UK Treasury trying to find a Head of Cyber Security for £55k

https://infosec.exchange/@tazwake/110108960041803779

by rf15 • 3 years ago

234 233 3 years ago

gambiting• 3 years ago

The thing I don't get about it is that not all UK public services are like this. I know as a fact that senior programmers with the NHS make 70-80k. A project lead can get close to 100k. No idea what the Treasury is thinking here.

philjohn3• 3 years ago

It would be interesting to see what the pension is like for this position - you're giving up lifetime earnings for retirement earnings (and "serving your country").

timthorn• 3 years ago

And an OBE, as well.

jsmith99• 3 years ago

UK civil service is a defined benefit scheme that each year from state pension age pays 1/42 of your average salary multiplied by the number of years you worked there. It's inflation linked. You also need to contribute several percent of your salary (various bands). The Government Actuarial Department modelling implies a cost to the employer of around 30% of basic salary.

LikesPwsh• 3 years ago

I'm not sure where you got those figures, but the NHS pay scales are public.

https://www.nhsemployers.org/articles/pay-scales-202223

Non-manager caps at ~£48k for most technical roles.

cs02rm02• 3 years ago

I'd imagine it's contractor rates.

CommanderData4• 3 years ago

I was just thinking this. Know many NHS tech people in my circle. None earn 70k+.

Contractors potentially but they'd generally be on 100k+ if the rates are at all competitive. Though contracting has dwindled in recent times because of the IR35 legislation and org budgets.

I'm very much on the lookout for IT contracting gigs and don't come across many at all for the NHS.

notahacker• 3 years ago

This one was discussed recently, and it was pointed out that from the bullet points of the listing it appears to be an inflated title for a mostly administrative role liaising with the govt's actual cybersecurity professionals and training a couple of apprentices.

Plus of course, they may already have an internal candidate and simply advertise it for policy requirements, with a view to only considering applicants if they're much more qualified

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35384652

shubb• 3 years ago

Civil service requires line reports for certain pay bands so they may well have hired the apprentices to justify this fat salary for the individual contributor.

The job will likely be filled by a candidate from elsewhere in the CS e.g. ex police on thierv way to a date cheque in the private sector. I imagine this would make a very good stepping stone to a senior cyber job in financial services.

jp582• 3 years ago

I remember seeing a job listing for head of cybersecurity at the NHS maybe 4 years or so ago. It was for about 60K I think.

Maybe the programmers pay is different but seems the NHS was offering similar salary to this listing.

I remember finding it funny because it was not too long after the NHS was attacked with the wannacry virus.

midasuni2• 3 years ago

Can’t find anyone to do it in house, so let’s sign the £5m a year contract with my bartender to do it.

It’s like h1B in the US, but grift.

TruthWillHurt2• 3 years ago

Contractor leads can earn ~£700 per day. And who knows how much Capgemini / Fujitsu / KPMG are charging the project..

politelemon• 3 years ago

Link to the job listing:

https://www.civilservicejobs.service.gov.uk/csr/index.cgi?SI...

_fvh32• 3 years ago

The worst part is that people are willing to supply their labour at this price level: "31 Applicants"

potatoproduct• 3 years ago

I'm sure at least 30 out of the 31 are woefully under-qualified.

Even for a government role I would expect 2.5-3x the salary.

Neil442• 3 years ago

Yeah as someone who’s had job ads out recently if they have 1 qualified out of 31 they’re doing well!

PaywallBuster• 3 years ago

Or they're not even in the UK nor have any sort of work permit / visa.

jojobas5• 3 years ago

Who's qualified will be decided by some bureaucrat who couldn't tell ICMP from NSFW. Master of Science from Doddaballapura Imperial College? Say no more. Ransomwaring the UK Treasury would be awesome.

realusername• 3 years ago

The people applying for this job are probably not the people you want to hire...

You'll always get applicants, no matter how low you are compared to the market rate but the quality of the applications will suffer.

abridgett• 3 years ago

No doubt this will lead to complaints that foreigners are coming over stealing our secrets _and_ our jobs at the same time :-)

Neil442• 3 years ago

London based as well. You’d earn more in Pret-a-Manger. Wages always put me off gov jobs as well as the bureaucracy.

jp582• 3 years ago

Not necessarily: "The post can be based in London (1 Horse Guards Road), Norwich (Rosebery Court) or Darlington (Feethams House)."

tebbers• 3 years ago

Lucky them working in Darlington one week and Norwich the next!

fallingknife• 3 years ago

The government is a special place where unskilled employees make much more than they would in the private sector, and highly skilled or leadership positions make much less than they would in the private sector. The main benefit is that you are essentially unfireable unless you commit a crime. The results are quite predictable.

dan-robertson10• 3 years ago

Do you have evidence for the Pret claim? I tried to look for some but did not find anything which suggested that it is true.

teh_klev5• 3 years ago

No it's not, read the full advert:

https://www.civilservicejobs.service.gov.uk/csr/index.cgi?SI...

