

Director of Operations

• Richard Dearlove 1994-1999.
• An un-named Director of Operations resigned in 2004 to take up a job in the City.
• Nigel Inkster - 'Assistant Chief and Director of Operations and Intelligence (2004-2006)'
• Alex Younger c.2012-2014.

Director of Counter-terrorism

• Richard Barrett c.2001. 'Director of Global Counter Counter Terrorism Operations'.
• Mark Allen c.2004.
• Alex Younger c.2009-2012.

Structure

Philip H.J. Davies' 2004 book MI6 and the Machinery of Spying describes the top-level structure of MI6 following a 1995 re-organisation as set out below.

• Chief of the Secret Service (C/SS)
• Head of Secretariat (H/SECT)
• Director of Requirements and Production (D/PR)
• Director, Security and Public Affairs (D/SPA)
• Director, Support Services (D/SS)
• (D/OS)
• Director of Personnel and Administration (D/PA)

MI6 designations such as C/SS are used to refer to both the post in question and the officer who holds it at any given time.

I/Ops (Information Operations)

Psychological warfare section of SIS. Stephen Dorril’s account gave the following example:

In early 1998, when British and American forces were preparing to attack Iraq if Saddam did not fulfil pledges on UN inspection of presidential sites, MI6 received or invented intelligence that there were Iraqi plans to smuggle Anthrax into Britain in bottles of duty free perfume and spirits. A CX report to that effect was passed to the JIC. It was nonsense but fitted into a pattern of disinformation.

According to former SIS agent Richard Tomlinson, paid agents in the 1990s included one and perhaps two national newspaper editors.

In his controversial book being published in Russia, Tomlinson, according to book excerpts leaked to the Moscow press, said that in the early 1990s the editor of the Spectator was on MI6's books and provided cover for an agent named as Spencer who was put on the case of a young Russian diplomat, Platon Obukhov, in Tallin, the capital of Estonia.

Tomlinson writes that Mr Lawson's MI6 identity was "Smallbrow". Mr Lawson was the editor of the Spectator from 1990-95 before moving to its sister publication, the Sunday Telegraph.

Mr Lawson yesterday strongly denied both allegations.

History

Origins and dated organisational context

Keith Jeffery’s history traces SIS to the Foreign Section of the new Secret Service Bureau, founded in October 1909.

Philip H. J. Davies describes changes in 1993–95 which included abolishing the Deputy Director Requirements post and placing requirements sections under their respective controllers. This is an account of the 1990s structure, not a description of the present organisation.

1920s

In 1924, senior officer Desmond Morton circulated the Zinoviev Letter, a forgery emanating from the service's station in Riga, which widely seen as having contributed to Labour's election defeat that year.

Libya conflict 2011

In March 2011, the New York Times reported that CIA and MI6 officers were in Libya following the uprising against Colonel Gadaffi:

In addition, current and former British officials said, dozens of British special forces and MI6 intelligence officers are working inside Libya. The British operatives have been directing airstrikes from British Tornado jets and gathering intelligence about the whereabouts of Libyan government tank columns, artillery pieces, and missile installations, the officials said.

Matthew D'Ancona has claimed that MI6 was involved in abortive plans to extract dictator Gadaffi from the country.

External Resources

• Cryptome 276 unique names of MI6 officers.
• MI6 Guardian subject page
• Mark Hollingsworth, Spies like us, The Guardian, 5 November 2003.
• The Report of the Detainee Inquiry, December 2013.
• Nick Hopkins and Richard Norton-Taylor, Blair government's rendition policy led to rift between UK spy agencies, The Guardian, 31 May 2016.

• Dan Van Der Vat, Obituary — Sir Colin Figures, The Guardian, 18 December 2006.

Books

• Stephen Dorril, MI6: Inside the Covert World of Her Majesty's Secret Intelligence Service, Fourth Estate Limited, 2000.
• Philip H.J. Davies, MI6 and the Machinery of Spying, Frank Cass, 2004.
• Keith Jeffery, MI6: The History of the Secret Intelligence Service 1909-1949, Bloomsbury, 2010.
• Gordon Corera, MI6: Life and Death in the British Secret Service, Phoenix, 2012.

Contact

• http://www.sis.gov.uk Official website