Ken McCallum

Ken McCallum
McCallum in 2020
Director General of MI5
Incumbent
Assumed office April 2020
Home Secretary	Priti Patel Suella Braverman Grant Shapps Suella Braverman James Cleverly Yvette Cooper
Preceded by	Sir Andrew Parker
Personal details
Born	Kenneth Douglas McCallum 1974 (age 49–50) Glasgow, Scotland
Alma mater	University of Glasgow
Occupation	Intelligence officer
Military service
Allegiance	United Kingdom
Branch/service	Security Service
Years of service	1995–present
Rank	Director General of MI5

Kenneth Douglas McCallum (born 1974) is a British intelligence officer who has been serving as the Director General of MI5 since 2020.

Early life and education

McCallum was born in Glasgow, Scotland, in 1974. He attended a state school, after which he studied mathematics at the University of Glasgow, graduating with a first-class honours degree in 1996.

Career

McCallum has been an intelligence officer at MI5 for over two decades, including service focused on Northern Ireland-related terrorism and leading counter-terrorism investigations during the London 2012 Olympic Games. He was appointed Deputy Director General of MI5 in April 2017.

He described his early career as: "I spent my twenties mostly trying to recruit terrorists inside terrorist organisations to work as secret agents [to keep] the rest of us safe."

In 2018, McCallum took charge of the MI5 response to the attempted assassination of Sergei Skripal.

Director General of MI5

In April 2020, McCallum succeeded Sir Andrew Parker as Director General of MI5.

In 2021, McCallum said in his annual threat update that the activities of China, Russia, and other hostile states could have as large an impact on the public as terrorism, marking a significant shift in emphasis for the UK’s domestic spy agency. McCallum said that the British public will have to “build the same public awareness and resilience to state threats that we have done over the years on terrorism”.

At a joint press conference with Christopher A. Wray in July 2022, McCallum said that MI5 had "more than doubled" its effort against Chinese activity over the same timeframe as part of an unprecedented joint warning with his counterpart at the FBI. He added the "most game-changing challenge" MI5 faced came from an "increasingly authoritarian Chinese Communist party".

In November 2022, McCallum said there had been at least 10 potential threats by Iran to kidnap or kill British or UK-based people in 2022. McCallum also warned that the UK "must be ready for Russian aggression for years to come".

In 2023, he noted the increased risks to the UK during the Israel-Gaza war. "One of the things that concerns me most right now, is to understand quite what the shape of the UK impact will be," McCallum said in an interview. He also warned there was a risk that events in the Middle East could radicalise people towards violence.

In a 2024 speech, he stated that Russia's intelligence agency has been on a mission to generate "mayhem on British and European streets". He warned the UK faces the most "complex and interconnected" threat it has ever seen. He added there had been 20 Iran-backed plots since 2022.

In a December 2024 podcast interview with Simon Case, McCallum stated that MI5 has had to "pare back" its counter-terrorism focus due to the growing threat from Russia and other hostile states. Highlighting finite resources, he stated, "we had the 20- to 30-year holiday from that kind of big player, sophisticated states in serious conflict with each other. It’s back, I’m afraid". In the same podcast, McCallum spoke about the adjustment needed as the public head of MI5, “Having spent all of my career being the world’s most boring neighbour at barbecues, on the street, and being as deflective and uninteresting as you can possibly be, [it is] quite odd to then be on the telly. Even some members of my own extended family were completely shocked,” he says.