Location

The post can be based in London (1 Horse Guards Road), Norwich (Rosebery Court) or Darlington (Feethams House).

manojlds2• 3 years ago

Side point - is £100k really $200k equivalent in US? With the huge costs here and how costly things are including consumer electronics, shouldn't it be cheaper in US as well? (I just moved to UK from India 6 months back)

shawabawa33• 3 years ago

£100k is equivalent to $200k in terms of what employers pay, not in terms of lifestyles/expenses

manojlds2• 3 years ago

I was asking about this line from the linked post:

Yes, I am simplifying but, most people in the UK on £100k a year will have a lifestyle similar to, if not better than, most people in the US living on US$200k a year.

callahad• 3 years ago

Moved from Minneapolis to Belfast in 2017 at roughly those rates and our standard of living actually went up.

goodpoint2• 3 years ago

It really is. Of course you have to compare things like housing, food and health services and general quality of life, not electronics.

piqufoh• 3 years ago

I think the job title is misleading, from the job listing:

We are looking for an experienced Head of Cyber Security to lead a team of two cyber analysts
We are a team of around 40, responsible for the Treasury’s technology, security and knowledge and information management services.

So it's not _the_ Head - but _a_ head, and that 'head' has a relatively minor / junior manager role.

cs02rm02• 3 years ago

Sounds to me like it is _the_ Head of Cyber Security, but there are other technology roles outside of Cyber Security in the "team".

jojobas5• 3 years ago

If you entire IT team is 40, it's plausible to assume that the entire security team is these 2 analysts and their sought-after boss. Even if it's "a" head, why would anyone qualified for leading an infosec team be interested?

SilverBirch6• 3 years ago

For the same reason that anyone works in the civil service. It's a very restrained pace of life, you literally have to count your hours and take time off to ensure you don't work more than 37.5 hours a week, there's flexibility to work from home and your working hours, the pension and the benefits are fantastic. If you live to work then this job isn't for you, but it's quite a nice job if you're not that invested in it.

vasco• 3 years ago

As I understand it, Head is what you call someone that's leading a group of people and they don't have the on-paper experience to do it, or you don't want to give them the title for any other reason. Also why startups tend to have more "heads" of things and at some point shift to having VPs

mkl954• 3 years ago

This aligns with my experience. I used to work at a department that had a "Head". She never talked to anybody or delivered any tangible work. I still wonder what her real job was.

CommanderData4• 3 years ago

Salaries in the UK are abysmal.

Cost of goods here have in some cases doubled. Not to mention the housing situation, people are selling up to rent because of interest rates driving rent up.

_fvh32• 3 years ago

Going to the supermarket is a painful experience for anyone making under 75k in the UK

nivenkos3• 3 years ago

The whole of Europe really...

sb618• 3 years ago

A bit of a detraction from the link but can anyone who's lived for a significant amount of time in both the UK and the US confirm that £100k is equivalent to $200k?

It seems fairly unlikely to me as UK tax and NI would be around 50% plus everything you purchase has 20% VAT. Sure medical insurance in the US is insane but surely that doesn't quite cover it.

eckesicle• 3 years ago

I worked at Coinbase making 140k GBP in base compensation.

My SF based colleagues with the same job title were making 250k USD (so 202k GBP).

We sat down one day and compared our household budgets line by line and in the end we estimated that 'money left over' for equivalent house, medical and kids education my American colleagues were slightly better off, but maybe only by 5-10k USD per year.

Anecdatally ...

BoorishBears• 3 years ago

The fact that people living in SF managed to be ahead by anything proves there's a massive delta, especially since you're wording this in past-tense (SF has gotten cheaper depending on the timeline you consider)

shawabawa33• 3 years ago

Bare in mind at the time coinbase also paid above market rate in London (London rates were cut for new hires shortly after IIRC) (I also worked at CB London)

NullPrefix• 3 years ago

How much of the budget was mortgage? Because with mortgage you can sell the expensive house afterwards.

nivenkos3• 3 years ago

140k is an incredible salary in the UK though, like top 0.1% at least.

It's also hard to compare things 1:1 - since the NHS is "free" (via taxation), but it doesn't cover dentistry at all really whereas equivalent good US health insurances will do.

midasuni2• 3 years ago

100k in the U.K. assuming no student loans to repay would be £66,777 net.

Most things I purchase have no tax - food, housing, train fares.

The oil for this winter heating cost £1500 plus £75 vat.

JonChesterfield• 3 years ago

Food, housing and train fares are all taxed?

onion2k• 3 years ago

£100k in the UK a top 10% wage for the country, but the wages in the UK are massively skewed towards London and the South East.

As for the tax, we have progressive taxation in the UK. Earning £100k, you'd pay 0% on the first 12.5k, 25% on the next 70k or so, and 45% on the last 27.5k (numbers are from memory so they might be a little off). High wage earners are not giving up half their income in tax. That'd be silly.

vidarh9• 3 years ago

Including NI it's more like 32% and 42%, and the 40% + 2% NI kicks in lower than that. But, yeah, the effective rate is far lower.

