His Majesty's Government Communications Centre (HMGCC) is an organisation which provides electronics and software to support the communication needs of the
Government of the United Kingdom
His Majesty's Government, abbreviated to HM Government or otherwise UK Government, is the central government, central executive authority of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. . Based at
Hanslope Park, near
Milton Keynes
Milton Keynes ( ) is a city status in the United Kingdom, city in Buckinghamshire, England, about north-west of London. At the 2021 Census, the population of Milton Keynes urban area, its urban area was 264,349. The River Great Ouse forms t ...
in
Buckinghamshire
Buckinghamshire (, abbreviated ''Bucks'') is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South East England and one of the home counties. It is bordered by Northamptonshire to the north, Bedfordshire to the north-east, Hertfordshir ...
, it is closely linked with the
Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office
The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) is the ministry of foreign affairs and a Departments of the Government of the United Kingdom, ministerial department of the government of the United Kingdom.
The office was created on 2 ...
and the
British intelligence agencies.
History
HMGCC was founded in 1938, specialising in overseas bespoke wireless communications.
HMGCC used to have a communications centre at
Signal Hill near
Gawcott, in Buckinghamshire. Stephen Ball was Chief Executive until 2000, when Dr John Widdowson took over; Widdowson moved to
GCHQ
Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) is an intelligence and security organisation responsible for providing signals intelligence (SIGINT) and information assurance (IA) to the government and armed forces of the United Kingdom. Primar ...
in 2005. Sarah-Jill Lennard was CEO from 2008 to 2011.
Juliette Wilcox was CEO from 2019 to 2021.
Structure
The organisation provides bespoke solutions to fit the needs of the government, its organisations, and specifically its intelligence assets. As of 2024, HMGCC had teams in the following areas:
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Software engineering
Software engineering is a branch of both computer science and engineering focused on designing, developing, testing, and maintaining Application software, software applications. It involves applying engineering design process, engineering principl ...
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Manufacturing
Manufacturing is the creation or production of goods with the help of equipment, labor, machines, tools, and chemical or biological processing or formulation. It is the essence of the
secondary sector of the economy. The term may refer ...
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Corporate and support
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Project and programme management
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Systems engineering
Systems engineering is an interdisciplinary field of engineering and engineering management that focuses on how to design, integrate, and manage complex systems over their Enterprise life cycle, life cycles. At its core, systems engineering uti ...
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Hardware engineering
See also
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GCHQ
Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) is an intelligence and security organisation responsible for providing signals intelligence (SIGINT) and information assurance (IA) to the government and armed forces of the United Kingdom. Primar ...
*
MI5
MI5 ( Military Intelligence, Section 5), officially the Security Service, is the United Kingdom's domestic counter-intelligence and security agency and is part of its intelligence machinery alongside the Secret Intelligence Service (MI6), Gov ...
*
MI6
The Secret Intelligence Service (SIS), commonly known as MI6 ( Military Intelligence, Section 6), is the foreign intelligence service of the United Kingdom, tasked mainly with the covert overseas collection and analysis of human intelligenc ...
*
Bletchley Park
Bletchley Park is an English country house and Bletchley Park estate, estate in Bletchley, Milton Keynes (Buckinghamshire), that became the principal centre of Allies of World War II, Allied World War II cryptography, code-breaking during the S ...
*
Hanslope Park
References
External links
Official HMGCC Website
{{Authority control
British intelligence agencies
Computer security in the United Kingdom
Cryptography organizations
Information technology organisations based in the United Kingdom
Organisations based in Milton Keynes
Research institutes in Buckinghamshire