Joining the Civil Service, what to look out for?

[RizzoTheRat]

Only on PH is a pay band up to £162,500 considered "poor"

UK average new graduate is £24k, is EO post a new grad role?

ETA: Google just turned up a DE&S job advert for graduate scheme engineering job at £28.8k, with employer pension contribution of 27%, that's a much better pension than I thought they had these days.

Edited by RizzoTheRat on Tuesday 31st October 10:15

[CraigyMc]

RizzoTheRat said:

Only on PH is a pay band up to £162,500 considered "poor"

UK average new graduate is £24k, is EO post a new grad role?

ETA: Google just turned up a DE&S job advert for graduate scheme engineering job at £28.8k, with employer pension contribution of 27%, that's a much better pension than I thought they had these days.

I can see why you'd write that Rizzo.

What I was thinking while writing my comment that was "why would I start a career there, if the eventual target is that?".

In finance £100K+ is typical, not exceptional. New starters are on £70K+ and bonuses are typically in the tens of thousands.

Why someone would want to wait many years in government to get to a level where they are on the same sort of pay as a new grad in an investment bank is perplexing to me; other than the final salary pension there doesn't appear to be an upside.

With the example of pension contrib of 27% on pay of £28.8K, that's only £7.8K of pension being added to the defined benefit fund.

At a financial org that does (for example) 11% of a £100K basic pay into defined contribution, that's £11K.

The numbers don't make sense to me.

[rustyuk]

RizzoTheRat said:

Only on PH is a pay band up to £162,500 considered "poor"

UK average new graduate is £24k, is EO post a new grad role?

ETA: Google just turned up a DE&S job advert for graduate scheme engineering job at £28.8k, with employer pension contribution of 27%, that's a much better pension than I thought they had these days.

Edited by RizzoTheRat on Tuesday 31st October 10:15

The 27% can be misleading, mine (22% employer) is split between two funds, a pseudo final salary and a normal investment fund. The final salary pension has a specific salary limit and anything earned about it goes into the investment fund.

I have to contribute 10% of which 100% of this goes into the final salary pension. The benefits of which seem to change weekly and to be honest don't seem to equal my 10% contribution never mind the 22% made by my employer.

To be honest the whole final salary part seems to be a giant ponzi scheme which is just using contributions made today to fund a massive black hole.

[RizzoTheRat]

CraigyMc said:

In finance £100K+ is typical, not exceptional. New starters are on £70K+ and bonuses are typically in the tens of thousands.

Why someone would want to wait many years in government to get to a level where they are on the same sort of pay as a new grad in an investment bank is perplexing to me; other than the final salary pension there doesn't appear to be an upside..

Bear in mind that 99% of people don't work in Finance though. Plus a lot of people will join as a new grad and then move on a few years later, I don't think it's seen as a job for life by many any more. Also how many hours a week is a new grad with an investment bank or PWC/Deloitte/etc doing compared to the Civil Service graduates 37.5?

rustyuk said:

The 27% can be misleading, mine (22% employer) is split between two funds, a pseudo final salary and a normal investment fund. The final salary pension has a specific salary limit and anything earned about it goes into the investment fund.

I have to contribute 10% of which 100% of this goes into the final salary pension. The benefits of which seem to change weekly and to be honest don't seem to equal my 10% contribution never mind the 22% made by my employer.

To be honest the whole final salary part seems to be a giant ponzi scheme which is just using contributions made today to fund a massive black hole.

That seems excessively complicated. I was on the final salary scheme when I joined in the 90's, but left in 2001 so a bit of date. I've since contracted at CS sites and know a few people who've moaned about them getting a lot worse.

I thought the 12% from my current employers in to our defined contribution scheme was pretty good

Edited by RizzoTheRat on Tuesday 31st October 11:36

[rustyuk]

Apologies should have said I'm Public Sector but not Civil Service.

I'd happily swap my 22% for 12% into a defined contribution scheme.

[deadtom]

CraigyMc said:

I'm such a Powerfully built PH company director finance bod that I simply can't understand anyone who doesn't have a job that puts them in the top 2% of earners in the country, in the finance sector specifically

It's been a while since I have read something that so perfectly encapsulates the PH mindset.

Pretty much any role in the civil service is something you do despite the pay, not because of it.

I do it for various reasons; because it is almost entirely stress free, varied, often interesting, very flexible, doesn't trap you in London (I enjoy the place to visit but couldn't live there), sends me all over the world (but only if I want to, I am not compelled to go) and makes pretty much zero demands on my time outside of 9 - 5 (or whatever hours you choose to work to make up your 37.5 per week). Other people do it for some / all of those reasons, and because there are roles in the CS that simply don't exist elsewhere else, there are roles that allow you to make a tangible difference to the country at various levels of importance, you never feel like you're grafting your life away just to make someone else richer etc

The downside is that for most in the CS they'll never earn £100k or more (almost certainly me included), and indeed there are problems with recruitment and retention because for some people the above reasons are not enough to offset the lack of pay and many people are always wondering if it's worth it. It depends on how much you value money vs. everything else.