You hit 33% income tax + NI at 100k (see listentotaxman.com)

jstx13• 3 years ago

Your numbers are way off. It's:

    Basic rate of 20% on earnings between £12,571 and £50,270.
    Higher Rate of 40% on earnings between £50,271 and £125,139.
    Additional Rate of 45% on earnings from £125,140. (this is from the tax year starting next week, it used to be £150k instead of £125k)

You also gradually lose your tax-free allowance if you make over £100k so there's a weird dead zone in which your marginal rate is something like 60%.

Then there's NI which is effectively tax too but isn't listed in the bands above. Someone on £150k is paying 40% tax and NI (total, not marginal). Not quite half but it's not low either.

(You could get to more than 50% deductions if you factor in student loans)

vidarh9• 3 years ago

I earn well above that and my effective tax rate is well below 50%. The top marginal rate is 47% except for a narrow band due to phase out of personal allowance, but my effective rate is lower.

With respect to VAT, it nudges my total tax paid up about 4 percentage points. Total, including VAT, NI, and council tax is still well below 50%.

Remember, you're not going to spend nearly all of your pre tax earnings on VAT rated goods and services, given you pay tax and housing andany other things which does not incur VAT.

dan-robertson10• 3 years ago

It’s worth considering employer payroll taxes which might be different (though my memory from looking it up a while ago was that the payroll taxes weren’t so different). It’s also possible to have another effective 9% marginal tax from student ‘loans’ though that will go away after a while.

dan-robertson10• 3 years ago

I think it’s a bit hard to make direct comparisons because the US is more varied in things like tax policy or having multiple important cities.

For a while, the strong pound made it seem like people in the U.K. were well paid compared to most developed countries (not the US which tends to have higher pay than basically any other medium or large country) but I think this was mostly just the strong pound and purchasing power wasn’t much higher in the U.K.

The pound has fallen a lot in the last decade and I think various numbers like pay have been somewhat sticky and not really gone up to match the increased cost of imports.

To attempt to make a comparison, if you live in central London vs Manhattan, tax rates will be comparable (maybe more so if you double both gross salaries), rents in Manhattan will be something like 2x (probably more) based on apartment type but you’ll potentially get something bigger/nicer in NY (ie partly it is about a difference in the average unit, but if all you can get is a large apartment, you have to pay for all of it so controlling for such qualities isn’t so relevant). Rent controls mean that the supply of apartments is less than might be expected based on the number of housing units In Manhattan. Groceries (in Manhattan) are more expensive, as are things like restaurants. The comparison doesn’t feel totally crazy to me.

Other US cities may be different though, eg I don’t know how the taxes/rent would work out in SF or the Bay Area or Seattle or Chicago. There isn’t really much of an alternative to London in the U.K. in the same way that there are many ‘top’ cities in the US and tax policy is much more uniform between locations.

raverbashing• 3 years ago

People assume wrongly but not everything has 20% VAT in the UK/EU and in the US not everything has the sticker price on it (think tips + sales tax + a lot of BS fees or friction as well around) so calculations have to consider those

mmaunder• 3 years ago

They’ll get someone who wants it on their resume and wants the network so they can move to private sector and sell back to the same department. The ole public-private two-step.

zo1• 3 years ago

It seems to be a tactic some nefarious companies are resorting to. They dish out titles like candy to capture cheaper labour and to "upcycle" people in their career ladder.

Managing Director, Head Of Research, Chief of Staff,etc.

Then those roles have vice or assistant as modifiers to multiply how many roles they have.

Then they go further, they split their company units into actual companies and group it under a "Group". So now each one of those entities has their own CEO, Director, Managing Director, Head of, etc.

You know it's bad when a single company of barely 500 people has 5 CEOs, 50 C-level roles and countless meaningless titles given to downright incompetent individuals.

Unfortunately encountered one such company that I won't name. Needless to say, they were a crappy client.

whstl• 3 years ago

Not only in management. After some recent interviews I did, I'm finding more and more companies looking for "lead developers" and "tech lead" or some variation, but what is actually expected of them is a "almost-senior developer that also interviews", since someone else (often a CTO) will be micromanaging the team's tech decisions and another manager will be, well, managing.

It is a bit funny to ask "so what's the difference between this role and that of a senior engineer in the same team" and getting people to freeze.

CommanderData4• 3 years ago

For the non-British here.

Taxes are paid automatically in the UK to the tax man through a system called "Pay As You Earn - PAYE".

Take home pay is closer to 41k.

If the applicant has a student loan. These might take 30 years to pay off at the default 6% from gross (3.3k). Then there are pension contributions too which are opt-out now at usually 5% gross (2.75k). All deducted automatically.

No remote advertised, the average commute costs £50 a week in London.

