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Britain's government agency responsible for getting people into work is recruiting for a new boss who will not need private sector experience - despite a £220,000 salary.

The Department for Work and Pensions is hiring for a new permanent secretary with a gold-plated pension to oversee a titanic £330billion budget.

Yet nowhere in the job advert does it say that experience in a non-taxpayer-funded role is required.

Critics have slammed the move, with Ameer Kotecha, the CEO of the Centre for Government Reform, saying: "It can't be right that the head of the Department trying to get people back into work does not need to have any private sector experience."

He added: "You cannot expect a career bureaucrat to understand the needs of a small business or the hurdles of the private sector when they've not worked in it."

Mr Kotecha said: "That's why we need leaders from outside of Whitehall to bring a fresh perspective to the growing problems facing the British state. We have launched the Centre for Government Reform, to ensure that we have the right people in the right positions to drive the reforms that the UK needs."

The new boss would be expected to spearhead initiatives to help some of Britain's unemployed return to work.

The appointment comes as critics have blasted the country's welfare bill as being unsustainable, with millions out of work at a ballooning cost to the taxpayer.

Labour bosses have found themselves paralysed and unable to take clear-cut action to bring the bill down after backbench rebellion forced the party to U-turn on plans to keep the two-child benefit cap earlier this year.

The resulting Budget was slammed as a "Budget for benefits street" by the party's Conservative rivals.

Since Labour took office in July 2024, the number of people on out-of-work benefits has jumped by half a million, leaving a record 6.5 million Britons out of the workforce.

The job opening will replace the current DWP boss, Sir Peter Schofield KCB, who had less than three years of private sector experience before entering the role in 2018.

In that time, annual spending on working-age benefits has ballooned by almost £30billion whilst the number of those unemployed has increased from 4% to 4.9%.

A DWP spokesman said they "encourage applications from candidates from the Civil Service and the private sector, who have a successful record of transforming large organisations".

They added: "Senior appointments at Permanent Secretary level are conducted through open, fair and transparent competitions precisely to ensure the best candidates, from any background, are identified and appointed on merit."

The spokesman said: "The Government also remains committed to reforming welfare, with measures coming into effect this month saving nearly £2 billion by the end of the decade and investing £2.5 billion to tackle youth unemployment."