[gangzoom]

CraigyMc said:

The numbers don't make sense to me.

Because there is sometimes more to a job than the pay? Frankly some days I cannot believe I get paid to do my job because its so 'fun' (NHS).

[xx99xx]

deadtom said:

It's been a while since I have read something that so perfectly encapsulates the PH mindset.

Pretty much any role in the civil service is something you do despite the pay, not because of it.

I do it for various reasons; because it is almost entirely stress free, varied, often interesting, very flexible, doesn't trap you in London (I enjoy the place to visit but couldn't live there), sends me all over the world (but only if I want to, I am not compelled to go) and makes pretty much zero demands on my time outside of 9 - 5 (or whatever hours you choose to work to make up your 37.5 per week). Other people do it for some / all of those reasons, and because there are roles in the CS that simply don't exist elsewhere else, there are roles that allow you to make a tangible difference to the country at various levels of importance, you never feel like you're grafting your life away just to make someone else richer etc

The downside is that for most in the CS they'll never earn £100k or more (almost certainly me included), and indeed there are problems with recruitment and retention because for some people the above reasons are not enough to offset the lack of pay and many people are always wondering if it's worth it. It depends on how much you value money vs. everything else.

Well said.

There's also stuff private sector bods can't get their heads around and that is the levels of responsibility public sector employees have, despite their seemingly low pay.

E.g. there are roles on £60k (possibly less) that will be responsible for 50-100 people and have overall accountability for delivery of projects totalling £100m+. There are also jobs at that same grade with no direct reports, less pressure and less accountability. Another example of the equal pay policy but I think some jobs are mis graded.

[rawenghey]

95JO said:

Another thing that often gets overlooked and I'm sure some will disagree but in my experience, working for Government Department(s) at any level, although more so at more senior levels looks really good on your CV, especially to other large private sector organisations. You can use it as a great springboard and even useful in future salary negotiations due to the pension/benefits.

It really is not. In fact it's almost a death sentence in technical roles.

I used to work with someone who was a very high level specialist in a particular technical area and, when hiring for a technical role for a major retail organisation and faced with far too many CVs, one of the sifting techniques used was to bin the CVs of anyone who'd worked in government.

If they're young, only just starting out and have specific reasons for being there fine; but if you've spent years there, you are categorically going to be looked at unfavourably against candidates who've spent most of their time in the private sector.

Edited by rawenghey on Wednesday 1st November 14:23

[95JO]

rawenghey said:

95JO said:

Another thing that often gets overlooked and I'm sure some will disagree but in my experience, working for Government Department(s) at any level, although more so at more senior levels looks really good on your CV, especially to other large private sector organisations. You can use it as a great springboard and even useful in future salary negotiations due to the pension/benefits.

It really is not. In fact it's almost a death sentence in technical roles.

I used to work with someone who was a very high level specialist in a particular technical area and, when hiring for a technical role for a major retail organisation and faced with far too many CVs, one of the sifting techniques used was to bin the CVs of anyone who'd worked in government.

If they're young, only just starting out and have specific reasons for being there fine; but if you've spent years there, you are categorically going to be looked at unfavourably against candidates who've spent most of their time in the private sector.

Edited by rawenghey on Wednesday 1st November 14:23

Well I can only disagree, based on my own experience of working in a technical role in various Departments whilst dipping in and out of the private sector. I work on critical national infrastructure, use cutting edge tools/technologies and work on probably the largest cloud estate outside of FAANG. It's invaluable experience and like I said, private sector employers, especially other large organisations (banks, defence, health care) look upon it favourably. Why wouldn't they? It also goes without saying that having such experience means you will have been vetted to a high level, making your CV stand out for the right reasons.

You're probably talking about "technical" roles whereby someone has been trained in one particular application and essentially support it forever (I have seen this with some off the shelf products). That's not what most technical roles in the larger "Digital" Government departments look like these days though, we're encouraged to up-skill, move around internally and even externally (other Departments) to remain up to date. A lot of money gets spent on training to aid the transformation of these legacy products to in house or open source alternatives in the cloud, using all of the latest technologies.

[RizzoTheRat]

rawenghey said:

95JO said:

Another thing that often gets overlooked and I'm sure some will disagree but in my experience, working for Government Department(s) at any level, although more so at more senior levels looks really good on your CV, especially to other large private sector organisations. You can use it as a great springboard and even useful in future salary negotiations due to the pension/benefits.