The real wage here is 35k~ for someone university educated and wants a retirement pension excluding travel.

SilverBirch6• 3 years ago

It's civil service, which means a defined benefit pension paid by the civil service which is valued at some crazy value - like 27% of salary per year with the employee only needing to contribute something like 5%.

CommanderData4• 3 years ago

Thanks good to know. I've adjusted.

tester756• 3 years ago

it says mid-senior level

dan-robertson10• 3 years ago

I assume that term mostly only makes sense within the civil service.

hunglee2• 3 years ago

Might be a matter of 'job title inflation' - team is small (2 other analysts) and likely is a subdivision of what is a substantial department. Also, I location is potentially in Darlington, I wonder whether that is the main location given the salary level (55K in London is super low)

ilovefood• 3 years ago

Could it simply be, that these types of jobs (high rank, low pay) are reserved to wealthy people? It might be so that the only ones that can apply are people for which the salary is a mere formality - it's just listed because it might be mandatory for the paperwork. Kind of similar to how artificially high housing cost is some sort of gatekeeping/community control and not actually reflecting demand in some places...

What the job actually gets you (mandate, network, access, decision power, ...) is the real value money couldn't buy otherwise.

But then again this argument might be wrong, because if it were the case why list the job in the first place?

zouhair• 3 years ago

Dunno if it's for a rich person but most likely they want to give it to someone they know and they just have to legally post it publicly before that. And putting such low salary insures no one with good credentials will ever take it.

soVeryTired• 3 years ago

It's civil service. There's basically no negotiating on pay - they certainly won't pay an internal candidate more.

LightBug12• 3 years ago

Without knowing the details, not really. That's more for people in Parliament these days, not the Civil Service.

£55k in London is junior management level pay in the London, if that.

Unless this is a case of give an incredible title for a junior member of staff to make it sounds attractive, then this is reallllly low pay for that type of job.

Embarassingly low. Kind of, "I have no idea what a Head of Cyber Security" does so let me price it at £55k.

Honestly, this is something a 2 person startup might do ... not The Treasury of a leading (?) country.

Maybe it's just a mistake, but it is eye-opening.

ptero• 3 years ago

As others said, it is a junior role -- "a head", not "the head" that will (from a job description) manage a 2-person team in a 40-person org pretty far removed from leadership.

nelsonic• 3 years ago

Not a “wealthy” person, but rather someone from a a large tech/outsourcing co that will get massive contracts and thus the “revolving door” of “public private partnerships” continues …

SilverBirch6• 3 years ago

The answer is much simpler, it's simply not a high power job. It's an inflated job title for the person in the IT department who leads a team of 2 people focused on cyber security. It reports into the IT department (which obviously at the treasury isn't really an important department), and is several levels away from senior leadership. In the private sector this role would be the most junior level of management- something like "Lead" or "Supervisor" not the head of a department.

Aeolun3• 3 years ago

I think the problem is that it is still a high skill job. You are not going to get a PHP developer for that price, much less a cybersecurity expert.

csomar2• 3 years ago

Could it simply be, that these types of jobs (high rank, low pay) are reserved to wealthy people?

Some are. But I highly doubt it's the case for this particular one.

TrackerFF2• 3 years ago

Having worked in a tangent government field, I can tell you that many of these "head of..." people tend to float from one similar job to another.

It wouldn't surprise me if the person that gets hired for this job, has little to no experience with cyber security.

ed_balls• 3 years ago

Alternately, they could be forced to find a UK resident first, before hiring a foreigner. First, you make an ad with requirements that have 0 possible candidates. You wait a few weeks as a proof that you tried to hire locally. Then you make a semi-hidden ad with the real position and salary*

*happened in my country. Position for a software engineer with 1.5x min wage salary.

eptcyka• 3 years ago

Why would a wealthy person do this job?

TruthWillHurt2• 3 years ago

Oh don't worry.. they have an army of contractors to give the best advice.. surely..

vegabook• 3 years ago

The Treasury issues around 15bn GBP (~18bn USD) of bonds every month. There are multimillion pound "opportunities" to leak information about which bonds will be issued (because that'll cause that curve sector temporarily to cheapen up). Paying the paltry sum of 55k for someone who can reasonably be expected to have access to this information, is a signal that they don't take seriously the risk of being fleeced for 2 or more orders of magnitude more than that every month.

mkl954• 3 years ago

I haven't dabbled too much in the UK market, but I recall interviewing for a low 6 figure position a while ago. Is the gap between public and private jobs that big?

rprospero2• 3 years ago

C++ Dev in the UK public sector here. I make 40k a year and so does my boss. I think my boss’s boss might make 50k, or that might only be his boss.

tjpnz• 3 years ago

Why do you do it? Or are there factors at play besides the money?

badrabbit5• 3 years ago

I have had NASA tell me the max pay for a security engineer is $40k. I had to question if perhaps the job was for a security guard at one of their sites or something.

