NOTE: Only cauldrons with a safety mechanism preventing anyone from falling into the potion can be used at the site; traditional Gaul type cauldrons do not qualify.
> We offer flexible working arrangements where the role allows. This role can be based at our offices in Swindon, or worked on a hybrid pattern. You will be required to attend our Swindon offices 1 day per week.
Most of the “money American tech brings in” comes from the magnificent seven. US software engineering salaries are high even outside of those. In fact, it's high even in companies that are merely burning investor's money.
there are plenty of american cos that bring in tons of money that are outside the mag7.
vc funded companies pay high so they can grow and eventually bring in lots of money, and america has the deepest vc pockets so it reaps the rewards of the biggest exits
Why would they "normalize"? Do you think Microsoft, Amazon, Apple, Amazon, etc. are going to relocate to the EU or something? Are all the venture capitalists going to flock to Spain?
The mechanics driving compensation arent "normal." American pay is driven by the underlying mechanics. The USA didn't just randomly win at tech.
There are real factors that could reduce US compensation, but calling that "normalization" assumes the current gap exists for no reason. It exists because the US software industry is structurally different from most of Europe.
Globalization? Look at manufacturing, it moved to a country where things are a lot more affordable. In a world where remote collaboration gets easier and easier and you're able to pay software engineers half the world away a lot less there's no way it wouldn't have an effect on the domestic market.
feel like that narrative has died given the return of RTO. In person work is really valuable
and the talent is just better in the US on average (mostly because of immigration!), software is so levered one good Eng can 1000x the value of a bad one
If demand for software developers decreases due to AI, salaries are likely to decrease as well. Take the academic world for comparison, where supply of very smart people vastly exceeds the demand.
I suspect demand for software is nearly infinitely elastic, so far we’ve seen demand and comp for engineers increase as coding agents got better
Academia for comparison doesn’t make money…maybe a better comparison is HFT? Plenty of very very smart people playing a zero sum game, yet their comp has only increased
I already addressed this in my comment. There are real factors that could reduce US compensation, but calling that "normalization" assumes the current gap exists for no reason.
And that includes London, it lists "excluding London" as £65k.
People overestimate how much senior devs in the UK earn, even after knowing they're not well paid, my usual response to hearing we should be earning £90k+ is, "well give us a job then"!
A friend is making about £180k / yr in London, and they bought a house recently in London. I think that's a lot, and his wife also makes a similar amount, slightly more. That seems to be the minimum, otherwise you're a renter for life. Pretty nuts.
That is an extremely high salary, and very far from the minimum required to buy, even on your own. A dual £350k income is truly astonishing. You could buy most houses in London in cash after saving for 5 years.
What? No that will not allow you to buy "most houses in London in cash after saving for 5 years" unless you live far out of town in a tiny place and eat plain rice for 5 years, and even then it'll be long odds.
First, you'll take home slightly over half of that net of various taxes and deductions, but let's be generous and say your take-home is 200k. You live very frugally, don't go out, don't really buy anything and keep your costs at 50k a year, including rent (!). That leaves you with 150k a year, so after 5 years you have 750k. This allows you to buy a modest 2-3 bed row house with a postage stamp sized garden in one of the less desirable areas of the city.
If you want something that doesn't look like a shed, you are looking at 1 million pounds and up, more like 1.5 million. If you want in a nice area and large garden, make it 2 million.
What are you smoking? The median house price in London is 500k. At 750k you can afford 77% of houses and at a million you are in the top 10%. 50k per year is also a preposterously high expenditure. Rent will be your leading expense by probably a factor of 10. You could put aside 3k a month for rent (again, totally preposterous number) and not touch the sides.
The only thing I can think of that would even come close to making a difference is having children. Then all bets are off, they can cost as much as you like.
This is a job for a charity - you're never getting stock + bonuses + competitive pay in a third sector job. UK pay is not near US but this is probably still median SWE pay outside tech roles and London + FAANG + others will pay closer with what you're suggesting with the mentioned bonuses/stock.
I am comparing average pay in UK/US for a senior solutions architect position.
I dont understand what your comment has to do with my comparison of pay. Mind you, the comment I replied to speculated about this comparison. Hence why I provided more specifics.
I think comparing a job like this purely on salary terms misses a lot. It's a prestige job that will be the highlight of someone's CV for the rest of their career. Not to mention 25-28 days vacation.
As someone that's lived both in the US and outside of it there's no denying US salaries are top of the game. But there are a lot of other factors that go into a person's life than salary alone. Long hours in US jobs are not rare at all. I expect folks at Stonehenge are out the door at 5pm sharp.
> I think comparing a job like this purely on salary terms misses a lot.
OK maybe. But that's how the salary compares.
Please re-read the comment I replied to. He speculated about salary differences and I gave solid numbers. You are arguing against some unspoken claim that I never made (something like "more money is always better").
I'm afraid that won't even get a foot in the door in this market. You must have at least 5 years experience managing Salisbury megaliths to meet the selection criteria.
God, I had that entire Dress To Kill show loaded up on my old timey mp3-player along with Definite Article, Glorious and Sexie. Barely any room for music, but I was giggling my way through every day trying not to look too insane in public.