It really is not. In fact it's almost a death sentence in technical roles.

I used to work with someone who was a very high level specialist in a particular technical area and, when hiring for a technical role for a major retail organisation and faced with far too many CVs, one of the sifting techniques used was to bin the CVs of anyone who'd worked in government.

If they're young, only just starting out and have specific reasons for being there fine; but if you've spent years there, you are categorically going to be looked at unfavourably against candidates who've spent most of their time in the private sector.

Edited by rawenghey on Wednesday 1st November 14:23

Surely that's juts one guy's prejudice, although I guess in retail there probably aren't many similarities. In industries where the government is the main customer you'll find it's very different. Certainly is in Defence, I'd be surprised if Healthcare's not similar.

[deadtom]

rawenghey said:

It really is not. In fact it's almost a death sentence in technical roles.

I used to work with someone who was a very high level specialist in a particular technical area and, when hiring for a technical role for a major retail organisation and faced with far too many CVs, one of the sifting techniques used was to bin the CVs of anyone who'd worked in government.

If they're young, only just starting out and have specific reasons for being there fine; but if you've spent years there, you are categorically going to be looked at unfavourably against candidates who've spent most of their time in the private sector.

Edited by rawenghey on Wednesday 1st November 14:23

not true in my part of government. They have just confirmed a retention bonus for engineers in my department specifically because so many of us are being poached by private sector companies.

[rawenghey]

Progression? Being poached by private sector firms? Best tech outside of FAANG? Motivated and encouragd to learn? Wow. I spent a few years contracting into a few govt areas and that is the absolute inverse of everything I experienced. Most tech teams consisted of a load of permies effectively stealing a living, whilst a small spine of contractors did the bulk of the work.

Maybe I got unlucky. Glad to see it's not all like that.

[GiantEnemyCrab]

rawenghey said:

Progression? Being poached by private sector firms? Best tech outside of FAANG? Motivated and encouragd to learn? Wow. I spent a few years contracting into a few govt areas and that is the absolute inverse of everything I experienced. Most tech teams consisted of a load of permies effectively stealing a living, whilst a small spine of contractors did the bulk of the work.

Maybe I got unlucky. Glad to see it's not all like that.

Just 98% of it.

And most of the contractors are ste too - why would the cream of the crop contract through DXC / ATOS / CGI etc?

[V 02]

Thanks for all your responses, it has been very helpful.

My contract has come through, the pay is better than I was expecting

The salary is more than the starting salary for an EO, which is a pleasant surprise considering I am an AO

Around £3,500 more than I was expecting.

What’s no good is how useless the outsourced recruitment team is….


I haven’t heard anything back since I signed the contract. And no one from UKHSA itself has actually contacted me since I did the interview (when I started this thread)

[xx99xx]

V 02 said:

Thanks for all your responses, it has been very helpful.

My contract has come through, the pay is better than I was expecting

The salary is more than the starting salary for an EO, which is a pleasant surprise considering I am an AO

Around £3,500 more than I was expecting.

What’s no good is how useless the outsourced recruitment team is….


I haven’t heard anything back since I signed the contract. And no one from UKHSA itself has actually contacted me since I did the interview (when I started this thread)

Sounds about right. It usually takes around 2 months from point of offer to starting in the job. And some of that depends on how quickly the candidate returns all the paperwork. Bit crap that the line manager hasn't been in touch though. Very strange.

[V 02]

xx99xx said:

Sounds about right. It usually takes around 2 months from point of offer to starting in the job. And some of that depends on how quickly the candidate returns all the paperwork. Bit crap that the line manager hasn't been in touch though. Very strange.

Why I ask if it’s weird is because I want to leave my current role sooner than expected. Since I handed in my notice, my time at my current role has quickly become stressful. The MD (it’s a small company) was pleased for me but my line managers have taken a dim view of it. Bear in mind I am a contractor and have no notice period so I was being nice giving 2.5 months notice.

Since I handed in my notice I have become subject to micro-aggressions from the managers which include

1) being placed on restricted duties (which started this past Monday)

2) having my work constantly monitored by the managers

3) moved to an isolated area of the office surrounded completely by managers and away from the team

4) Not being offered overtime or greeted by the managers.

5) I was given a verbal warning in an arranged private meeting for “distracting” another member of staff when providing them technical support with a case. This was explained but not accepted.


My morale has sunk through the floor in a matter of weeks. I was previously very happy in the job.

But I need the money and want to stay for the Christmas event. Do I jump ship as soon as I’m done?

It’s not clear to me what I have done to deserve this suddenly. I am naturally a outgoing and chatty person but I was doing well in the role and they offered me another contract extension days before I got this contract in.