ForHackernews6• 3 years ago

I mean, it's fucking NASA. I'd probably work there for free just to be able to say I'd done it.

"Oh, you got a lot of RSUs for your social media click-tracking? That's nice. I helped bullseye an asteroid 9.6 million km away, potentially saving every life on Earth. But yeah, that new infinite scroll is cool, too."

_Wintermute• 3 years ago

It's nice to imagine when you're not the one worrying about paying rent.

I work in an interesting area (bioinformatics research) and as expected the pay is pretty dire to match. You do get the warm fuzzies now and again when strangers ask about your job, but the rest of the time is spent wondering if you should move into fintech so you don't have to worry about grocery prices.

badrabbit5• 3 years ago

If it was the NSA I'd agree with you but NASA?? Their not famous for their infosec lol, I prefer actual wages.

volvogradSaint• 3 years ago

A newspaper headline from 2024: How Russia took over the UK Treasury, inside scoop on the Great Britain Banking crash of 2023.

sc90• 3 years ago

This was also discussed on Twitter a few days ago https://twitter.com/Jontafkasi/status/1641193954778697728.

nivenkos3• 3 years ago

European wages are incredibly low, so this isn't so surprising.

It is particularly low though, but something like 80k wouldn't be unexpected at all.

dukeyukey9• 3 years ago

It's a US-vs-world thing, not a Europe thing. Looking at levels.fyi, London pays more than anywhere outside the US and Switzerland, and even outpays chunks of the US (albeit not the tech hubs).

baazaa• 3 years ago

This is a problem across the civil service, although not as stark as this example usually.

The cult of the generalist has long meant that specific skills are considered almost worthless. Instead of the civil service being an assemblage of people with different skill-sets, it instead consists chiefly of administrators with no more skills than a high-school graduate (although they do have tertiary degrees). Jobs which require actual skill are then farmed out to contractors by these 'generalists'.

The problem is baked into the pay structure, which tends to be based on seniority and how many people you manage rather than skill. You can't just up salaries across the board because then you'd be paying all the unskilled 'generalists' far too much.

They need to completely reorient the civil service away from the notion of generalists, because they're not true generalists. If someone can't code in this day and age they're not a generalist. And if they have no other specialist skill-set besides (say law or accounting) then they shouldn't even be considered professionals. What we have today is a civil service made of pseudo-professionals who in fact do exactly the same sort of work once done by much cheaper clerical staff.

negamax2• 3 years ago

Civil service is also government's secret graduate job creation program. Can't get hired by private sector beyond counter jobs, civil service welcomes you. It's a racket through and through

tankenmate• 3 years ago

I think it's a more a case of "don't attribute to maliciousness what can easily be explained by stupidity"; i.e. the powers that be a trying to cut their way to success.

sandworm1016• 3 years ago

I seriously doubt that the head of cyber security at such a place would ever do any coding. The primary job would be administrative, the needed skill the management of people. 55k is a joke, but lets not pretend that this position requires l33t hacking skills. This is a job about hiring and firing people, about selecting policy and judging the qualification of prospective contractors. And it's a job about writing reports and presenting them to higher authorities and investigative committees, not the sort of things taught at bootcamps.

FartyMcFarter• 3 years ago

But if you never did any coding, you may not understand enough to effectively lead a team of people who do that.

For example, how are you going to understand what's going on or resolve technical conflicts? Just outsourcing all the decisions probably makes you much less useful.

flixing• 3 years ago

So not true

camdenreslink• 3 years ago

Head of cyber security at a private company would be somebody with a career of hands-on security work, that has moved up into management. This person would absolutely know how to do the job of their reports.

Why should the government be any different?

newsclues2• 3 years ago

Seems like a way for elites to maintain control.

Much like unpaid internships, the paths and positions of power are made unattractive to intelligent and hardworking people who lack generational wealth to work for free or far less than market value, especially when cost of living is so high.

petesergeant2• 3 years ago

Have you met many civil servants in the UK? Generational wealth isn’t a term I’d associated with them

ClumsyPilot4• 3 years ago

The british government has a parasitic relationship with consultancy companies. They hire consultants for £1,500 per day from PWC, Deloitte, etc.

https://youtu.be/ycVBoWsGLJs

There are 3 kinds of consultants - experienced civil service employees that were poached because they were underpaid - so now the consultancy pays them 80k instead of 50 but charges them out for a fortune.

Or they are generalists working for the consultancy, and are about as skilled as the civil servants themselves.

Only a small fraction of consultants are really so specialised that you only need the expertise occasionally and should be contracting them

nindalf• 3 years ago

I’ve had the misfortune to work with Accenture acting on behalf of the UK government. They’ve somehow managed to stretch a software project 2 years past delivery date, bleeding the UK taxpayer dry the whole time. At no point have these people shown even a shred of professionalism or competence.

