Soldato
Can you crack it? - GCHQ
- Thread starter tlrBeta
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Yes, it is. I've worked in a few departments and haven't seen much of a variation in the pay scales. For example, the starting salary for a Grade 6, which is the beginning of the senior management chain, is usually within the £45-55k bracket and you can get only get such roles with several years of relevant work experience (normally at least a decade).
Yes, £25,000 would be a good salary for the vast majority of computer science graduates, but I assume that GCHQ and private security firms aren't looking for Joe Average. If you have the skills to get into either, GCHQ can't compete financially.
Soldato
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- 5 Dec 2010
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Lots of people here only motivated by money lols. If that is what you look for in a job then you are probably not the kind of person they are looking for. The people I know who work there don't do it for the money they do it because they love what they do and the knowledge that what they are doing is helping save lives and keep people safe. PMCs pay more than the Army but you dont look as a soldier and go "nah I could do that job but the pay is too rubbish".
Im not at all motivated money but I don't like to feel ripped off doing the same job for less money or less benefits. I don't care what I get paid, but if I can do the same thing at a different company/country/pivate_vs_public then I don't like to feel exploited and will take actions to alleviate salary differences.
I wouln't work for company X if they gave 10K less than identical jobs across the industry. I wouldn't work for a company who paid an identcal collegue significantly more money for no reason.
As long as the salary and benefits are fair and reflect the level of expertise and education adaquately then I don't care.
Soldato
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I am pretty sure that GCHQ do a fair few things that private sector companies do not do.
Deleted member 651465
D
Deleted member 651465
Here's me thinking it was a regular word.
Seeing the "Pr0t3ct!on#cyber_security@12*12.2011+" answer, just annoyed me even more
Seeing the "Pr0t3ct!on#cyber_security@12*12.2011+" answer, just annoyed me even more
Soldato
Which were they?
To have the capability to crack this thing does not warrant £80k. Any CS grad could do it.
That is certainly true. But then a lot of interesting things in security wont be done at GCHQ either and people interested in various theoretic aspects will work in academia. Those that like implementational challenges will often find quite a variety of private sector companies. QCHQ falls somewere inbetween I would imagine.
Soldato
Soldato
Have you? seeing as the link to that page has been posted several times in this thread, and I'm dubious that it's the real answer.
DV clearance is for the military, MOD civil servants.
Vetting isn't centralised AFAIK
Also judging by the reports of the supposed contents of some disks stolen from the RAF - you can be a prostitute using, drug abusing adulterer and still pass it.
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Not always, I know many people at my company which is a private sector company have DV clearance for work they do on certain government contracts which are not military or MOD.
So, can you crack it?
Just read this on the BBC
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-15968878
..and was wondering if any of you have the ability to do this...
http://www.canyoucrackit.co.uk/
Just read this on the BBC
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-15968878
..and was wondering if any of you have the ability to do this...
http://www.canyoucrackit.co.uk/
Soldato
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- 31 May 2009
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- 21,257
have a look in the thread from days ago, that is several pages long.
You say that, but you disregard that GCHQ invented RSA public-key encryption. Of course, nobody knew that they did, because it remained top-secret classified until 1998, 20 years after its public release by a set of people who created it independently (hence the naming). Who is to say just how other many inventions/discoveries remain top secret for a few decades to come?
Lets also not forget that Alan Turing worked for GCHQ cracking the German Enigma code.
Yes there will always be the work happening in academia, but to claim that a lot of "interesting work won't be done at GCHQ" strikes me as disingenuous, with little more to support that than mere supposition. One cannot know either way, but history tells us that interesting work in security was indeed occurring at GCHQ, and so the more reasonable assumption to make would be that the opposite of what you claim is true.
The idea that just because firm x pays zk less than firm y is a "rip off" is rather silly. It does suggest one is motivated only by money. There are many other factors to a job that simply cannot be quantified with an equivalence to the pay. My friend who has recently completed his PhD has gone to work at an investment bank, and told me he was being paid £36k. Gobsmacked, I said I'd have expected it to been £15k higher, given he had worked there previously and as an intern during his PhD. He told me that he had taken the option for lots of additional training, all paid for by the company (and not coming out of his own wallet). A smaller pay check keeps him in the lower tax band, and the company pays for the training, rather than him. His pay looks smaller but is in fact larger. On the other hand, his girlfriend, also working in finance, and for less, is in an office where she regularly stays in work later than 7PM, and is getting paid less for it. Could one have inferred that from the salaries alone? No, in fact one might have assumed the other way round.
Before I started my PhD, I worked at an IT company paying £26,000, and within 2 years I had upped to £30,000, with a prospective £35,000 on the table if I had not left to do my PhD. Again, something you cannot infer from the advertised salary, is the rate of progression. We also had a pool table at work (which I spent significant amounts of time at). If I'd gone to a bank to work for £35,000 starting salary, who is to say my progression would have been the same(or similar), that I would have had a pool table I could visit whenever I liked, that I would have even enjoyed the job as much as I did. Would I have been able to clock off exactly once my hours were done, as I did at my previous job? Would I have been in a silent room full of people glued to their desks, or would it have been vibrant and full of lively discussion, like my previous workplace? Truth is, one does not know if the advertised salary represents value for money until they actually do the job.
Not having mentioned cost of living yet, the job at GCHQ could represent excellent value for money, particularly in terms if training, flexibility and workplace ethic, all things which are hard(impossible) to guage from the job advertisement. To judge it as underpaid or a rip off, well, you can't unless you've worked in those roles.