Job: Head of Stonehenge

(english-heritage.org.uk)

146 points | by mooreds 4 hours ago

22 comments

  • davidschof 3 hours ago
    Their senior solution architect vacancy has similar pay: https://www.english-heritage.org.uk/about/our-people/careers...

    Somewhat less eminent job title though.

    • riffraff 3 hours ago
      I would love to have "Stonehenge architect" as a job title.
      • oaiey 2 hours ago
        They really miss out on opportunities here.
    • vanuatu 2 hours ago
      that is abysmal!
      • eterm 2 hours ago
        That's a fairly standard wage outside London for senior developers.

        UK wages are not great.

        • siva7 2 hours ago
          i wouldn't call that standard wage, rather the lowest end of the spectrum where you could theoretically shop a "senior" outside of london.
          • n4r9 1 hour ago
            Median senior dev salary is £70k according to recent job postings: https://www.itjobswatch.co.uk/jobs/uk/senior%20developer.do
            • eterm 18 minutes ago
              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"!

      • Ndymium 2 hours ago
        As a Finnish dev with 12 years of experience, I can only aspire for such salary.
        • ksec 1 hour ago
          Are you serious? Sarcasm Don't translate well on internet.
          • IshKebab 1 hour ago
            He's serious. American programming salaries are an extreme outlier. You guys are in for a massive shock if they ever normalise.
      • yzydserd 2 hours ago
        Maybe you missed the “25% discount in our shops and cafes” perk for the day you need to be in the office. Score.
      • marysol5 38 minutes ago
        Wait till you see UK wages, when it's the UK arm of a US firm....
      • blitzar 2 hours ago
        wait till you hear about the stock grants and vesting schedule
        • shalmanese 1 hour ago
          Be warned though, the equity you are granted will be exceedingly illiquid.
  • tekchip 1 hour ago
    "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?

    • stinkbeetle 28 minutes ago
      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.
    • fergie 1 hour ago
      Must be a rockstar
  • ggm 3 hours ago
    * Must be proficient in use of mistletoe in unspecified rituals.

    * Must provide own sickle, and robes.

  • SLHamlet 2 hours ago
    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.

    • nDRDY 37 minutes ago
      Some say he was let go after a design error lead to some dwarves kicking over the first stonehenge.
  • madrox 3 hours ago
    Building a henge, are we?
    • kombookcha 3 hours ago
      You bastards, you never told me 200 miles. 200 miles in this day and age! I don't even know where I live now!
      • madrox 2 hours ago
        I wish the Christians would hurry up and get here
        • kombookcha 32 minutes ago
          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.

    • curtisblaine 1 hour ago
      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...

  • chicagojoe 2 hours ago
    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!

    • laurencerowe 2 hours ago
      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.

    • madaxe_again 42 minutes ago
      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.
      • TheOtherHobbes 29 minutes ago
        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.

  • Quarrel 3 hours ago
    Damnit. No WFH option.
  • throw310822 1 hour ago
    Better than Head of Easter Island.
  • readthenotes1 3 hours ago
    "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

  • mattoxic 3 hours ago
    I would have thought you'd need to be a druid
  • xtorol 3 hours ago
    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."
  • faangguyindia 3 hours ago
    i know quite a few dev ops and frontend guys who were employed for last 4 years and are now driving taxi in india.
  • onion2k 2 hours ago
    "If I get the role, what will my budget for repairs be?"
  • zuzululu 3 hours ago
    really wish i keot my british passport
  • russellbeattie 3 hours ago
    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.

    • hdgvhicv 1 hour ago
      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.

    • robotresearcher 43 minutes ago
      What’s it a coincidence with?
      • marysol5 37 minutes ago
        "Rich man had a rich family, how queer"
  • Mistletoe 3 hours ago
    Honestly feels like a dream job. Imagine your ancestors smiling down on you if you are from Britain or just human.
    • kijin 2 hours ago
      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. :)
  • _alternator_ 4 hours ago
    On the front page? LLMs got lots of us programmers dreaming of leaving the profession, I suppose.
    • tyre 3 hours ago
      Is this not super cool regardless? Even if you love tech, was a fun little gem.
  • celsius1414 4 hours ago
    Missed opportunity to say they’re ‘looking for a rock star to lead our team!’
    • peebee67 3 hours ago
      They pretty much are, too. It certainly reads like some tech job ads. Rock star with 30 years experience. Graduate wages.
    • chappi42 3 hours ago
      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)