All the while I’m not even sure the boffins at Whitehall even realise they’re being robbed blind. But to be fair, if it wasn’t Accenture robbing them, it’d be some other firm doing the same thing in the same way.

whatyesaid2• 3 years ago

Reminds me of how the HealthCare.gov website cost 2.1 billion and yet had countless issues when it was launched.

g-erson• 3 years ago

How often is it the case that some official in government has an interest in Accenture, or whatever company, and it is in their interest for that company to win contracts, and then simply stretch those contracts out as long as possible, while the interested official continues their influence in retaining the contract? Or perhaps I'm overly cynical.

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.

ZephyrBlu• 3 years ago

You think you would triple or quadruple your comp in Aus? The US I get, but Aus seems to be about the same as the UK.

Also, how is your marginal tax rate 60%? I'm guessing you mean 40%.

https://www.gov.uk/income-tax-rates

csomar2• 3 years ago

He is either adding vat or social security.

ubercow132• 3 years ago

Personal allowance tapers after 100k, making the effective marginal rate 60% between 100-125k. If you include student loan payments too, it's actually more like 69%!

There are other even more extreme marginal rates hidden in the tax system if you have children, I believe there are even some circumstances of >100%

dukeyukey9• 3 years ago

Looking at levels.fyi, London pays developers more than anywhere outside the US and Switzerland.

makingstuffs6• 3 years ago

The worst thing about it all is our healthcare is barely even a benefit anymore. You’d be more likely to find a leprechaun than get an appointment with a doctor and don’t get me started on dentistry.

InCityDreams• 3 years ago

To where are you referring?

unmole2• 3 years ago

I'm being almost entirely facetious but for ~600 GBP one could fly to India, get excellent dental treatment and fly back.

teh_klev5• 3 years ago

Well it depends on which NHS you're talking about? Each country in the UK has their own NHS, some are much better than others.

AmericanChopper• 3 years ago

Your last two posts are this exact comment.

SXX• 3 years ago

Healthcare is free in UK of course and this is hug compared to US situation, but I do have a few older friends who moved to EU simply because there are countries with as good healthcare and much less waiting.

dukeyukey9• 3 years ago

I don't think that's the case - looking at levels.fyi, London pays more than anywhere outside the US and Switzerland. Definitely more than Australia, despite a lower cost of living.

meghan_rain2• 3 years ago

Exit to where?

negamax2• 3 years ago

It's a problem with all government departments. They can't pay market rates for software engineers. But can hire contractors and third party vendors. Facepalm * 100. That's why body shops like Accenture et al makes a killing in government contracts.

Kognito• 3 years ago

Feels like there might have been a mistake on the job listing.

It’s listed as mid-senior, with the same salary band as the roles this would be managing.

dukeyukey9• 3 years ago

It's not too unusual for a manager to learn less than their reports. I'm in London and earn more than my manager.

makingstuffs6• 3 years ago

I get a lot job offers in my LinkedIn inbox and newsletters from places like glass door as I like to keep my eye on the market. One thing I’ve been seeing a lot recently is salaries for dev roles steadily dropping in the UK.

The concerning thing, in my opinion, is that the poster linked by OP seems disillusioned as to the standard of living in the UK. They specifically mention being paid £55k as being equivalent to $100k in the US. It isn’t.

£55k in London is about enough to rent a place and live ok’ish on your own, and relatively comfortably if you have a partner whom is also earning a salary in a similar bracket.

Rent on a 1 bedroom flat in zone 5 is costing £1,500 as a minimum. You then have council tax which is about £200 a month (soon to be increased). If you travel to the city to go to the office that is gonna cost you at least £50 a week, more if you need to go everyday. Your utilities will cost you at least £100 a month and food, without takeaways is also going to cost you about £50 a week.

All the costs above are lowballing intentionally and do not factor in things like the inevitable lunch coffee and after work drinks, albeit non alcoholic. The reality is that the UK is becoming a much less livable place and that the cost of living/energy/whatever comes next is always passed down to the average person.

I will not be surprised to see an exodus of skilled workers over the next decade. I personally have set a 5 year target for leaving the country personally, which is sad. My partner has noticed the change herself and is equally as sad that the reality is she will need to leave (after working to acquire citizenship) in order to have a proper chance at buying a home and living a happy life.

alibarber• 3 years ago

I'd be reasonably certain that $100k in the Bay Area would leave you with pretty much the same lifestyle you describe here in London.

There is quite a gap between London and the UK as a whole, for better and for worse.

whatyesaid2• 3 years ago

Are they paying 100k in the Bay Area or more upwards of 200k?

dubcanada• 3 years ago

What part of

£55k as being equivalent to $100k in the US

Is not? I don't see any argument for that not being correct. Everything you said about costs, sounds that exact same as $100k in the US. Unless you live in North Dakota, chances are you are paying pretty close to the same percentages for rent/foot in a larger city such as San Fran or Chicago.

