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

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

#121

Post by agilob »

makingstuffs wrote: post #86

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 $…

> 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.

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

#122

Post by dan-robertson »

vidarh wrote: post #103
dan-robertson wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It's not normal to count payroll taxes as part of the employers tax, as that would also increase the gross salary above that which the employee considers their salary to be. E.g. nobody factors that in when comparing California salaries to the many US states with no payroll tax. Even so, you need to get up towards 300k GBP/year to exceed 50% even with the payroll tax. And that assumes you're making zero pension contr…

Payroll taxes matter to some extent when comparing employment in different tax regimes because they determine (some of) the total cost to the employer. They can also matter for contracting arrangements. Though the local job market probably matters more.

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

#123

Post by mkl95 »

jstx1 wrote: post #95
tjpnz wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

There are only so many high paying jobs. When someone on HN says that they have a £100k+ job in the UK, that means that it's possible for some number of people to get those jobs but not everyone who's on £40k can double or triple their salary, there aren't enough opportunities to do so.

I was a mid level - seniorish engineer at the time. We initially discussed that 6 figure role, but I did not feel ready at all. They said it was fine and that the range for the level below was £75-85k, which I thought was pretty good. It was a big corp in the health industry btw.

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

#124

Post by ptero »

LightBug1 wrote: post #66
ilovefood wrote: post #51

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"…

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.

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

#125

Post by ForHackernews »

_8j50 wrote: post #68

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.

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."

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

#126

Post by ed_balls »

ilovefood wrote: post #51

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...…

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.

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

#127

Post by lnsru »

makingstuffs wrote: post #86

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 $…

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.

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

#128

Post by vidarh »

dan-robertson wrote: post #122
vidarh wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not normal to count payroll taxes as part of the employers tax, as that would also increase the gross salary above that which the employee considers their salary to be. E.g. nobody factors that in when comparing California salaries to the many US states with no payroll tax. Even so, you need to get up towards 300k GBP/year to exceed 50% even with the payroll tax. And that assumes you're making zero pension contr…

Payroll taxes matter to some extent when comparing employment in different tax regimes because they determine (some of) the total cost to the employer. They can also matter for contracting arrangements. Though the local job market probably matters more.

Yes, but the sub-thread here started with someone suggesting they'd be paying 50% tax, and when talking in terms of employees, it's not normal to include it. When including it, we're usually talking about total tax wedge rather than tax rate (e.g. see OECD Taxing Wages).

Even so, as noted, you'd not hit 50% even with payroll taxes at anywhere near the income levels stated. At the stated 100k GBP contracted salary, your "salary" including payroll tax would be 113,207 GBP, and your total tax wedge would be 41% (compared to 33% combined income tax and NI).

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

#129

Post by eptcyka »

ilovefood wrote: post #51

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...…

Why would a wealthy person do this job?

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

#130

Post by iamben »

ClumsyPilot wrote: post #120
InCityDreams wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To where are you referring?

Uk - Britain is ceaselessly proud of it's NHS, and 10 years ago it was fine. I wiuld call in as a student complaining about a running nose and would get an appointment withing a day or two. In the past few years it fell off a cliff. Recently I called in about a serious infection and got told there are no appointment left this month. At all. It was the 2nd of March. Thr only way to get treatlent is to go to the accide…

Where are you based? I'm in central London and - whilst I agree it has been and could be better - have had no problem getting an appointment. Most of it is app based now, right? I'll message in the morning or the night before, a doctor will video call within 48 hours (usually, but often same day) and will ask me to come in if I need to. Otherwise they'll just prescribe after the call and send the prescription to my local pharmacy.
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