security experts and mathematicians in the various intelligence services and academia, many of them amongst the best in the world
That's very unlikely.
I just went to the GCHQ careers site. THe first position I clicked on was for an Intelligence Analyst - quite an important role[1]. they're offering a bit ove £25K.
Applied Research offers less than £28K.
At these rates, they might get a few gung-ho patriots, but the real talent will be earning ten times as much. It is likely that the "best in the world" is nowhere near Cheltenham,
Vic.
[1] The job description states "Analysts are at the heart of GCHQ’s mission - turning data into the critical intelligence that helps to protect the UK. Our analysts work with complex data, understanding and interpreting it to find the crucial intelligence within it."
Biting the hand that feeds IT