Not exactly sure what zone 5 is, but a rough search gave me $2500 for rent in Chicago, which is about double £1,500 (roughly), council tax probably doesn't exist, but travel in Chicago is certainly going to be WAY more than "£50 a week". And GOOD luck finding utilities for "at least £100", internet alone is probably $50 US, cell phone another $40 US, power, heat, hot water, depending on apartment is probably another $100 US. Food for "£50 a week" is also a dream I would expect food to be closer to $200 USD a week. Unless you're living on ramen.

Everything I see adds up to that being about correct.

incone123• 3 years ago

Zone 5: London's public transport has a fare system based on concentric circles. Zone 1 is the centre. Zone 5 housing used to be affordable on average Joe wages.

tyingq• 3 years ago

UK payroll taxes are also probably a larger percentage.

a_humean2• 3 years ago

London is basically one big urban circle. Everything in London is directed towards the centre of the city. Zone 1-6 is roughly a measure your distance from the centre of London, which is also the centre of economic activity with many international HQs, banks, insurance markets, government departments, and startup offices based there. Its also where all of the major entertainment and tourist locations are.

Zone 1 is typically very expensive. Typically, with some variation, it gets less expensive as you go to outer zones. Zone 5/6 is getting to the outer reaches of the city, and historically was much more affordable at the cost of >60 minute commutes into zone 1 and higher fare costs.

You also need to keep in mind that the marginal tax rate can be very high. This is esp true for UK university graduates that typically are repaying what is technically a "student loan", but even the government's statisticians call a tax because almost nobody will pay it off in their lifetime given the repayment terms. Many graduates have marginal tax rates in excess of 50% on incomes above roughly 40k.

vidarh9• 3 years ago

My council tax in zone five for a mid range priced terraced 3 bedroom house is below £200 a month before the single person deduction (25%).

Literally the first search for a 1 bed property to rent in zone 5 (Croydon, specifically), showed up several around 1100/month. The furnished ones in the more expensive new-builds certainly are around the 1500/month range. Those are in band A, while my house is in band D, so even lower council tax, before taking into account the single person deduction.

E.g. a single person in a band A property in Croydon will pay around 1200/year in council tax. Varies by borough, of course.

iamacyborg• 3 years ago

Yeah but then you live in Croydon.

williamvds• 3 years ago

I have to assume other young people, like myself, want a mostly furnished place because dragging a ton of furniture around is very annoying. Especially when you're forced to move around every few years because the rents keep hiking up.

And I don't think the adverted price are representative of how much you'd end up paying in just rent. My current place went up £200/mo from £1800/mo advertised, because the agent went back to us (and the other applicants), telling us other people's offers, and goading us into increasing our offer.

Anecdata: I share a 2 bed in Ealing, £2000/mo in just rent, council tax band D which adds about another month's rent a year. If I weren't working in finance and paying more to make up for my housemate's lower salary (my ~70k/yr to his ~£30k/yr) there's no way we'd be able to afford this place. We'd have to find somewhere in a worse location, with poorer quality, or both.

agilob2• 3 years ago

They specifically mention being paid £55k as being equivalent to $100k in the US. It isn’t.

I think you're missing some benefits. I don't know anything specific about this job offer and what would be on the paper offer, but UK public sector offers quite insane benefits compared to private sector, where salary might be like 50-60% of total compensation. Some I'm failiar with: free access to public nurseries (normal price was around £1200/monthy), 50% of costs for private high school, high retirement employer contributions, refunds for all public transport tickets used to get to work, access to gym, swimming pool, sauna, massage and therapies with max. 1 entry per day, free car parking during working days and weekends (otherwise £3-5 per hour), up to £100 per month for books - and this doesn't include annual training budget.

While the cash is quite low and won't get you far with luxury holidays abroad, it offers very high living standard in the UK.

dreilide• 3 years ago

Agreed - my ex has spent her whole career in the public sector and the benefits are indeed insane. IIRC the pension was especially lucrative (from my POV), it was something like min ~20% employer contribution but I could be remembering incorrectly.

I wonder why they don't advertise all the benefits more explicitly in public sector job listings.

sandworm1016• 3 years ago

If you are the sort of person positioned to take advantage of those benefits, many of which are aimed at people with young families: some kids, but not so many that you want a larger living area. This serves to narrow the field of prospective applicants to those of a paticular social and cultural class. A single person whith hobbies outside the narrow field of acceptability will not apply. Anyone who would rather go on a backpacking trips than endulge in spa days would rather have the money than the spa benefit. In the end, such specific benifit packages tend to promote a very paticular london lifestyle.

crimsoneer• 3 years ago

You do not get free nursery, gyms or car parking in UK public sector...

lnsru• 3 years ago

I am just curious where would you go? In my eyes today’s Germany is also bad choice for working and living comfy lifestyle. It was nice low wage country with dirt cheap groceries and not too expensive housing. Now it is still low wage country with high cost of living.

dukeyukey9• 3 years ago

I'm in London, and don't recognise most of this.

