British government mocked for advertising head of cyber role with £57K salary

https://therecord.media/head-of-cyber-role-salary-uk-hm-treasury

by JSDevOps • 3 years ago

60 115 3 years ago

therecord.media

killingtime74• 3 years ago

Pay peanuts get monkeys

unixgoddess• 3 years ago

to be fair that's true for faangs too, compared to how much they "earn" through your work.

moremetadata• 3 years ago

State employees earn very little which is why they carry out their own extra curricular criminal activity to top up their wages.

What they lack in official wages, they more than make up with by using criminal loopholes and sailing close to the wind, like any nation proud of its pirated seafaring heritage, its where the saying cross someone's palm with silver comes from, also known as Danegeld.

selfmodruntime3• 3 years ago

The German Government isn‘t far behind. Just yesterday we advertised an E-15 (government pay scale) role for head of software architecture in Munich, which translates to roughly 60k € / year. This is what a junior software developer can expect after either a Master‘s or a year or so of experience in his first job.

The problem‘s don‘t stop there. I currently work a government job until I can start my PhD, so I know what it‘s like. Office Job workers joke about „attractive addons“ like free lunches on friday, a well stocked coffee machine, a nice looking office or a foosball table in the office. I say you don‘t know you‘re missing something until it‘s no longer there.

The German Government tends to offer nothing like this. My office is a gray block of concrete. I‘ve asked for some pictures and some greenery in the form of plants, which was denied. My office chair sucks compared to what I‘m used to, my desk looks like it came straight out of offices in the DDR. There are no free drinks in the office, no fruits or interesting lunch talks.

It‘s bleak.

i_don_t_know• 3 years ago

There must have been something about the job that appealed to you. Why did you accept this job vs some other job in the industry?

ipaddr5• 3 years ago

The other side of the coin is they are super easy to get because of the low pay.

selfmodruntime3• 3 years ago

Yes. My university is next door, so I save on commutes.

bakuninsbart• 3 years ago

Government jobs in Germany are quite good depending on your perspective. Getting the Beamten status makes you basically unfireable, and the pensions are so generous that becoming Beamter with E-15 ist equivalent to a solid millionaire.

wink• 3 years ago

But first you much reach the pension age, that's not a gamble I'm willing to take (don't remember any relatives who reached 90 years) and until then, good luck if you want to buy a house, as these jobs are usually not on the countryside :P

selfmodruntime3• 3 years ago

Beamtenstatus is rare to come by these days.

orwin• 3 years ago

I worked for a French engineering school for 3 years, on government salary (we have a weird system). It was 37k/y for a junior position, so quite low (I doubled that in 2 job switch), but I had 57 vacation days.

More than 11 weeks, not counting the 4/5 national holidays (depending on the year).

I'm building a treasury right now, but once my house is paid, I'm going back to this kind of job.

vidarh6• 3 years ago

I keep being approached for jobs in UK gov agencies, and sometimes when I tell them they can't afford me, they ask if I mind telling them by how much. Usually their range is off by a factor of 2 to 3. I get that some people want to work in government, but I can't imagine taking a pay cut like that for any employer.

maxwell2• 3 years ago

What would you expect in a monarchy?

dukeyukey8• 3 years ago

Why would public sector pay correlate with being a monarchy?

pjc50• 3 years ago

The monarch isn't setting the budgets.

substation13• 3 years ago

Yep. And then they wonder why the government can't deliver anything.

(Government Digital Service being an exception, great work to those working there and reading this!)

crimsontech• 3 years ago

I would love to put my skills to better use by working for the gov. Maybe it’s because I’m ex-military or just want to feel like I’m using my skills to make the world a better, safer place. I have a family to support though, the salaries they offer are way to low for me to do that on my own.

Irishsteve• 3 years ago

The job title is perhaps inflated. It’s working in a tech department with 40 people in the north part of the uk (lower cost of living) within the treasury department. From a supervisory perspective they will manage 2 apprentices , not even interns.

Doesn’t look like the individual has access to budget or autonomy to make significant purchases (I.e no good path for backhanders from vendors or consultancies)

headline feels sensationalist

lucozade• 3 years ago

The £57k is with London weighting. It's £50k-£54k outside London. But otherwise I agree, this is a team lead position for a small team. Grade 7 so isn't a senior civil service role.