Izzard probably rewired my brain more than any other single comedian.
Technically Stonehenge is not an henge (even the term henge comes from Stonehenge)
> Ironically, even though Stonehenge has an earthwork circle around it (the earliest phase of the monument), it isn’t officially a ‘proper’ henge, as the main ditch is external to the main bank. It has to make do with being a ‘proto-henge’.
I was slightly disappointed when I first visited Stonehenge as the standard tours keep you fairly far away and roped off.
But, I took a modestly more expensive "Inner Stones" tour a few months ago and lucked out being selected to be fully alone for a minute. It was a profound experience being in the middle of such a historic place.
Best of all go during the summer solstice when there is free public access. It’s really quite fun.
During the the 1980s and ‘90s there were regular clashes between new age hippies and police stopping them from reaching Stonehenge during summer solstice before public access was allowed.
I really enjoyed Newgrange in Ireland. It's huge, you can go inside it and as part of the tour they turn out the lights and simulate what it looks like on the solstice.
I highly recommend avebury, about 20 minutes down the road. Absolutely enormous megalithic complex, huge man-made hill, and you can just wander where you wish, go hug a menhir, whatever you fancy - and there’s hardly ever more than a handful of other people there. Oh and it’s free.
You must have gone at a quiet time. Avebury can be absolutely heaving in the Summer and on the traditional pagan quarter days.
It also has a pub, a restaurant, a gift shop, a museum founded by a marmalade magnate, and if you're really rich you can buy one of the houses inside the circle.
Generally a happier experience than Stonehenge.
If megalithic rocks are your thing there's also the nearby West Kennet Longbarrow, which is far more likely to be deserted, especially at night, although if you go on the quarter days (nights) you'll probably meet weirdly-dressed people lighting candles and throwing spells around.
Due to a typo in the paperwork sent to HR by the hiring manager, they are only paying 64,189 pence. The director was last heard chastising HR, saying "It's not your job to be as confused as Nigel."
In the fall of 2023 I tried to visit Stonehenge.
We arrived at 15:15 local time.
I was riding in the passenger seat.
There was a male and female police officer standing at the side of the road, beside a "Road Closed" sign blocking the entrance.
The male police officer came to my window and started yelling in my face:
"We are closed!! Come back another day!!!"
I knew it would be pointless to argue with this a-hole and there was no other day in my schedule that we could come back. So we left and never got to see it.
Do these old rocks get tired at three in the afternoon or what?
I'll be sending this Head of Stonehenge an email about the experiance...
Last entry is at 3pm in winter because it takes a while to queue then catch the shuttle bus etc. and it gets dark, so closes at 5pm.
But if there were actual Police, not just English Heritage security, it sounds like something strange was happening that day, like a VIP visit or something.
It gets so busy that it's recommended to book a timeslot in advance on the website, even if you are a member and don't have to pay.
The stones don't get tired, but the humans running the visitor center and keeping the tourists in line do. Operating a highly visited historical site like Stonehenge takes significantly more work than people realize.
I assumed "permanent" was industry jargon for "the ideal candidate will be sealed in the Pandorica for all time", but it's something I'd probably clarify during the phone screen.
I caught a live stream of Stonehenge during this past Winter Solstice (it was cloudy, naturally) and the streamer provided a bit of trivia that I hadn't heard before:
George Washington's English ancestors, specifically Sir Lawrence Washington, were the owners of the West Amesbury Estate in Wiltshire, England, which included the land where the ancient Stonehenge monument sits. (Via Google)
If you hadn't that before, welcome to the "Huh, that's a funny coincidence" club.
Land owners also had married within family so I you checked their family tree two persons could be simultaneously spouses and cousins. That's a coincidence!
Considering the location, I would imagine that the ancestors prefer to haunt the barrows at night. Still a dream job if that's your thing. Just watch out for the occasional Nazgûl. :)
The median income in the UK is currently sitting at £2,627 / week or £31,524 / year [1]. This is advertising more than double that at £64,189, not quite graduate wages!
Due to advancements in calendar technology made in the last couple hundreds of years, the profile for this role has changed and tasks are now different.
They don't look for rock stars. English heritage wants ideology:
"You can connect with others through our EDI networks as a member or ally. These include Ethnic Diversity, Faith & Belief, Social Equity, LGBTQ+, Neurodivergence, Age, Disability and Gender Health and Wellbeing."
(Should have mentioned Talibans, handy to blow up misplaced stones)
Going off on unprompted rambling about 'woke ideology' and the Taliban in response to a random pun makes you appear, to observers, deeply mentally unwell.
Maybe I could have left out the final remark. But I was quite astonished by the large amount of identity-focused language. The English Heritage Stonehenge job description (and the website) should use more neutral language.
I’m not sure that’s strictly true. I think you’ve got to go a long way up the salary ladder until you’re in a situation where you can command more complicated arrangements (certainly when working for larger companies)
36 hours per week. 25 days vacation (going to 28). Pension contributions. You can buy extra leave. Epic location, fun job, decent salary for the UK (where e.g. you don't pay for healthcare)...
