Original URL: https://www.theregister.com/2011/10/27/cabinet_office_hiring_developers/

Cabinet Office on £2m digital talent hunt

28 new hires to get the civil service up to speed

By Anna Leach

Posted in Legal, 27th October 2011 07:30 GMT

The government department charged with running the Civil Service is looking for developers to transform the public sector – and they're prepared to pay £2m to get the best.

Whitehall's digital tsar Mike Bracken just announced 28 new digital jobs at the Cabinet Office (with pay packets ranging from £59k-£117k a year), declaring that the Civil Service was "badly in need of the talent to engineer ourselves out of our torpor".

The Cabinet Office is advertising now for 12 developers, three interaction designers, five product managers and eight other roles. The yearly wages bill for the new hires will be £2,079,800 if everyone is paid the top advertised salary.

Bracken, who has a strong digital CV as a co-founder of MySociety and former Director of Digital Development at the Guardian doesn't just want new bodies in the office, he wants the new hires to push through the "digital transformation" to public services he's been angling for since his appointment as Executive Director of Digital Efficiency and Reform Group in May.

The demand for innovation, focus on the user and a move away from long-term, gold-plated IT projects means that a digital generation can transform public services to cater for changing user demand.

Bracken criticised previous government IT projects as risk averse and unwieldy, signalling his desire to use open-source technology, cloud-based infrastructure and user input to achieve a new, agile approach. Will bureaucrats start using Linux and Google Docs? We'll see..

Developer-types on the lookout for a job may be interested to hear that the developer posts going will be paid up to £65k a year each, the two creative leads' salaries go up to £80k a year each and the five new product managers will get up to £90k each.

Bracken said that he is looking for "world-class digital talent" and that he believes that the hiring decisions will pay for themselves: "An example: in 2009/10 government services excluding PCTs received at least 693 million telephone calls, at an average cost call of over £6 each, and over 150m of these calls were self-reported as avoidable. If we can move a fraction of these to compelling, digital transactional services with very high completion rates, the savings are quite clear."

The Cabinet Office sits at the heart of the civil service, ensuring that it runs effectively and efficiently, and is also responsible for helping the Prime Minister formulate policy.

These are the type of roles on offer. See the full list here.

Developers – The engine room of transformation, we are embedding a developer-led digital culture at the heart of government.

Product Management – Introducing this discipline across high-volume Government services is a huge change in approach.

Interaction Designers – World-class interaction design is a critical component in the digital-by-default vision.

Web Ops – The crucial link between developers and architecture, ensuring we make the right technology choices and scale appropriately.

Technology Architecture – The challenge here could not be greater. Whether identity management or transactional process, the creation of an architectural framework across Government services is the goal.

Digital Engagement – The key to transforming the government culture.

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