From the job description it looks like it's a liaison role between the Treasury and other security teams. Likely turning security policy to procedures and disseminating.

givemeethekeys• 3 years ago

Until shit hits the fan and they blame the “head of security”.

thomond• 3 years ago

If that's what "head of cyber" does it really demonstrates they don't take cybersecurity seriously.

TecoAndJix• 3 years ago

If you can stomach the pay (frugal or independently wealthy) the position would be a great step up a career ladder when returning to the private sector.

hardlianotion2• 3 years ago

That is not at all clear to me. Why do you think so?

Cymrukicks• 3 years ago

Goverment connections are a big plus when it comes to the private sector especially at the C level. You tend to find alot of people moving from the FCA or PRA which pay poorly to senior private companies. When new info/regs are coming they can just pick up the phone and ask about them.

walkhour• 3 years ago

Looks like a position with a lot of influence and status. Most of the salary is payed in gravitas and not pounds. I'm sure many people will be happy to take the deal.

KaiserPro• 3 years ago

I see you've yet to work in the civil service.

reedf1• 3 years ago

This has caused a bit of a stir because the UK hasn't quite understood the relative weakness of wage growth for the last 10 years. The culturally understood milestones of "high pay" 30/50k have also not increased with inflation.

I get paid well for the UK - but I could triple or even quadruple my salary in the US/Australia. Combined with relatively high taxes (my marginal tax rate is 60%) - it isn't a great value proposition for many professionals, and despite the luxuries (healthcare, gun control) - almost everyone I know is eyeing the exit.

dukeyukey8• 3 years ago

I'd argue this is more pronounced in non-professional fields - looking at levels.fyi, London pays developers more than any Canadian or Australian city, despite the latter two having a higher CoL. London is only beat by the US and Switzerland.

pelasaco6• 3 years ago

exactly. Quite possible to double my salary moving from a job in Berlin to UK, all of that with home office possibility.

rcarr8• 3 years ago

I wouldn't be surprised if the mean was dragged upwards by FAANG headquarters and a few financial service firms with a median that is lagging behind.

pelasaco6• 3 years ago

almost everyone I know is eyeing the exit.

"almost everyone I know is eyeing the exit".. sorry, but are everyone looking to move to US/Australia? Because to Europe, the salaries are much lower than on UK, and frankly, US (specially because of healthcare, gun control, and street violence) is becoming less and less attractive, despite the amount of salary. Actually US is looking like South America: You try to earn as much as you can, not because you want, but to be able to live a safer life.

ipaddr5• 3 years ago

Sounds like you haven't been around the US much. There are cheap places and safe places to live. Stay away from the bigger liberal cities if street violence is a concern.

If the US looks like South America you've fallen into a media trap. You are being sold something untrue but packaged perfectly so everyone gets paid. Where in America would you get pick pocked like south america? Disney World? The mean streets of Akron Ohio? Nonsense..

bilekas2• 3 years ago

Because to Europe, the salaries are much lower than on UK,

After emigrating to central Europe I have to disagree. The salary in the UK is relative to the location so London for example is stupidly expensive to live in, so instead you commute an hour or so and still pay fairly high rent.

High salaries are in the major cities, but they carry extremely high cost of living, without necessarily high standard.

The salaries are actually closer than you might think once you look around of course, and the cost of living is almost always significantly less. So from my own experience overall I'm significantly in the green.

Actually US is looking like South America: You try to earn as much as you can, not because you want, but to be able to live a safer life.

South America isn't all as bad as you hear on the news. You seem to have these sweeping ideas. Things usually aren't that black and white though.

satysin4• 3 years ago

Reason I left the UK for [redacted] was lack of wage growth. My wife is earning more than double what she was in the UK (tech sector). Taxes are very similar to the UK whereas overall CoL is lower in [redacted] (for us anyway, it varies on location, expected lifestyle, etc) so we have been able to save a lot more than we were able to in the UK.

Also quality of life in [redacted] is so so much better than it was in the UK. Comparing the last 5 years here vs our 5 last years in the UK and it is shocking how different and better our life is.

Sure [redacted] has its problems (just look at the protests right now) but I wouldn't leave unless it was for a really big chunk of change. [redacted] is freakin' awesome.