Talked to a German guy who was here on holiday recently. When I told him that in the US it's typical to get two weeks vacation when starting a new job, you should have seen his eyes bug out. It was hilarious.
This is a decent salary for a heritage job. It is a very poorly-paid sector. On building sites with archaeological excavations, the person driving the digger is likely to be paid more than the archaeologists, who probably have postgraduate degrees.
UK tech salaries are also not high. And 64k pounds for a history and/or business major is quite right. Do not forget also: history is a overrun study with many people afterwards driving taxis
The UK has had substantially less wage inequality than the US for a long time. The UK “wage squeeze” is median/minimum wage which has gone from the 1/3 to 2/3 since ~2000 as the minimum wage has been raised. But the relevant difference here would be around 90th percentile/median which is 1.85 in UK vs 2.4 in US and even higher in California.
The UK is still the 5th biggest economy in the world. Public infrastructure feels like it's under huge strain however, and there is also a big problem with inequality, which seems to be changing under Labour, albeit slowly.
Raw economy size can be misleading in two ways. The value of a dollar is much less or much more depending on where you're at. So an economy of 10 shekels might mean an economy of 100 widgets, or it might mean an economy of 1 widget. Purchasing power parity (PPP) attempts to account for that. The second is that economies are largely a product of population. An economy of a million making a million shekels is quite a bit different than an economy of 10 making a million shekels, so you also want to look at per capita values. Even both of these adjustments combined [1] can be extremely misleading (see: Ireland and many other places...), but they provide at least a less unreasonable basis for comparison than nominal dollars. And the UK is currently 30th there.
I think GDP per capita can also be misleading though - the GDP per capita of Luxembourg or Brunei is high, but they're such small countries that it's kind of irrelevant.
Setting aside the special cases (tiny, oil money, weird finance sectors, tax havens etc) there's basically a handful of countries which are clearly doing something right - the US, Taiwan, the north-eastern European countries (Germany, Austria, Netherlands, Belgium, Denmark, Sweden). Most of the other "developed countries" are sitting in the same sort of GDP per capita range of $65-$75k. Ranking these isn't so meaningful - the difference between the UK and France is only 1.5%.
Maybe! Our modern economic system are essentially driven by endless debt, and that only began in 1971 after the end of Bretton Woods. Even Germany has recently hopped on the debt train. Personally I not only don't think it's sustainable, and if not then it may well end up being one of the shortest lived economic experiments ever.
Something to keep in mind is that in the 70s digital tech also started to come into its own and that basically provided a massive economic boon to countries worldwide, but especially in the US. And so the concept of endless infinite exponential growth, as the current experiment effectively requires, was coincidentally paired alongside an era that made that briefly seem possible.
But now that that era is fading, the consequences of our actions are catching up to us. For instance in the US interest on the debt is now about 3% of the GDP, and the debt itself about 120% of GDP. And as faith in the debt falters, that will increase exponentially because rates for borrowing (which is how the government 'prints' money) will increase, due to reduced demand paired with increases in supply for such.
--
Basically instead of looking at GDP or whatever, I'd look to things on life contentment, optimism, and so on. If those are positive, then I think a government must be doing something right. If those are negative, then who cares what this metric or that says?
This is such a misuse of the word poor. Have you actually been to a poor country?
The UK is poorer than the US - sure. But it's wealthier than most other countries in the world. Not just in terms of GDP per capita or average household wealth, but also in infrastructure terms - the cumulative effect of being a wealthy industrialised country for so long is a huge amount of infrastructure.
I think it's fair to say that UK wealth growth has slowed at the same time as many other countries have caught up. So the UK is no longer the leader it once was. But that's very different from saying it's a poor country. It's just not.
By your definition 95% of the world population live in 'poor' countries. I guess if that's how you want to use the word that's up to you, but people outside of your bubble will literally not understand what you are saying.
While true from a per capita equivalency and too close for comfort, the median net worth of an adult in the UK is roughly $150,000, while in Mississippi it's $15,000. Also, its public services are provided, which substantially affects the quality of life.
It's not a "good" wage in the US. It's exactly median.
Which is fine, someone has to be median, but really underwhelming for the (presumably highly-educated and talented) head of the #1 national historical monument.
And don't you knock of at lunch on Fridays anyways? So that's like a 4 day work week, because let's face it, you're not really doing anything on the day you're knocking off early anyways. See you at the pub!
* Must be proficient in use of mistletoe in unspecified rituals.
* Must provide own sickle, and robes.
* Must be willing to perform human sacrifices during select astronomical events?
Must be fluent in Cornish.
Must be proficient in brewing potions.
NOTE: Only cauldrons with a safety mechanism preventing anyone from falling into the potion can be used at the site; traditional Gaul type cauldrons do not qualify.
What about the wizard hat?
I’m waiting for the “Head of Skull Rock[1]” position.
[1]: https://www.nps.gov/jotr/learn/nature/skull-rock-trail.htm
Joshua Tree NP <3
Their senior solution architect vacancy has similar pay: https://www.english-heritage.org.uk/about/our-people/careers...
Somewhat less eminent job title though.
I would love to have "Stonehenge architect" as a job title.
