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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

#191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 ...

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.

Incredible salary in the UK != incredible salary in London

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

#192
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."

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.

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

#193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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."

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.

Fair, but I'm also sick of hearing Facegoogs whining on this app (and Blind, and elsewhere) about how they're only barely scraping by on $250k and how could anyone ever live on $100k poverty wages. They have to do adtech to survive, don't you see?

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

#194
post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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

I literally did this.

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

#195

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 $…

Where are you going to leave to?

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

#196
post #77

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 pro…

Exit to where?

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

#197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

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

But you don't realize the name of the game in government is to "reasonably sabotage" projects to safeguard the existence of your own position. The costs this leads to are absolutely amazing because you cannot do anything, ever, anywhere. In one position I was baffled, but contacting someone reporting to me ... took a week. And not because he was being hired or on vacation.

This is why the government uses outside contractors in the first place.

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

#199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I'm Canadian, but there is a difference between civil servants and the management. I'm guessing that it's the same. Your frontline civil servants aren't the wealthy ones, they are working a job. It's their bosses and directors, who control the budgets, and can decided who get's the juicy private contracts. Isn't the PM from a very wealthy family? That's the sort of thing I am talking about, not the civil servant work…

PM has two parents who are doctors, which is far, far from poor, but not really generational wealth. He did marry into money, though. Neither of the last two came from illustrious backgrounds.

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

#200

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 $…

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