Oh also the healthcare is fucking incredible. I've had a few issues recently and every time I've needed to see my doctor it is same day and when referred to see a specialist it is always within a week. I had an MRI last week and a follow up yesterday to check some other things. Saw the consultant 15 minutes after the scan. Got the all clear. No waiting around thinking the worst. Absolutely amazing service and wanna know how much it cost me? €5 for parking last week and €3.70 for parking this week.

basisword2• 3 years ago

> Also quality of life in France is so so much better than it was in the UK. Comparing the last 5 years here vs our 5 last years in the UK and it is shocking how different and better our life is.

Do you mind expanding on this? Particularly the less obvious things that you didn’t notice until you’d spent some time living there.

secfirstmd• 3 years ago

Agreed. I lived in London and moved back to Dublin. Even with the high costs in Ireland and taxes, tech salaries are now moving way ahead of London (which is not a cheap city).

themoonisachees• 3 years ago

As a French person:

What you said is true, but the job market is fucked over here as well, its just the tech sectors going nuts. People with degrees in anything other than IT end up as servers, while people with those degrees get called weekly by recruiters. Same as anywhere else really, I got a 25% raise by hopping jobs for a year.

mellosouls4• 3 years ago

almost everyone I know is eyeing the exit

Anecdotal only. I don't know many eyeing the exit. Not everybody is so money focused.

auggierose3• 3 years ago

You don't have to be money focused. Maybe you just want an appointment with your dentist without waiting for over 2 months for it.

jleask2• 3 years ago

I am. My children are the only things keeping me here. It's not about the money it's about quality of life. Healthcare is rapidly becoming non-existent, schools operate off the back of teachers, roads are falling apart, the level of corruption is embarrassing, housing market is ridiculous, childcare is expensive and/or non-existent etc. In general any service provided by the state is deteriorating.

vidarh6• 3 years ago

The UK is notorious for having a persistently large proportion of the population insisting they're about to emigrate any moment now. It's a long-standing and weird phenomenon.

bilekas2• 3 years ago

and despite the luxuries (healthcare, gun control)

Slightly off topic but it's almost comical that `gun control` is considered a luxury.

maccard• 3 years ago

Meanwhile almost everyone I know has the same opportunities available and is not eyeing the exit, in fact actively choosing to be paid less to stay here in the UK rather than deal with the standard of living in places like the US. My company operates in the UK and the US and I could transfer. Having visited and spent weeks at a time there, I actively choose not to despite the fact I would likely be eligible for it, and see a significant salary bump. I would live in a bigger house, drive a nicer car, but that's not an increase in a standard of living, that's an increase in a perception of my standards.

nly• 3 years ago

Yep, everything you said is spot on.

I'm on N times the UK national median wage in London and still have anxiety about being able to afford kids, pay my mortgage, and retire at a half decent age. I see American firms offering 50-100% more pay for the same or less demanding roles.

alias_neo3• 3 years ago

So you're on between £100,000 and £125,140. There's a very small (and stupid) band in our income tax system where people are on 60% marginal.

TheHappyOddish• 3 years ago

That's pretty high though. In Australia, the top tax bracket is $180k+ (£100k or so) at 45%, which I always thought was absurdly high. Earning 40c on the dollar (or 40p on the pound, I suppose) must surely set a ceiling.

mycodebreaks• 3 years ago

This is a salary that's fairly achievable in developing world countries. The developing world has come far.

tjpnz• 3 years ago

Rishi Sunak just blew close to 10x that in a fortnight on private jet travel. Fantastic to see them getting their priorities in order.

ogogmad• 3 years ago

Link: https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2023/mar/31/sunak-priva...

patcon• 3 years ago

Disclosure: left-leaning progressive

Meh, ppl comparing heads of state costs with the rest of us has always struck me as incredibly reductive and point-scoring mentality. Executive functions need to get a bigger budget than the normies (or in this case, the security "immune system"). I don't value private jets for much of anything, but maybe shuttling heads of state (as ppl in charge of our collective society, not just shareholder value) in a secure and efficient manner is one of those places?