Monolithic codebase though
I'm counting the liths and I'm getting a lot more than mono
That's because I think it's more accurate to call it a megalithic codebase. :)
Don't threaten me with good times.
It's still modular.
And probably a prototype deployed to production!!!
They really miss out on opportunities here.
> We offer flexible working arrangements where the role allows. This role can be based at our offices in Swindon, or worked on a hybrid pattern. You will be required to attend our Swindon offices 1 day per week.
Pretty decent flexibility though.
Yes but you can have a pint down at the pub on a warm summer evening with your colleagues after work. Almost makes up for it.
that is abysmal!
36 hour work week, flexible hours, 25 paid holidays and a 10% pension though...
As a Finnish dev with 12 years of experience, I can only aspire for such salary.
Are you serious? Sarcasm Don't translate well on internet.
This is what it looks like right now. Unless there's some huge economic boom coming, which I doubt.
He's serious. American programming salaries are an extreme outlier. You guys are in for a massive shock if they ever normalise.
American eng comp is commensurate with the money American tech brings in, you could even argue underpaid
Most of the “money American tech brings in” comes from the magnificent seven. US software engineering salaries are high even outside of those. In fact, it's high even in companies that are merely burning investor's money.
there are plenty of american cos that bring in tons of money that are outside the mag7.
vc funded companies pay high so they can grow and eventually bring in lots of money, and america has the deepest vc pockets so it reaps the rewards of the biggest exits
Comparing US and European salaries is the closest thing to comparing apples to oranges.
What fruit are UK salaries here?
Red Delicious
Ah so terrible
Why would they "normalize"? Do you think Microsoft, Amazon, Apple, Amazon, etc. are going to relocate to the EU or something? Are all the venture capitalists going to flock to Spain?
The mechanics driving compensation arent "normal." American pay is driven by the underlying mechanics. The USA didn't just randomly win at tech.
There are real factors that could reduce US compensation, but calling that "normalization" assumes the current gap exists for no reason. It exists because the US software industry is structurally different from most of Europe.
> Why would they "normalize"?
Globalization? Look at manufacturing, it moved to a country where things are a lot more affordable. In a world where remote collaboration gets easier and easier and you're able to pay software engineers half the world away a lot less there's no way it wouldn't have an effect on the domestic market.
feel like that narrative has died given the return of RTO. In person work is really valuable
and the talent is just better in the US on average (mostly because of immigration!), software is so levered one good Eng can 1000x the value of a bad one
If demand for software developers decreases due to AI, salaries are likely to decrease as well. Take the academic world for comparison, where supply of very smart people vastly exceeds the demand.
I suspect demand for software is nearly infinitely elastic, so far we’ve seen demand and comp for engineers increase as coding agents got better
Academia for comparison doesn’t make money…maybe a better comparison is HFT? Plenty of very very smart people playing a zero sum game, yet their comp has only increased
I already addressed this in my comment. There are real factors that could reduce US compensation, but calling that "normalization" assumes the current gap exists for no reason.
Or in the next few years as AI devours the profession.
That's a fairly standard wage outside London for senior developers.
UK wages are not great.
i wouldn't call that standard wage, rather the lowest end of the spectrum where you could theoretically shop a "senior" outside of london.
Median senior dev salary is £70k according to recent job postings: https://www.itjobswatch.co.uk/jobs/uk/senior%20developer.do
And that includes London, it lists "excluding London" as £65k.
People overestimate how much senior devs in the UK earn, even after knowing they're not well paid, my usual response to hearing we should be earning £90k+ is, "well give us a job then"!
A friend is making about £180k / yr in London, and they bought a house recently in London. I think that's a lot, and his wife also makes a similar amount, slightly more. That seems to be the minimum, otherwise you're a renter for life. Pretty nuts.
London property is expensive, but £180k is a lot more than the "minimum". I am on half that, and I managed to buy.
Outside of Finance that's high for London.
Median property price in London is £542k [0]
Assuming a 90% mortgage that's 487k mortgage
That's two people on £70k each at a 3.5 multiple. £60k at a 4x multiple.
Two people on £180k would get you a £1.5m house, twice the average semi.
[0] https://landregistry.data.gov.uk/app/ukhpi/browse?from=2025-...
That is an extremely high salary, and very far from the minimum required to buy, even on your own. A dual £350k income is truly astonishing. You could buy most houses in London in cash after saving for 5 years.
What? No that will not allow you to buy "most houses in London in cash after saving for 5 years" unless you live far out of town in a tiny place and eat plain rice for 5 years, and even then it'll be long odds.
First, you'll take home slightly over half of that net of various taxes and deductions, but let's be generous and say your take-home is 200k. You live very frugally, don't go out, don't really buy anything and keep your costs at 50k a year, including rent (!). That leaves you with 150k a year, so after 5 years you have 750k. This allows you to buy a modest 2-3 bed row house with a postage stamp sized garden in one of the less desirable areas of the city.
If you want something that doesn't look like a shed, you are looking at 1 million pounds and up, more like 1.5 million. If you want in a nice area and large garden, make it 2 million.
