Not bad, but not great. - Anonymous employee Digital Catapult Employee Review

2.0
21 Sept 2022
Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

- The people (for the majority) make the company, without a doubt. - Good diversity and inclusion policies

Cons

- Poor salary reviews - Poor pay rise distribution - Limited opportunities for promotion in certain (non-specialist) business areas - Some members of SLT are not the most understanding of employee satisfaction and welfare

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Digital Catapult Response
3y
Thank you for taking the time to share your feedback with us and for providing your thoughts in terms of where we might focus our continuous improvement efforts. We always strive to ensure a positive employee experience and we are fortunate to have a team of fantastic people working with us, as you mention. For team members who may be experiencing any challenges whilst working with us, we have a very open culture and encourage dialogue and cooperative problem solving approaches. We have a very proactive and empathetic People team, an active Employee Voice Network through which issues can be discussed and explored and we hold Town Hall meetings allowing for open and candid dialogue. We are continuing to grow and mature as a business and with this growth, we are working hard to further develop some of our internal processes. We carry out salary benchmarking to ensure we remain competitive in the market. It should, of course, be noted that we are a not-for-profit and so salaries may differ to those in other sectors and particularly the private tech sector. Our salary review process and compensation philosophy are set out in our Handbook and we have just recently launched a refreshed methodology around check-ins, performance and career development conversations. We feel confident that these refreshed processes will provide greater consistency of experience for everyone who works with us. If you would like to discuss any of your feedback further, we'd be very open to a conversation. In the meantime, I wish you every success and happiness in your onward career.

Explore other reviews about Digital Catapult

3.0
24 Mar 2026
Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

- The people that you work with day to day are the ones that make this organisation really special - Opportunities to work on high profile projects

Cons

- Frequent changes in leadership, have created a sense of instability - Progression pathways are not clear or available at all - Inconsistencies in policies

1
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Digital Catapult Response
1mo
Thank you for your feedback. It's great to hear that you are enjoying working with great colleagues and getting to work on some of our very exciting deep tech innovation projects. We do recognise that we've seen some changes at the leadership level and some have, regrettably, been in quite close succession. Sometimes this is unavoidable and based on personal circumstances outside of the organisation's control. We are working hard to ensure we keep focused on working as a team, ensuring excellent delivery and supporting people to work at their best through this period of leadership transition. We also take on board your comment about career pathways in the organisation. Following an organisation re-design that took place last year, we do need to refresh some of our career pathways and so to assure you this is on our work plan for the new financial year. We are seeing great evidence of progression in the business - in FT25-26, 14% of employees were promoted and we have many further examples of people being seconded across the business, thereby developing their skills and expanding their experience with us. Please keep an eye on our Workable site for opportunities that may interest you, or speak to your manager and the L&D (Talent) team about your career aspirations. We'd like to counter that "so many people are leaving" - indeed, over the last year, we saw out lowest level of voluntary turnover since the Covid years - well below our expected level. We do review exit interviews and have not identified a common theme about which to be concerned. We would like to understand more about your feeling that policies are being inconsistently applied - please take the opportunity to raise this with your Manager or functional SLT member, with our Employee Network or with the People team so that we can understand this better and can address your concerns.
1.0
4 May 2026
Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Most people are decent and committed to doing the right thing in a government funded organisation.

Cons

A self serving CEO and executive team creating a poisonous culture.

2
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Digital Catapult Response
2d
Thank you for taking the time to share your perspective. We’re pleased to hear your positive comments about the commitment and integrity of our colleagues—this is something we’re very proud of and we always aim to ensure our team members have a positive and career enhancing experience working with us. We take all feedback seriously, particularly when it’s constructive and supported with specific examples, as that helps us better understand and act on concerns. Anonymous and broad statements without any form of context can make it more difficult to identify where we need to improve. We’d also like to clarify that our current CEO is serving in an interim capacity, having stepped up during a period of leadership transition to ensure continuity and maintain organisational momentum. This is an important responsibility and we recognise the commitment involved in leading through this change. We remain focused on fostering a positive and respectful culture, and we encourage open, evidence-based feedback to help us continue improving. If you want to hear more about what our leadership team is focused on, I'd encourage you to attend our CEO listening tours, Drumbeat and Pulse meetings. You can also share any concerns you may have with our Employee Network and engage in the culturally enriching activities they deliver.
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