Like, I live in Zone 2 with a rent of £1600/month, including heating. My previous place (only a few months ago) was £1450, also in Zone 2. My company is revving up hiring, and we've definitely not seen salaries decrease. If anything, we're prepared to pay more to basically anyone who isn't a new grad.

a_humean2• 3 years ago

So I live in zone 3 in south west london and my rent is 1500pcm. I signed that rental contract in 2021, but since then average rents in my area have gone up 25% (my salary has gone up by ~10% in that time). My contract is coming up for renewal, and I'm bracing myself for 1800-1900 terms from my landlord. This has happened everywhere in London - 15% increases in the past year alone.

Seriously questioning whether to stay in London itself, but even outside of London rents have gone up crazy amounts given the average salaries of those areas. This country is starting to become unaffordable despite the fact that I'm technically >97th income percentile.

jstx13• 3 years ago

I will not be surprised to see an exodus of skilled workers over the next decade. I personally have set a 5 year target for leaving the country personally, which is sad.

What better options do you have realistically?

sumedh• 3 years ago

I will not be surprised to see an exodus of skilled workers over the next decade.

Two people from the UK joined my team in Australia who work in tech in the last two months. They both had the same complaint, life is not good in UK.

dukeyukey9• 3 years ago

Keep in mind those are people who purposefully moved to Australia. I know plenty of Aussies here in London who left Australia, usually due to poor job opportunities or culture.

meghan_rain2• 3 years ago

Where are you going to leave to?

makingstuffs6• 3 years ago

My preference is the Netherlands but it is obviously a joint decision which needs to be made by both myself and my partner.

We are both working in tech so finding a job shouldn’t be an issue. She is an EU national by birth so automatically has the right to work and live there. I would need to jump through hoops as a result of the big B :/

gumballindie• 3 years ago

If you factor in the ever increasing taxes, interest rates and cost of living, this is a junior level salary. They'll get what they pay for.

dukeyukey9• 3 years ago

It's a role managing two employees, they're probably looking at a reasonably mid-level candidate.

TrackerFF2• 3 years ago

Some thoughts:

1) That's the salary range they've specified, if the right applicant comes along they can probably stretch a good deal. My last work was for the gov., and even though they had a specified salary range in the job listing, they paid 20%-30% more to certain hires.

2) These types of jobs come with a certain "prestige" attached to them, which can open doors later - much, much higher paying and powerful doors. And that's a general thing when it comes to such jobs, people are willing to slash their paycheck in half if it's powerful enough

3) The type of applicant for these jobs are (in my experience) much more driven by ideology than money. Gov. jobs can never compete on salary, that's just a fact of life. But they do still get excellent applicants, that are burning for certain things

4) Many of these applicants don't need higher salaries - they're already financially independent.

buro9• 3 years ago

As footballers earn most of their money through sponsorships, so this person will earn most of their money through back-handers from procurement.

I wish I were joking, but this is what a salary of this level for this role will amount to.

dukeyukey9• 3 years ago

It's a role managing two employees, that's not exactly kickback territory

sandworm1016• 3 years ago

Outsiders miss the underlying class struggle here. When an employer underpays a position the door opens to nepotism and class discrimination. If the pay is below a reasonable wage for the associated costs, ie living in london, only those with outside income will apply. They take the position for the prestige and power the office conveys rather than the money paid. So it goes to the son-in-law of someone important, some upstart who needs a fancy stamp on the resume to justify his inevitable next appointment up the civil service hierarchy. Several New York law firms do this. Pay new lawyers nothing and you are free to hire only from a narrow group of legal and political families. Also, every political party filling campaign positions with "volunteers" hoping to get a position of power if the condidate wins office. They are all sons and daughters from political families.

Once upon a time many high positions did not pay. Some even required regular payment from the office holder. Want to be near the seat of power in london? Want the ear of the king? That will cost you. Ever watch tales about The Three Musketeers? In reality, the musketeers were drawn from elite families because they had to cover all of thier own costs. It was a prestige position for sons of power wanting to work near the palace.

dan-robertson10• 3 years ago

I just don’t see that here at all. I read it as a job title that sounds more senior than it is, potentially underpaid for the civil service, with the numbers looking extra low because of the weird way that much comp comes in non-salary benefits (which some may not want).

Certainly I don’t think this position is some kind of reverse-sinecure that pays in political power. Mainly because I think it doesn’t really wield much power.

I don’t know which law firms you’re talking about but there are others which pay graduates well and I’m not really sure it’s very relevant to the discussion.

thinkingemote• 3 years ago

also discussed 2 days ago: 111 comments https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35384652

garrypettet• 3 years ago

It’s worth pointing out that this is a higher salary than most doctors make (below consultant level) in the UK.

windex• 3 years ago

This would ideally fit a crook, and he could then mine the system from the inside I would assume.

bvoq• 3 years ago

In a 100 years the UK elite will pay you in air, but only 95% of the recommended daily amount.

UK Treasury trying to find a Head of Cyber Security for £55k

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