Is there any way to speed up the process with the new role?

Edited by V 02 on Friday 17th November 10:25

[hajaba123]

V 02 said:

Why I ask if it’s weird is because I want to leave my current role sooner than expected. Since I handed in my notice, my time at my current role has quickly become stressful. The MD (it’s a small company) was pleased for me but my line managers have taken a dim view of it. Bear in mind I am a contractor and have no notice period so I was being nice giving 2.5 months notice.

Since I handed in my notice I have become subject to micro-aggressions from the managers which include

1) being placed on restricted duties (which started this past Monday)

2) having my work constantly monitored by the managers

3) moved to an isolated area of the office surrounded completely by managers and away from the team

4) Not being offered overtime or greeted by the managers.

5) I was given a verbal warning in an arranged private meeting for “distracting” another member of staff when providing them technical support with a case. This was explained but not accepted.


My morale has sunk through the floor in a matter of weeks. I was previously very happy in the job.

But I need the money and want to stay for the Christmas event. Do I jump ship as soon as I’m done?

It’s not clear to me what I have done to deserve this suddenly. I am naturally a outgoing and chatty person but I was doing well in the role and they offered me another contract extension days before I got this contract in.


Is there any way to speed up the process with the new role?

Edited by V 02 on Friday 17th November 10:25

Yes, phone the hiring manager/ people who interviewed you and ask

[DaveTheRave87]

V 02 said:

Why I ask if it’s weird is because I want to leave my current role sooner than expected. Since I handed in my notice, my time at my current role has quickly become stressful. The MD (it’s a small company) was pleased for me but my line managers have taken a dim view of it. Bear in mind I am a contractor and have no notice period so I was being nice giving 2.5 months notice.

Since I handed in my notice I have become subject to micro-aggressions from the managers which include

1) being placed on restricted duties (which started this past Monday)

2) having my work constantly monitored by the managers

3) moved to an isolated area of the office surrounded completely by managers and away from the team

4) Not being offered overtime or greeted by the managers.

5) I was given a verbal warning in an arranged private meeting for “distracting” another member of staff when providing them technical support with a case. This was explained but not accepted.


My morale has sunk through the floor in a matter of weeks. I was previously very happy in the job.

But I need the money and want to stay for the Christmas event. Do I jump ship as soon as I’m done?

It’s not clear to me what I have done to deserve this suddenly. I am naturally a outgoing and chatty person but I was doing well in the role and they offered me another contract extension days before I got this contract in.


Is there any way to speed up the process with the new role?

Edited by V 02 on Friday 17th November 10:25

Tell the MD about your line manager's behaviour. If it's a small, close knit company the MD will want it sorted.

[dave123456]

AndyAudi said:

Many years ago I worked in the civil service for 4mths

Was initially a 4week role to assist something specific but I was transferred depts week 3 so knew I’d be staying. There was a three months extension. After that I had to sit a test to see if I made permanent, but I didn’t extend.

25 years ago but….

Loads of folk in personal relationships, I worked with husbands/wife’s/sons/daughters/girlfriend/boyfriends
(There were 4 in my intake - 2 were connected to people in the building which was how they got the job)

People everywhere only doing the minimum/clock watching & banking “minutes” if they ran over by in their flexi.

An odd mix of people, same office had folk in pinstripes & others in polo shorts doing the same job/level
There was a lot of resentment towards capable “youngsters” who got promoted ahead of others who weren’t capable but had been there ages.

Efficient use of public resources - stationary was cheap & rationed. Tea/coffee/sugar not provided, everyone had their own.

Cliques, a lot of them

All that - my experience but 25years ago.

Edited by AndyAudi on Thursday 26th October 19:59

From my point of view this sums it up fairly well.

My partner is in the civil service and, as someone who has to listen to endless tales, it’s a fairly painful place to be.

She’s fairly IT illiterate but refers to herself as the IT savvy member of the office. The thing that does always amuse me, is despite working for a relatively benign department, if I ever have to help her with anything IT related she watches me like a hawk, they have absolutely indoctrinated their staff in certain areas, I think she genuinely believes if I mildly alter an excel formula for example, Rishi has a light flashing and alarm sound in his private office.

The other thing is, compared to the private sector, they are absolutely penny wise and pound stupid.

Her “where did you get that pen?”
Me “the stationery cupboard”
Her “can you get me one, we are only allowed [holds up some st biro probably manufactured by one of Michelle Mone’s companies]”
Me thinking “yep but everyone in your office gets 89 day’s holiday a year, and if any changes are made the union wastes 6 months fighting to prevent Barbara having to give up her window seat”

The reality is it seems like a cold bath, get in it, get used to it, stay in it because getting out is hard due to seized joints and general Stockholm syndrome.