The UK offers a salary package to support new national weapons

Digest opened free editor

Rola Khaleda, FT editor, chooses her favorite stories in this weekly newsletter.

The British government offers one of the highest wages ever to attract a new chair, as the country is trying to repair defensive purchases at a critical time for European security.

The position of the newly created national arms director (NAD) will provide a salary of up to 400,000 pounds annually, in addition to an annual bonus of 60 percent of the salary, which means that the total package may be 640,000 pounds.

This is the same amount that the supreme civil employee obtained in 2022, and it is the last year published by the Cabinet Office for it Data On “Ownership Owners”. Mark Thorston, then Boss from the HS2 railway project, got 640,000 pounds that year.

The large wage package in the role, which was unveiled on Tuesday, reflects the urgent need for the United Kingdom to reform the defensive purchases process, whose budget is approximately 10 years. John Haley Many of his predecessors have repeatedly described as “broken”.

“The successful candidate will be in repairing the broken purchasing system,” said Haley.

The research is led by Headheters Korn Ferry. POST payment package dwarfs the salaries of the Prime Minister by about 170,000 pounds, but is similar to Nick Elliot, CEO of the Atomic weapons Corporation, which makes British nuclear warheads, which paid 4,52,000 pounds in 2023.

The salary is still much lower than the packets worth millions of pounds paid for senior executives in the private sector, such as Charles Woodborn, CEO of Bae Systems, which happened 11.7 million pounds in 2024.

The high -ranking salary package in the job was to win Bhaili, which industry numbers said that it was fought hard to secure support from the Treasury to obtain the payment award.

Senior Defense officials said it reflects the need to attract dangerous administrative talents to reduce waste in the defense budget of more than 60 billion pounds annually, to simplify the Ministry of Defense, and buy more smaller sophisticated companies.

This is often more innovative than major defense companies, the so -called “primary numbers”, which are traditionally dependent on the Ministry of Defense. The Pentagon similarly sought to disable his purchase, by creating an investment capital unit called the X -mandated unit by financing promising startups.

“NAD needs to form the market,” said one of the senior British officials. “We hope that NAD is one of the primary numbers.

Healy described the role as the creation of “FTSE 100 within the Ministry of Defense”.

Among the potential potential candidates by officials Jeremy Quinn, a former investment bank and the defense minister for the previous governor of the Conservatives. The work department also appointed him to support the basic team for auditors in the strategic defense review.

Several executives in the UK defense industry have also been issued, although most of them will have to reduce wages. Francis Tosa, a defense analysis editor and British defense expert, is also known to be interested.

The selection process in June is scheduled to end with Andy Start, the current head of MD, as a temporary NAD until then.

The new role is part of the broader defense disposal process, as Healy will control the four army-navy, air force, and strategic command-under the Defense Staff Command, President of the British Army, for the first time.