Former MI6 chief Sir Alex Younger dies aged 62
Sir Alex Younger, the highly respected former head of Britain’s Secret Intelligence Service and former MI6 chief, has died at the age of 62.
The news was also confirmed by his family. Sir Alex died in Boston in the early hours of Tuesday after being diagnosed with prostate cancer last year.
Sir Keir Starmer paid tribute to Sir Alex, saying he “had an exemplary life and career” and that he would be remembered for his “great commitment to British public life and protecting our nation”.
He was the longest-serving MI6 chief for 50 years, and in the 1990s had served in the Balkans, served in the Middle East and served as head of the MI6 station in Kabul, Afghanistan.
Sir Alex was a key figure in secret intelligence throughout Britain’s “war on terror” and was appointed head of the fight against terrorism in 2009, amid growing threat warnings following the 7 July 2005 London bombings and ahead of the 2012 Olympics.
He joined the National Security Council and advised the prime minister on intelligence and security issues. He later became deputy director and was nominated to become MI6 chief, known as “C”, after Sir John Sawers retired in October 2014.
An expert on international security, cybersecurity and global conflicts, he has publicly and repeatedly warned of threats from hostile states and passionately encouraged intelligence services to use emerging technology to their advantage.
A close friend of mine told me Independent He said he takes the role incredibly seriously and will not share any details about his ongoing operations.
“He was very humble and took his job of protecting the nation very seriously,” the friend said. Independent. “During the fight against terrorism he took very seriously the moral challenges and dangers of his role, where the risk of breaking ethics was high. He was very careful to ensure that this did not happen, and to keep all his decisions and operations within strict moral boundaries in an age when the gloves were off.”
“He was part of a very close family, extended family and friends. He was loved by so many people.”
Sir Alex was educated at Marlborough College before studying economics and computer science at the University of St Andrews.
The computer science graduate began his career with MI6 in 1991 while working as a Scots Guard officer with the Halo Trust in Afghanistan. approach. While serving as an officer, he rehabilitated his lifelong ankle injury and became an acclaimed operational spy.
He led the response to the poisoning of former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia in Salisbury in 2018, after British security services quickly realized that Russia was behind the attack.
Sir Alex surprised the world by advocating openness and accountability in intelligence. In December 2018, he gave his first public speech at his former university while still in office.
After leaving office in 2020, he would recall personal anecdotes from his experience, including the time his fake mustache fell off during an undercover agent meeting, resulting in him having to run to the bathroom to glue it back on. He nearly passed out from the smoke as he tried to put it back on.
Sir Alex has spent much of his recent years warning of the Russian threat and has urged the UK to take seriously the importance of military preparedness against a direct conflict.
during an interview on The Independent’s World of Trouble In the podcast, he warned that Britain needed to rearm and rebuild its reserves – potentially through national service – to confront the growing threat of Russia and the destabilizing influence of leaders such as Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump.
He said in April 2025: “We have been completely out of reach of any existential threat for years. We have inexcusably… launched a series of preferential wars that impose unnecessary sacrifice on young people, and there is great skepticism about this idea of a collective effort to defend your country.”
“I think we’re more comfortable thinking of the army like the England football team, where they go out there and do their job and we watch it on TV – and that can’t happen anymore.”
One of the darkest and most significant periods of his life was the death of his son Sam in a car accident on a private estate in Scotland in March 2019.
The 22-year-old actor was a student at the University of Edinburgh at the time.
Sir Alex retained his role in the intelligence service following the UK’s decision to leave the European Union and expanded his role in the agency because he was determined that the service would help maintain the country’s stability.
In the shadowy world of MI6, where secrets can lead to distrust and paranoia, colleagues in the spy agency openly admired the reassuringly simple style of leadership that saw an agency transition from dealing with Islamic terrorism to conventional threats from Moscow, the effects of Brexit (which he dismissed as an act of strategic folly) and a world of hybrid warfare.
During his retirement, he appeared in the public sphere discussing foreign policy and international relations issues. He was reportedly frustrated by the extent to which the fight against terrorism was diverting British resources away from his old rival Russia.
He warned that President Trump has apparently close ties to Russia, and when asked if the US leader was a Russian agent, he said: “So who knows? I personally don’t think he is a Russian agent. I went out of my way not to find out, because why do you want to know? I mean, I don’t know.”
“In a way, that’s not the point. The point is that he agrees with Vladimir Putin. He agrees that big countries have additional rights over small countries, especially in their own backyard.”
Sam Kiley, world affairs editor IndependentHe said: “Alex was level-headed and cautious. He tried to hide his intelligence, as would be expected of any British spymaster. But he was open and generous about his love for his family and friends.”
In addition to his professional achievements, Sir Alex was an enthusiastic and talented sailor. He is survived by his wife, Sarah Hopkins, and their two children.