I'd venture to guess we'll eventually discover an almost information theoretic grounding for such things. Brains do consume 20% of the human energy budget, after all ;)

Obviously being a bit handwavey here. Not in favour of corruption or getting wealthy. But the costs of the executive function don't seem served by such simple comparisons * shrug *

stuaxo2• 3 years ago

Parliamentary side (who make the rules), Vs civil service who have to work out how to actually do the work.

hardlianotion2• 3 years ago

Rightly so. Change the job title, or change the salary.

MontyCarloHall• 3 years ago

Compared to the US, median income (after adjusting for purchasing power) is low in Europe and abysmally low in the UK [0]. This is especially true for tech salaries [1].

[0] https://www.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/comments/11m6isp/median_hou...

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23427327

Tycho2• 3 years ago

What’s the true value of the civil service pension though?

Rough calculation (probably wrong):

40 years of pensionable pay with an average of let’s say 65k. Divided by 80. Equals pension income of £32k yearly between retirement and death, inflation protected.

To buy an equivalent annuity would cost about £1 million. So it’s like saving an extra £25k per year over 40 years. (Although, I suppose you have the option to grow that more through investment.)

So this salary is probably competitive with an 80k private sector total comp package?

SilverBirch• 3 years ago

We don't have to run the numbers, the civil service publishes what they account for contribuging to the defined benefit pension[1], they're paying in about 27% of your salary. So it's worth about 10-15k on top of the base salary for this job.

[1] https://www.civilservicepensionscheme.org.uk/your-pension/ma...

rpep• 3 years ago

It’s worth considerably more than that as an individual since you lose any investment risk, and contributing the same as employer + employee contribution to a pension is unlikely to get you benefits on retirement with the same annual payment.

Tycho2• 3 years ago

This seems too low as a cost estimate. Perhaps because they have buying power that a private individual couldn’t match, or a structural surplus due to workforce demographics, or maybe it’s just rosy accounting.

Seems the current scheme lets you buy/stack, each year, a recurring annual pension worth 2.35% of your current salary (pays out every year after retirement). So with a salary of 57k, you would pay something like 4k this year to secure £1340 (inflation linked) every year of retirement.

That’s insanely good value if you don’t have so many years left. I suppose if you have 20 years left, and you get an extra 10k private sector salary, and invest that for retirement, then it maybe breaks even with 7% compounding growth, but even then you have to contend with inflation and market risk. I think the fair value is more like an extra 20-30k salary.

twawaaay2• 3 years ago

Don't mock. They know what they are doing. More likely they already have a candidate and the advert was made so that nobody with the right mind and experience will apply and only people that do apply can be quickly shown to be unfit.

ojhughes• 3 years ago

It’s true they might already have a candidate in mind and have to advertise the role for fair and open competition. That candidate will still only be getting ~57k. (I’m ex civil service)

twawaaay2• 3 years ago

I am pretty sure a lot of these positions are lucrative outside of the salary. It might be because some political force wants to have their representative in this position. Or because the person may count on future profits after they leave the position. And there is of course possibility of some nefarious deals that we of course don't know anything about but we know stuff like this happens more frequently that we get to know.

tyingq• 3 years ago

Curious what that translates to in terms of lifestyle after taxes come out. What amount would you reasonably have left for rent?

magicloop• 3 years ago

It's about Fatima.

The government was mocked for a "tone deaf" campaign to hire from a diverse workforce and re-skill in Cyber. So when a "senior" job was advertised in Cyber, the urge to mock brewed up as seen on social media.

It is not new that government jobs bear modest salaries, nor that the inflated titles that are given to employees are not a fair reflection of the duties that they hold.

https://www.dazeddigital.com/politics/article/50747/1/a-brie...

https://www.diyphotography.net/photographer-speaks-up-after-...

guilhas• 3 years ago

I was looking the other day in the UK gov site Data Analyst with several requirements and experience, £27K

Must be some standard public pay scales

richliss• 3 years ago

Is there a place in the US that has tech jobs, has warm weather and has low gun crime? I too wish to jump off "HMS Sinking".

freeone3000• 3 years ago

California :)

prakhar897• 3 years ago

Maybe the govt doesn't want to externally fill this role, and instead give it to their buddy. Hence they are trying to make it as unappealing as possible.

British government mocked for advertising head of cyber role with £57K salary

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