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Comment by ilovefood | Hacker News Reader

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?

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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.

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.

Pay is just low at lots of private companies in the U.K. You may not get a php developer who knows they could easily get more, but you might get someone who has spent their career at companies that somehow get away with paying much less.

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.

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.

Probably need to be a bit clearer on their titles then. Head of Cyber Security sounds overarching and very senior off the bat.

Bit like a few experiences I've seen where the person is, for example, "Director of Sales" intead of "Sales Director".

The former meaning nothing in UK legal entity law. The latter assuming directorial and/or ownership.

I guess the naming of roles has been the subject to this nonsense since the year dot though, so ...

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 …

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.

They are able to prepare individual arrangements for the 'right' candidate. The secretary of each ministry typically has delegation to increase starting salary and issue 'special bonuses', and there should be an oversight committee.

The inverted commas don't suggest misuse or abuse, just that it's completely different in every case.

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.

> 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.

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.

Why would a wealthy person do this job?

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