The UK Government must improve pay and other incentives to attract skilled workers into technical roles, or risk losing talent critical for its future plans, warns a new report from science and technology thinktank UKDayOne.

The study, Recruiting and Retaining Civil Service Technologists, highlights that technical talent within the civil service is key to the success of Labour’s current push to invest in new technology for the public sector, so that the party might meet its manifesto pledge of harnessing emerging tech for the benefit of working people.  

However, the report notes that with the civil service struggling to recruit and retain technology personnel, including in areas such as cybersecurity, data science, and IT, and with public sector salaries lagging behind comparable roles in private business, vacancies are plaguing the system and causing delays.

For example, according to the research, a recently advertised role for a lead cybersecurity expert with the UK National Cyber Security Centre had a base salary of £41,935, which the Government could have raised to around £60,000 in order to fill specific role shortages.

However, in the private sector senior cybersecurity experts with similar roles can expect to earn between £80,000 – 120,000. 

UK Government statistics show that civil servants working within digital, data, and technology account for the second largest percentage of workers per function, at 5.6% or roughly 27,800 employees, but those earning at the higher salary bands average around £60,000, coming behind those working in legal, commercial, analysis, and project delivery functions.

Education and training inspectors, a group of just 1,000, lead the pay scale with a median salary of £80,740, while policy roles, which encompass 34,000 civil servants, hold the fourth–highest median salary at £48,790 – 12% higher than digital, data and technology salaries (£43,350).

This uncompetitive pay is creating what the study calls a ‘primary barrier’ to hiring technology professionals in the public sector, leading to significant delays for Government projects. 

To meet the challenge, the previous Conservative government introduced the Government Digital and Data (GDaD) capability framework, one facet of which allows for departments to provide proficiency based pay uplifts to retain staff in critical roles.  

UKDayOne said that this framework should be rolled out to all departments and made mandatory, with capped positions and centralised salary costs to ease budget concerns and prevent overhiring or role misclassification.

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Among other action points, the report also recommends that the Government should reinvest cost savings from reduced consultancy spending to improve pay for targeted technical roles, explore guaranteed annual increases to salary incentives through a double-lock mechanism, and allow technology professionals to sacrifice employer pension contributions for higher salaries. 

“It is unrealistic to think the government can – or should – match private sector salaries, bonuses, and perks,” noted the report’s authors.

“The civil service offers job security, favourable pensions, a good work-life balance, social impact and training opportunities. However, it also needs a realistic offer on pay if it wants to attract the tech talent necessary for digital government.”