That said, the various security clearances you'd have to pick up would virtually guarantee serious compensation in the private sector, if/when you chose to leave. There are a lot of positions that can't possibly be outsourced or filled with H1-B workers.
Yes there was an online chalenge lookig for recruits to GCHQ (the UK NSA equivelent) and the starting pay was £25k which given the skils required fro that sort of job is very poor pay.
Is that £25k training pay or introductory pay. When I was applying for an Air traffic controller position, training pay (18 months) was £13k. But duty pay was much higher and, according to the ATCs at the interview day, overtime regularly pushed it into £50k-60k at the busiest airports.
I have a feeling the £25k isn't the complete story and there might be other compensation not mentioned.
Nope its civil service (you dont get big pay rises) this is for entry level grads and 25k is low discounting the fact that ML and Crypto is worth more as a specialisation than bog standard Java by the numbers graduates.(and GCHQ you would have to go through the DV process and work in the middle of nowhere)
Oh and for the past few years there have been pay freezes in the civil service which will be continuing for the life of this parliament.