I don't know any developers in the public sector, but friends in various civil service roles love the other perks. Decent pension. Loads of flexidays. One friend could almost work a 4 day week all year.

They all seem quite fulfilled, too.

Really disagree IME — there are great people at GDS, but they're doing it as a vocational thing and could make much more money in private sector.

Generally in the UK you have to go freelancing to earn the top of the market, but even permanent roles in private sector have much better pay for less responsibility. E.g. I saw some GDS "Head of" roles advertised with a salary band ~£60-80k.

AFAIK, they've also dialled back on public sector & they now offer defined contributions nearer to general private sector.

Yep, the divide is still there, I meant it's not quite so extreme. There are good people everywhere, but not having so much FAANG 4x comp vs .gov, maybe the alternative is contracting for 2x perm rate - it does make a difference.

that's also true, in a former life I was a contractor and while I didn't work in the public sector at any point by pure circumstance, a few friends did and they pulled a similar rate to when they were in the private sector.