      • marysol5 36 minutes ago
        Are you ok?
        • chappi42 23 minutes ago
          What do you mean?
      • kitd 2 hours ago
        Why is that ideology?
        • chappi42 23 minutes ago
          DEI, "woke ideology". It is not ideology in a strict sense.
    • samplatt 2 hours ago
      Tasks include: looking at rocks, stars.
    • laszlojamf 3 hours ago
      "a solid leader who can carry the weight of our massive responsibility"
  • pants2 4 hours ago
    Sounds like a very cool job, and not sure about the UK job market, but seems to be wildly underpaid for the qualifications!
    • kaonwarb 4 hours ago
      Not disagreeing, but it's also worth something to know, and say, that you are in charge of Stonehenge.
      • sva_ 3 hours ago
        Must be an extraordinary honor to be in charge of a bunch of rocks over there.
        • cyclopeanutopia 2 hours ago
          Wait until you learn some people are swapping bits all day long, isn't that crazy?
          • kefabean 1 hour ago
            I call them Bit Shepherds
        • 650REDHAIR 2 hours ago
          Yes?
    • YZF 3 hours ago
      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)...
      • robotresearcher 40 minutes ago
        You do pay for healthcare, from the taxes on that salary.
        • marysol5 35 minutes ago
          Fun fact, so do Americans, just they don't get the service for it!
      • Tepix 1 hour ago
        Yeah, the 25 days of vacation are a bit disappointing, in Germany 30 days are standard.
        • tikkabhuna 1 hour ago
          Is that including or excluding bank holidays? In the UK, 25 days excluding the 8 bank holidays is pretty standard.
    • loeg 3 hours ago
      This is like a 90th percentile UK salary.
      • marysol5 34 minutes ago
        In reality, because the "salaries" higher than this aren't paying in PAYE.
    • kristianc 2 hours ago
      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...

    • ascorbic 1 hour ago
      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.
    • phyzix5761 3 hours ago
      Don't forget to deduct the 25% effective tax rate.

      Calculator: https://www.tax.service.gov.uk/estimate-paye-take-home-pay/y...

    • jrflo 3 hours ago
      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.
      • oaiey 2 hours ago
        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
    • techterrier 4 hours ago
      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.

    • moomin 1 hour ago
      The charity sector rarely pays well.
    • y-curious 4 hours ago
      Especially considering minimum wage “salary” in the UK is ~24k GBP, 64k is nothing imo. They call it the “wage squeeze”
      • UnfitFootprint 4 hours ago
        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
        • jacknews 2 hours ago
          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.

      • laurencerowe 1 hour ago
        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.
        • hdgvhicv 1 hour ago
          And over time the ratio is similar - 90%ile about 1.9 times median for the last 30 years.
      • loeg 3 hours ago
        This is like 90th percentile UK salary. It's good pay for the UK, a poor country.
        • gbro3n 3 hours ago
          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.
          • somenameforme 3 hours ago
            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)...

          • marysol5 33 minutes ago
            Until it's destroyed by the people who destroyed the country last time.

            Seems they are hell-bent on getting rid of them

          • kristianc 2 hours ago
            Inquality has barely moved per Gini in the last thirty years, and GDP is very misleading.

            https://ifs.org.uk/data-items/gini-coefficient

        • geysersam 3 hours ago
          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.
          • kristianc 2 hours ago
            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.
            • aEJ04Izw5HYm 2 hours ago
              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.
          • loeg 2 hours ago
            The UK is poor and sprinting as fast as it can towards being poorer.
          • bpodgursky 3 hours ago
            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.

            • mrwh 3 hours ago
              It's £64K, not $64K (which is indeed about the median in the US). So, not bad.
              • bpodgursky 3 hours ago
                Ah I misread that, but $86k is still not good for a highly educated professional.
                • marysol5 31 minutes ago
                  Highly educated?

                  It's a leadership role, there's no education requirements on it.

                • oaiey 2 hours ago
                  It is good for a professional with specialization in history.
                  • hdgvhicv 1 hour ago
                    Superintendent of Mount Rushmore is paid $125–160k
      • enraged_camel 3 hours ago
        Yeah, but 25 days holiday plus bank holidays means you're working like half the year at most. ;)
        • dylan604 3 hours ago
          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!
          • marysol5 31 minutes ago
            Read-Only-Fridays, and having a pub lunch so you're not doing much all afternoon anyway!
    • swarnie 4 hours ago
      Just a smidge over $63k after tax and before gibbs.

      The job market over here is shocking.

      • loeg 3 hours ago
        This is equivalent to $85,700 USD, not $63k.
        • theodric 3 hours ago
          Read it again. $63k after tax and before "gibbs" i.e. government-provided social distributions.
          • hdgvhicv 1 hour ago
            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.

            • marysol5 30 minutes ago
              You pay for a private healthcare plan, and the US government pays tax money to the same healthcare companies to prop up the system.
      • dismalaf 4 hours ago
        Lol in Canada 64,000 pounds = $120K CAD which would put you in the 92nd income percentile.
    • ai-roundup 4 hours ago
      [dead]
  • green_wheel 4 hours ago
    What's your role?

    I'm a CSO.

    Oh nice, Strategy or Security?

    Stonehenge.

    • quuxplusone 3 hours ago
      "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."

    • bfeist 3 hours ago
      Heard of it?
  • smashah 3 hours ago
    Stonehenge would be a great AI Lab name!