It is an okay place to work if you just want to clock in and then clock off. You can get away with doing very little. Progression is a bit dated. You have to write "competency" based essays and basically recite them word for word at interview. There is no real assessment of whether you are hard working, or even right for the role.The work itself is a bit annoying. Spreadsheets appear to be the go to, rather then coding. If you are asked to contribute to a presentation, you end up having to work with 9 other people to do it (for some reason...). There are also people who genuinely think they are heroes for what they do. Nonsense of course.Finally, people are obsessed with tracking every minute they work, whether it is productive or not. Some will look shocked if they are not in the Honours list if they worked for an extra 5 minutes that week.

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Great company and very flexible

Executive Assistant (Former Employee) - Nottingham - 27 March 2022

Great company to work for with brilliant bonus schemes, friendly environment and the staff were all welcoming, easy interview process and friendly hours

Pros

Good work and home life balance

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Productive and friendly environment

Office Administrator/Personal Assistant (Former Employee) - Westminster - 23 March 2022

The DfE has: Excellent benefitsFlexibilityGreat managementPossibilities for advancement Opportunities to learn new skillsThe employee needs to have great time management skills. Personal experience - Excellent overall!

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Treated fairly, opportunities to progress, lots of interesting areas.

Senior Funding Officer (Current Employee) - Darlington, Durham - 8 January 2022

Good place to work. Respected by management and colleagues. Lots of opportunities to progress and not too stressful. Good work/life balance and can work from home most of the time. Lots of team working and not micro-managed.

Pros

Good atmosphere. Opportunities to progress. Work/life balance.

Cons

Inconsistencies in grading structure.

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Too few people doing an excessive amount of work.

Payroll Co-ordinator (Former Employee) - Coventry - 25 November 2021

Very poor management of the Dept I worked in. Job expectations were extremely high, but you received very little training on the many complex issues you were expected to resolve. The most stressful job I ever had, because we were massively understaffed, received little training and had to meet ridiculous targets on a daily basis. The senior managers didn't want to know & did nothing to help the situation.I've worked in deadline driven jobs most of my life, but nothing on this scale. Other Dept's could be different, so perhaps the HR Dept was the only one where this is the situation.

Pros

Excellent pension scheme & Terms & Conditions

Cons

Stressful, no work life balance, very poor senior management, long hours, unrealistic job expectations, understaffed, poor salary for the work & knowledge you had, an admin job that was more like working in a target driven sales role, would not recommend working for them at all.

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Great and friendly place to work

Executive Officer (Former Employee) - London - 4 March 2021

Started working as outdoor Messenger/Reception then went into Administration in Schools branch. Moved on to on to work in the Press Office for over 10 years. had a great experience and journey. Happy days!

Pros

Good salary and benefits

Cons

Difficult work colleagues

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very unprofessional

Service Desk Adviser (Former Employee) - Manchester, Greater Manchester - 6 January 2021

slow customer service deliverypoor and old systemsinconsiderate towards illness/sickpoor communication at the management levellack of teamworkworkers scattered across cities

Pros

secure workplace

Cons

less face to face interaction with collegues

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Poor

Manager (Former Employee) - whitehall - 25 June 2020

Poor workplace: 90% of people do 10% of the work and 10% of the people do 90% of the work: the place is empty on Friday's as everyone (except you) is 'working from home' (i.e. not working).

Pros

Looks good on a CV is subsequent years

Cons

Everything else

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Great company to work for

Sous Chef (Current Employee) - London, Greater London - 14 June 2020

Caring people good team work great management good time keeping work safety is a must loads of staff training health and safety fire training hygiene course and fire training

Pros

Working hours help with child care

Cons

Monday to Friday only

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fun workplace

Divisional Administrator (Former Employee) - Manchester, Greater Manchester - 16 April 2020

Enjoyed the role and i was treated very well. I just struggle with the tempo and being at a desk all day. Good for flexible working and furthering your development

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Slave labour

Educational Adviser (Current Employee) - Manchester - 6 February 2020

They will work you until they have no need for you, then lie to you saying they’ll support you but they won’t. They lie about expenses, make it out like it’s a benefit if you join the events team but in fact I’m over £250 out of pocket waiting for them to reimburse me what I’m owed. The process takes 6 weeks apparently, yet it’s been since February LAST year and I’m still outstanding money. They’re just bad, don’t do it

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Pq team

Correspondence Officer/ parliamentary questions co ordinator (Former Employee) - London - 11 December 2019

A very friendly and fast paced team always helping one another to get the work done a great environment to work in no day is the same, some very influential topics covered.

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Good place to work

Team Leader and Policy Adviser (Former Employee) - Sheffield, South Yorkshire - 11 November 2019

Really interesting and varied work. Opportunity to make a real difference. Plenty of scope for personal and career development. Travel across the country and meeting people in all parts of the education sector.

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Fast Paced, Productive workplace culture

Executive Officer (Former Employee) - Manchester City Centre, Greater Manchester - 22 October 2019

As part of my role, although based in Manchester, I traveled between London and Nottingham Weekly. This enabled me to appreciate the value of working within a larger, integral team. I worked closely with colleagues at all levels within the Department which I thoroughly enjoyed; this enabled me to develop good working relationships with my colleagues. I managed communication between schools and the DfE and was responsible for the processing of Government loans and Grants. Throughout my time spent at the DfE I feel I was given the opportunity to develop my existing skills as well as to learn new skills.

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fantastic and fun workplace

Financial Analyst (Former Employee) - London - 22 October 2019

I was always busy and the projects in the program are big but i was productive and happy working there. As a financial analyst the hardest part was to complain with the dead line at the end of the month as sometimes the report are late and we had little time to complete the actuals but i enjoyed very much to have worked there.

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Enjoyed the time I worked there

Executive Assistant (Former Employee) - Darlington, Durham - 23 August 2019

Friendly staff and a good working environment, regular contact with managers meant I was always well informed about the work of the team. Offices are relatively new so the set-up is good and spacious.

Pros

Cafe on site

Cons

No dedicated parking.

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A fun and interesting place to work

Project Manager (Former Employee) - Coventry, West Midlands - 21 August 2019

The work undertaken at the Department for Education was varied and interesting. I was always challenged and CPD was always promoted and encouraged. It was fun and the culture was such that flexible working was the norm which allowed for an excellent work life balance.

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Friendly workplace

Expert Panel Member TLevels (Current Employee) - Victoria, Greater London - 17 June 2019

This role is a public government appointment. I sit on a panel to advice on shaping the new Tlevels Curriculum helping young make alternative career choices. My expenses get paid.

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Good work life balance

Project Manager (Former Employee) - Coventry, West Midlands - 21 March 2019

Good experience overall. Very agile environment but heavy dependency on contractors. Good people, facilities, and close to train station. Can be challenging politically.

Pros

Flexible

Cons

political environment, constant change

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Not a great environment to work in

Policy Adviser (Former Employee) - London - 5 March 2019

There was not very much opportunity in my role for any support nor advancement. There was not much access to my manager and my manager had no involvement in my work and so it was hard to gain support on the specifics of my role. They do not have enough support in place for work place bullying and general health and well being and put very little effort into diversity and inclusion

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Team working friendly ethos

Brook Street DfE Temporary Worker (Former Employee) - Darlington, Durham - 27 February 2019

Friendly staff and Public Sector ethos on Census work (2018). The new Darlington Offices are a collaboration with Darlington Council in the town centre (useful at lunch-times). The office operates a clean desk policy (strictly enforced). The staff entrance has an unusual security foyer style entrance that was frustrating for temporary workers that have to sign in to enter and need security staff to open the external door for them.