What are you smoking? The median house price in London is 500k. At 750k you can afford 77% of houses and at a million you are in the top 10%. 50k per year is also a preposterously high expenditure. Rent will be your leading expense by probably a factor of 10. You could put aside 3k a month for rent (again, totally preposterous number) and not touch the sides.
The only thing I can think of that would even come close to making a difference is having children. Then all bets are off, they can cost as much as you like.
As a senior dev?
What sector?
A product lead/architect in Finance.
Probably FANG or finance.
The balancing force to this though, is that cost of living outside of London is massively lower
american salaries must be ridiculous if £70k (~$93.5k) is considered "abysmal(ly)" low!
as others have said, some may be in for a very rude awakening...
$93.5K isn't abysmally low in the USA. Average is about 66k
$93.5k is abysmally low for a Senior Solutions Architect in the USA. I would expect at least $175k if not $200k+ on average. Plus stock and bonuses.
This is a job for a charity - you're never getting stock + bonuses + competitive pay in a third sector job. UK pay is not near US but this is probably still median SWE pay outside tech roles and London + FAANG + others will pay closer with what you're suggesting with the mentioned bonuses/stock.
You are explaining why the pay is what it is.
I am comparing average pay in UK/US for a senior solutions architect position.
I dont understand what your comment has to do with my comparison of pay. Mind you, the comment I replied to speculated about this comparison. Hence why I provided more specifics.
Stock... in Stonehenge?
I think comparing a job like this purely on salary terms misses a lot. It's a prestige job that will be the highlight of someone's CV for the rest of their career. Not to mention 25-28 days vacation.
As someone that's lived both in the US and outside of it there's no denying US salaries are top of the game. But there are a lot of other factors that go into a person's life than salary alone. Long hours in US jobs are not rare at all. I expect folks at Stonehenge are out the door at 5pm sharp.
> I think comparing a job like this purely on salary terms misses a lot.
OK maybe. But that's how the salary compares.
Please re-read the comment I replied to. He speculated about salary differences and I gave solid numbers. You are arguing against some unspoken claim that I never made (something like "more money is always better").
For that level of experience you can prob get 200k in a MCOL area in the US, or up to 500k+ in HCOL
The rest of the world has already been in a rude awakening, talented engineers should be compensated well no matter where they happen to live
And this is for a 36 hour work week.
Yes, American salaries are ridiculous in a global context. The rest of the world should demand better.
Maybe you missed the “25% discount in our shops and cafes” perk for the day you need to be in the office. Score.
Wait till you see UK wages, when it's the UK arm of a US firm....
wait till you hear about the stock grants and vesting schedule
Be warned though, the equity you are granted will be exceedingly illiquid.
And you'll have to pay taxes on it despite it being unsellable.
Screw those things up, and those taxes will bankrupt you because they can exceed all your other earnings.
RE Your predecessor
No one knows who he was, or what he was doing.
But his legacy remains hewn in the HR dock of Stonehenge.
Some say he was let go after a design error lead to some dwarves kicking over the first stonehenge.
"From £64,189 p.a. depending on skills and experience"
I maintained a collection of well organized rocks as a child. Surely that gets me a bit more than base pay right?
Must be a rockstar
Good at aligning rocks with stars
There's got to be a way to shoehorn in a Spinal Tap reference here, I just haven't had enough coffee yet to think of it.
The height of the stones goes to 13!
I'm afraid that won't even get a foot in the door in this market. You must have at least 5 years experience managing Salisbury megaliths to meet the selection criteria.
even if you grind lots of leet-stone problems?
Building a henge, are we?
You bastards, you never told me 200 miles. 200 miles in this day and age! I don't even know where I live now!
I wish the Christians would hurry up and get here
God, I had that entire Dress To Kill show loaded up on my old timey mp3-player along with Definite Article, Glorious and Sexie. Barely any room for music, but I was giggling my way through every day trying not to look too insane in public.
Izzard probably rewired my brain more than any other single comedian.
Technically Stonehenge is not an henge (even the term henge comes from Stonehenge)
> Ironically, even though Stonehenge has an earthwork circle around it (the earliest phase of the monument), it isn’t officially a ‘proper’ henge, as the main ditch is external to the main bank. It has to make do with being a ‘proto-henge’.
https://www.english-heritage.org.uk/visit/inspire-me/what-is...
Stonehenge! Stonehenge! Lots of stones in a row! (chor)
...
And they moved it (Stonehenge!)
And they dragged it (Stonehenge!)
And they rolled it 46 miles from Waleeees! - Heeey (46 miles from Wales! )
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=klJhWr_FTaE
And hey, at £64K per annum, you'll want a Honda Civic - a car you can trust.
I was slightly disappointed when I first visited Stonehenge as the standard tours keep you fairly far away and roped off.
But, I took a modestly more expensive "Inner Stones" tour a few months ago and lucked out being selected to be fully alone for a minute. It was a profound experience being in the middle of such a historic place.
Highly, highly recommended!
Best of all go during the summer solstice when there is free public access. It’s really quite fun.
During the the 1980s and ‘90s there were regular clashes between new age hippies and police stopping them from reaching Stonehenge during summer solstice before public access was allowed.
