Scrolling through the government’s civil service job listings this afternoon, Guido was less-than-reassured to see a new job advert put up for a “DNO Warhead Nuclear Threat Reduction Programme Manager” over at the MoD. In light of the heated tensions on European soil, defence chiefs are looking for someone to step up to the plate and help “mitigate threats across the nuclear spectrum”:

“Lead on the programme management of the Nuclear Threat Reduction programme delivered through [Atomic Weapons Establishment (AWE)], to a variety of customers across Government. Establish and maintain requirements for the Nuclear Threat Reduction programme to deliver to Dep Hd NTR, tracking and managing AWE’s programme performance to time, cost, and quality, escalating issues as appropriate. Interface closely with DNO enabling functions for financial, commercial, and PMO support.”

Perhaps more shocking than the advertising of the role itself, however, is the comparatively meagre salary offered for such a stressful and essential public sector job: just £40,000. The double blow being that you may also have to work in Reading… 

In December Guido revealed the NHS had moved on to hiring diversity managers with salaries now up to £108,000 – 2.7x that being offered to the people now being asked to avert nuclear armageddon. If we’re all soon to be vaporised underneath a mushroom cloud, hopefully it’ll be an equitable extermination…