I always found that the pay scale for the security services is the same as the rest of the civil service really hard to justify. Why would I go work at GCHQ if I could make many multiples more, as a starting salary, in the private sector?
Other possibilities: Perhaps the headline pay is low but there’s a ton of special allowances and other benefits that make the whole package competitive. Perhaps, like academics, there’s some gifted people who are a much better personality fit for the civil service rather than FANG culture?
Sure but if you take a student loan in the U.K. starting pay in the civil service wouldn’t even put you above the repayment threshold. I get that there are levels, but unless you have support or a partner the starting pay really isn’t enough especially if you’re in London. Cheltenham or Manchester - maybe.
Really, this isn't about targeting a specific level of education, it's about targeting a specific class.
The article is a recruiting piece targeting well-educated females; but the same (Oxbridge) females can earn six digits in finance and stay safe, instead of earning 22k and getting shot in Kandahar or stabbed in Najaf. One wonders if that combination of compensation and dangerous job spec attracts reckless or idealists personalities.
Anyone interested in the history of the British SIS can be referred to K. Jefferey's (2010) "MI6: The History of the Secret Intelligence Service 1909-1949" (London: Bloomsbury), which is detailed but of course suffers from selection bias due to the nature of the topic and the fact that the book was commissioned (if I recall correctly) by the organization it describes.