I really enjoyed Newgrange in Ireland. It's huge, you can go inside it and as part of the tour they turn out the lights and simulate what it looks like on the solstice.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newgrange
I highly recommend avebury, about 20 minutes down the road. Absolutely enormous megalithic complex, huge man-made hill, and you can just wander where you wish, go hug a menhir, whatever you fancy - and there’s hardly ever more than a handful of other people there. Oh and it’s free.
You must have gone at a quiet time. Avebury can be absolutely heaving in the Summer and on the traditional pagan quarter days.
It also has a pub, a restaurant, a gift shop, a museum founded by a marmalade magnate, and if you're really rich you can buy one of the houses inside the circle.
Generally a happier experience than Stonehenge.
If megalithic rocks are your thing there's also the nearby West Kennet Longbarrow, which is far more likely to be deserted, especially at night, although if you go on the quarter days (nights) you'll probably meet weirdly-dressed people lighting candles and throwing spells around.
West Kennet Longbarrow's also appropriately spooky. I've been there with people too scared to stay inside.
Damnit. No WFH option.
Unless Stonehenge is your home
“Work From Henge”
I would have thought you'd need to be a druid
Dry stone masonry.
Man, how awesome would that job be?
Ask one of the Ylvis brothers
Does this seem like a Netflix show to anyone else?
Experience?
I'm the head of pebble hedge!
Due to a typo in the paperwork sent to HR by the hiring manager, they are only paying 64,189 pence. The director was last heard chastising HR, saying "It's not your job to be as confused as Nigel."
In the fall of 2023 I tried to visit Stonehenge. We arrived at 15:15 local time.
I was riding in the passenger seat.
There was a male and female police officer standing at the side of the road, beside a "Road Closed" sign blocking the entrance.
The male police officer came to my window and started yelling in my face:
"We are closed!! Come back another day!!!"
I knew it would be pointless to argue with this a-hole and there was no other day in my schedule that we could come back. So we left and never got to see it.
Do these old rocks get tired at three in the afternoon or what?
I'll be sending this Head of Stonehenge an email about the experiance...
Sounds like VIP/head of state visit and terrible communication skills.
Last entry is at 3pm in winter because it takes a while to queue then catch the shuttle bus etc. and it gets dark, so closes at 5pm.
But if there were actual Police, not just English Heritage security, it sounds like something strange was happening that day, like a VIP visit or something.
It gets so busy that it's recommended to book a timeslot in advance on the website, even if you are a member and don't have to pay.
The stones don't get tired, but the humans running the visitor center and keeping the tourists in line do. Operating a highly visited historical site like Stonehenge takes significantly more work than people realize.
Better than Head of Easter Island.
Next up: Forward Deployed Wizard
"If I get the role, what will my budget for repairs be?"
Don't forget the twice-a-year realignment when the clocks change for daylight saving
really wish i keot my british passport
i know quite a few dev ops and frontend guys who were employed for last 4 years and are now driving taxi in india.
"Job type Permanent"
I bet they enjoyed typing that in.
"5,000 years+ -- depends on you"
Might be another option if it were freeform text
I assumed "permanent" was industry jargon for "the ideal candidate will be sealed in the Pandorica for all time", but it's something I'd probably clarify during the phone screen.
I caught a live stream of Stonehenge during this past Winter Solstice (it was cloudy, naturally) and the streamer provided a bit of trivia that I hadn't heard before:
George Washington's English ancestors, specifically Sir Lawrence Washington, were the owners of the West Amesbury Estate in Wiltshire, England, which included the land where the ancient Stonehenge monument sits. (Via Google)
If you hadn't that before, welcome to the "Huh, that's a funny coincidence" club.
Rich people have lots of descenders who tend to be rich.
Washington was a wealthy landowner in the British Empire, hardly surprising his ancestors were wealthy landowners.
What’s it a coincidence with?
"Rich man had a rich family, how queer"
Land owners also had married within family so I you checked their family tree two persons could be simultaneously spouses and cousins. That's a coincidence!
Honestly feels like a dream job. Imagine your ancestors smiling down on you if you are from Britain or just human.
Considering the location, I would imagine that the ancestors prefer to haunt the barrows at night. Still a dream job if that's your thing. Just watch out for the occasional Nazgûl. :)
Or Nigel. No one knows who they were or what they were doing...
On the front page? LLMs got lots of us programmers dreaming of leaving the profession, I suppose.
Is this not super cool regardless? Even if you love tech, was a fun little gem.
Missed opportunity to say they’re ‘looking for a rock star to lead our team!’
They pretty much are, too. It certainly reads like some tech job ads. Rock star with 30 years experience. Graduate wages.
The median income in the UK is currently sitting at £2,627 / week or £31,524 / year [1]. This is advertising more than double that at £64,189, not quite graduate wages!
[1] https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peopleinwor...
EDIT: £2,627 / month, not week!
2.67 * 52 = 138.84
Not sure how you got 31,524
They meant per month obviously.
Thanks, typo on my part.
Tasks include: looking at rocks, stars.
Due to advancements in calendar technology made in the last couple hundreds of years, the profile for this role has changed and tasks are now different.
