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

infosec.exchange

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

#61
post #42

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.

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 "Gr…

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.

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

#63
post #50
post #18

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.

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 r…

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.

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

#64
post #57

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...…

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.

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

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

#66

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...…

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.

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

#67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

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.

Oops somehow skipped that paragraph, yeah that's nonsense. Unless you're comparing SF to small town UK or something

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

#70
post #48
post #14

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.

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

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.
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