1. Deputy Director posts are the bottom rung in the Senior Civil Service. Any SCS post is, by definition, senior. The SCS accounts for 1% of the entire Civil Service head count[1].
2. Why mention the pay rate? Civil Service jobs have never been well paid - especially in comparison to private sector equivalent job roles. People go into these jobs for a lot of reasons beyond remuneration - behind-the-scenes power, for instance, or social cachet, or even in the belief that they can help make things work better.
3. The key level in the average UK central government department is the Grade 7 Team Leader. They're the ones with (wide) responsibility for a specific policy area, and/or running a specific government programme. They're also the ones who get hammered when anything goes wrong. (Deputy) Directors will be responsible for managing a Division of such Teams in a related area. Above them are the Director Generals (C-suite folks for each Department, though far more limited in numbers) and the Permanent Secretary (the CEO, if you like).
Running a country is not the same as running a business.
2. Why mention the pay rate? Civil Service jobs have never been well paid - especially in comparison to private sector equivalent job roles. People go into these jobs for a lot of reasons beyond remuneration - behind-the-scenes power, for instance, or social cachet, or even in the belief that they can help make things work better.
3. The key level in the average UK central government department is the Grade 7 Team Leader. They're the ones with (wide) responsibility for a specific policy area, and/or running a specific government programme. They're also the ones who get hammered when anything goes wrong. (Deputy) Directors will be responsible for managing a Division of such Teams in a related area. Above them are the Director Generals (C-suite folks for each Department, though far more limited in numbers) and the Permanent Secretary (the CEO, if you like).
Running a country is not the same as running a business.
[1] - https://www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/explainers/grade-s...