They don't look for rock stars. English heritage wants ideology:
"You can connect with others through our EDI networks as a member or ally. These include Ethnic Diversity, Faith & Belief, Social Equity, LGBTQ+, Neurodivergence, Age, Disability and Gender Health and Wellbeing."
(Should have mentioned Talibans, handy to blow up misplaced stones)
Why is that ideology?
DEI, "woke ideology". It is not ideology in a strict sense.
True. I'd say "anti-DEI" is the real ideology.
Are you ok?
What do you mean?
Going off on unprompted rambling about 'woke ideology' and the Taliban in response to a random pun makes you appear, to observers, deeply mentally unwell.
Maybe I could have left out the final remark. But I was quite astonished by the large amount of identity-focused language. The English Heritage Stonehenge job description (and the website) should use more neutral language.
"a solid leader who can carry the weight of our massive responsibility"
Sounds like a very cool job, and not sure about the UK job market, but seems to be wildly underpaid for the qualifications!
This, shockingly, is actually quite well paid considering for the UK.
Lead Data Scientist for the UK Government is currently advertising for a salary of £57,670 - £67,500.
https://www.civilservicejobs.service.gov.uk/csr/jobs.cgi?jco...
Government jobs are terribly paid. They tend to have good pensions worth another 15-20k though and tend to be very flexible.
Project manager on 65-85k
https://uk.indeed.com/m/viewjob?jk=a43416327745431e
Lead data scientist 100-110k
https://www.reed.co.uk/jobs/lead-data-scientist/56925078
Neither of those are London based.
That’s government. They’re notoriously underpaid.
And this is third sector.
Not disagreeing, but it's also worth something to know, and say, that you are in charge of Stonehenge.
Must be an extraordinary honor to be in charge of a bunch of rocks over there.
Wait until you learn some people are swapping bits all day long, isn't that crazy?
I call them Bit Shepherds
Yes?
This is like a 90th percentile UK salary.
In reality, because the "salaries" higher than this aren't paying in PAYE.
I’m not sure that’s strictly true. I think you’ve got to go a long way up the salary ladder until you’re in a situation where you can command more complicated arrangements (certainly when working for larger companies)
no. Most UK income statistics are based on total taxable income, not salary.
36 hours per week. 25 days vacation (going to 28). Pension contributions. You can buy extra leave. Epic location, fun job, decent salary for the UK (where e.g. you don't pay for healthcare)...
> you don't pay for healthcare
It is bloody expensive, if you want life saving surgery now, not in two years!
You do pay for healthcare, from the taxes on that salary.
Fun fact, so do Americans, just they don't get the service for it!
Fun fact, so do Brits. Just try scheduling a procedure with the NHS and check the wait time.
Urgency based on medical reasons rather than financial wealth.
Crazy huh?
Yeah, the 25 days of vacation are a bit disappointing, in Germany 30 days are standard.
Talked to a German guy who was here on holiday recently. When I told him that in the US it's typical to get two weeks vacation when starting a new job, you should have seen his eyes bug out. It was hilarious.
Is that including or excluding bank holidays? In the UK, 25 days excluding the 8 bank holidays is pretty standard.
This is a decent salary for a heritage job. It is a very poorly-paid sector. On building sites with archaeological excavations, the person driving the digger is likely to be paid more than the archaeologists, who probably have postgraduate degrees.
I'm not in the UK, but from what I understand that's actually decent. US salaries, particularly in tech, are wildly higher than in most of Europe.
UK tech salaries are also not high. And 64k pounds for a history and/or business major is quite right. Do not forget also: history is a overrun study with many people afterwards driving taxis
Don't forget to deduct the 25% effective tax rate.
Calculator: https://www.tax.service.gov.uk/estimate-paye-take-home-pay/y...
this isnt all that *bad for something in the conservation / heritage / ngo sector
edit: *obviously its not a wonderful salary, but for the sector....well I've seen worse.
The charity sector rarely pays well.
Just a smidge over $63k after tax and before gibbs.
The job market over here is shocking.
This is equivalent to $85,700 USD, not $63k.
Read it again. $63k after tax and before "gibbs" i.e. government-provided social distributions.
63k after tax in the us is about 86k before tax, so about the same.
Although in the us you have to pay for healthcare on top of that.
You pay for a private healthcare plan, and the US government pays tax money to the same healthcare companies to prop up the system.
You're double-counting the individual.
Lol in Canada 64,000 pounds = $120K CAD which would put you in the 92nd income percentile.
Especially considering minimum wage “salary” in the UK is ~24k GBP, 64k is nothing imo. They call it the “wage squeeze”
Average full time salary is 40k GBP. It’s +50% on the average which seems right for a non profit organisation in a non exec role
It is a leadership role though.
I don't know how many staff there are, but it's surely one of EH's most important locations.
The UK has had substantially less wage inequality than the US for a long time. The UK “wage squeeze” is median/minimum wage which has gone from the 1/3 to 2/3 since ~2000 as the minimum wage has been raised. But the relevant difference here would be around 90th percentile/median which is 1.85 in UK vs 2.4 in US and even higher in California.
