As of Oct 6, 2026, our inventory holds 104 open postings in the Intelligence (0132) and Security Administration (0080) occupational series that allow either remote work or telework. Fully remote among them: 0. Agencies posting them: 44. Posted in the last 30 days: 97. Those figures are a count, not an estimate: every day we pull the current federal listings from the USAJOBS API, keep the ones that allow remote work or telework, and tag each by occupational series. What they are not is a count of jobs that require a clearance. We do not track the clearance field of an announcement, so nothing on this page says how many of these postings need one. Many do. The announcement tells you which, and this guide explains why the answer shapes where you can work.
Why classified work does not go home
A security clearance is permission to be trusted with classified national security information. The information itself can only be handled in facilities approved for it: rooms and buildings built, inspected and accredited to keep it from being seen, heard or transmitted outside. Sensitive compartmented information, a category of intelligence information controlled through access programs of its own on top of a clearance, may be handled only inside a Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility, the SCIF. An ordinary home office does not qualify.
That single fact explains the shape of this page. A job whose duties are mostly classified is performed in a secure facility, and it will carry a fixed duty station with little or no telework. A job whose duties are partly classified may allow telework on the unclassified days and require the facility on the others. Only a job with no classified duties can be fully remote, and some of those still require a clearance because the role touches sensitive programs or systems. So the split below is not a measure of how many cleared jobs exist; it is a measure of how much of this occupational work an agency has decided can be done away from the building.
Fully remote or telework eligible across these series
Two tiers decide where you can live. A posting is fully remote when the agency marks it remote on USAJOBS, so the work can be done from an approved location anywhere in the country. A posting is telework eligible when it carries a specific duty station and allows some of the week from home. We never merge the two, because the difference is whether you must live near a particular facility. Here is today’s split across every Intelligence and Security Administration posting we hold:
If the fully remote count reads zero, that is the posting pattern, not an error; if it reads a small number, those postings are the unclassified end of the work. The remote vs. telework guide explains what a telework agreement does and does not promise, and the rarity guide puts these series beside the rest of the federal inventory.
What can be telework eligible
The telework-eligible postings in these series are the unclassified ones, and there are more of those than people expect, because keeping a national security program running takes a great deal of ordinary administrative work. The common forms:
- Policy and program work. Writing and reviewing security policy, managing a program’s budget and reporting, coordinating across offices. Much of this is unclassified by design, since the policy has to be readable by people without access.
- Personnel security processing. Initiating investigations, reviewing questionnaires for completeness, tracking reinvestigation dates, adjudication support. The forms are sensitive and protected under the Privacy Act, but the work runs on unclassified systems.
- Training and awareness. Developing and delivering security training, insider threat awareness, foreign travel briefings, and the annual refreshers every cleared employee sits through.
The Security Administration series holds most of that. The Intelligence series leans toward analysis, collection management and operational support, and a larger share of it is classified, which is why intelligence agencies post comparatively few telework-eligible roles and fully remote ones are rare.
Clearance facts worth knowing before you apply
The levels are Confidential, Secret and Top Secret, set by the damage unauthorized disclosure could do. Sensitive compartmented information and special access programs are additional accesses granted on top of a clearance (SCI usually on top of Top Secret), not levels of their own. A public trust determination is different again: a suitability review for positions that handle sensitive but unclassified matters, and many announcements that mention a “background investigation” mean this rather than a clearance.
Investigations for most of the federal government are run by the Defense Counterintelligence and Security Agency, which took over the government’s background investigation mission and also oversees the security programs of cleared contractors. A few agencies, mainly in the intelligence community, run their own. Applicants complete the SF-86, the Questionnaire for National Security Positions, which asks for a detailed account of residences, employment, foreign contacts, finances and personal conduct over a period of years. The investigation that follows takes months; the application timeline guide explains where that sits in the hiring process.
You cannot apply for a clearance yourself. An agency sponsors one for a position that requires it, after a tentative offer, and the clearance belongs to that need, not to you. If you hold a current clearance from previous federal or contractor employment, say so on your resume with the level and investigation date, because a reciprocally accepted clearance can shorten the wait. If you do not hold one, nothing in the application stage can get you one in advance; the posting either sponsors or it does not.
Which agencies post these roles
The agencies with the most open Intelligence and Security Administration postings in our inventory right now are:
- Department of the Air Force Headquarters 14 listings
- Drug Enforcement Administration 14 listings
- Air National Guard Units 9 listings
- U.S. Army Intelligence and Security Command 9 listings
- Defense Counterintelligence and Security Agency 5 listings
- Department of Energy Headquarters 4 listings
- Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives 3 listings
- Department of Homeland Security Headquarters 3 listings
Each name links to its hub, which lists that agency’s open postings with their tier, pay and closing date. Expect defense and homeland security organizations to feature, but not only those: every department has a security office, and personnel security specialists are hired across government. The list shifts as announcements open and close.
What they pay
Advertised pay on Intelligence and Security Administration postings we hold currently runs from $50,460 to $228,000 a year, with a typical figure of $139,881. The GS grades advertised span 7–15.
A word on “typical.” A federal announcement advertises a pay range, not a single salary, so for each posting we take the midpoint of its advertised range; the typical figure is the median of those midpoints across every posting in the two series. The low and high ends are the edges advertised on any posting, not what most applicants are offered, and postings that publish no usable pay figure are left out of all three numbers. Some intelligence agencies pay on their own systems rather than the General Schedule, so the grade range counts only postings on the GS ladder; the GS pay scale guide applies to those alone.
How to read the clearance requirement
Every USAJOBS announcement has a security clearance field in its overview, with a value such as not required, Secret or Top Secret, and a “Conditions of employment” section that says more: whether the clearance must be held at the start, whether it must be obtained and maintained as a condition of the job, and whether a polygraph is required. Read both before anything else, because they decide eligibility more firmly than any qualification paragraph: a posting that requires an active Top Secret clearance you do not hold is not a near miss, and one that will sponsor a clearance is open to you with months of waiting attached. Our listings do not reproduce that field, so open the original announcement, which every listing links to, and check it there.
How to search for these
Start with the Intelligence and Security Administration hubs, each of which lists every open posting we hold in that series with its tier, agency, advertised pay and closing date, refreshed daily from USAJOBS. If fully remote is non-negotiable, the fully remote list is the complete set across every agency; if a posting in either series is on it, it will be there. If you can live near a federal facility, the telework list adds every telework-eligible posting you would otherwise filter out. Related technical work, much of it also cleared, sits in the IT and cybersecurity guide. On USAJOBS itself, search the series numbers 0132 and 0080 and add the remote or telework filters as needed, then read the clearance field on each announcement before the duties.