And over time the ratio is similar - 90%ile about 1.9 times median for the last 30 years.
This is like 90th percentile UK salary. It's good pay for the UK, a poor country.
The UK is still the 5th biggest economy in the world. Public infrastructure feels like it's under huge strain however, and there is also a big problem with inequality, which seems to be changing under Labour, albeit slowly.
Raw economy size can be misleading in two ways. The value of a dollar is much less or much more depending on where you're at. So an economy of 10 shekels might mean an economy of 100 widgets, or it might mean an economy of 1 widget. Purchasing power parity (PPP) attempts to account for that. The second is that economies are largely a product of population. An economy of a million making a million shekels is quite a bit different than an economy of 10 making a million shekels, so you also want to look at per capita values. Even both of these adjustments combined [1] can be extremely misleading (see: Ireland and many other places...), but they provide at least a less unreasonable basis for comparison than nominal dollars. And the UK is currently 30th there.
[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PPP)...
I think GDP per capita can also be misleading though - the GDP per capita of Luxembourg or Brunei is high, but they're such small countries that it's kind of irrelevant.
Setting aside the special cases (tiny, oil money, weird finance sectors, tax havens etc) there's basically a handful of countries which are clearly doing something right - the US, Taiwan, the north-eastern European countries (Germany, Austria, Netherlands, Belgium, Denmark, Sweden). Most of the other "developed countries" are sitting in the same sort of GDP per capita range of $65-$75k. Ranking these isn't so meaningful - the difference between the UK and France is only 1.5%.
Maybe! Our modern economic system are essentially driven by endless debt, and that only began in 1971 after the end of Bretton Woods. Even Germany has recently hopped on the debt train. Personally I not only don't think it's sustainable, and if not then it may well end up being one of the shortest lived economic experiments ever.
Something to keep in mind is that in the 70s digital tech also started to come into its own and that basically provided a massive economic boon to countries worldwide, but especially in the US. And so the concept of endless infinite exponential growth, as the current experiment effectively requires, was coincidentally paired alongside an era that made that briefly seem possible.
But now that that era is fading, the consequences of our actions are catching up to us. For instance in the US interest on the debt is now about 3% of the GDP, and the debt itself about 120% of GDP. And as faith in the debt falters, that will increase exponentially because rates for borrowing (which is how the government 'prints' money) will increase, due to reduced demand paired with increases in supply for such.
--
Basically instead of looking at GDP or whatever, I'd look to things on life contentment, optimism, and so on. If those are positive, then I think a government must be doing something right. If those are negative, then who cares what this metric or that says?
Inquality has barely moved per Gini in the last thirty years, and GDP is very misleading.
https://ifs.org.uk/data-items/gini-coefficient
Until it's destroyed by the people who destroyed the country last time.
Seems they are hell-bent on getting rid of them
Let's not be delusional. The UK is not a poor country, and 64K is low by US tech standards but it's good by any other measure.
The UK is poor and sprinting as fast as it can towards being poorer.
This is such a misuse of the word poor. Have you actually been to a poor country?
The UK is poorer than the US - sure. But it's wealthier than most other countries in the world. Not just in terms of GDP per capita or average household wealth, but also in infrastructure terms - the cumulative effect of being a wealthy industrialised country for so long is a huge amount of infrastructure.
I think it's fair to say that UK wealth growth has slowed at the same time as many other countries have caught up. So the UK is no longer the leader it once was. But that's very different from saying it's a poor country. It's just not.
By your definition 95% of the world population live in 'poor' countries. I guess if that's how you want to use the word that's up to you, but people outside of your bubble will literally not understand what you are saying.
If the UK were a US state, its GDP per capita would rank it roughly on par with or just below Mississippi, making it the poorest state in the union.
While true from a per capita equivalency and too close for comfort, the median net worth of an adult in the UK is roughly $150,000, while in Mississippi it's $15,000. Also, its public services are provided, which substantially affects the quality of life.
It's not a "good" wage in the US. It's exactly median.
Which is fine, someone has to be median, but really underwhelming for the (presumably highly-educated and talented) head of the #1 national historical monument.
It's £64K, not $64K (which is indeed about the median in the US). So, not bad.
Ah I misread that, but $86k is still not good for a highly educated professional.
Highly educated?
It's a leadership role, there's no education requirements on it.
It is good for a professional with specialization in history.
Superintendent of Mount Rushmore is paid $125–160k
Yeah, but 25 days holiday plus bank holidays means you're working like half the year at most. ;)
And don't you knock of at lunch on Fridays anyways? So that's like a 4 day work week, because let's face it, you're not really doing anything on the day you're knocking off early anyways. See you at the pub!
Read-Only-Fridays, and having a pub lunch so you're not doing much all afternoon anyway!
What's your role?
I'm a CSO.
Oh nice, Strategy or Security?
Stonehenge.
"Just to be clear, you are saying you manage a hedge fund, right?"
"Yeah, a henge fund."
"Hedge fund."
"Henge fund."
"Hedge."
"Henge."
"...I think we're on the same page."
This had me giggling, thank you
Heard of it?
Stonehenge would be a great AI Lab name!