UK Civil Service Pay & benefits reviews

Salary is barely above minimum wage but am given management-level responsibilities. Minimal support from actual manager, who is based at different location and never seen in person. No clear role description, new tasks continually piled on with no support or guidance.

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Lifelong learning and development through a sequence of interesting roles.

Deputy Director (Former Employee) - West Yorkshire - 8 October 2023

What is the best part of working at the company?Flexible, family friendly working hours available. Final salary or average salary pension scheme. Hugh variety of work options within the same Department or across Departments within the Civil Service. Readily transferable skills.What is the most stressful part about working at the company?Frustrations around inadequate staff numbers, changing government priorities and political dogma impacting service delivery.What is the work environment and culture like at the company?Generally supportive, inclusive and friendly.What is a typical day like for you at the company?There is no typical day in the Civil Service as a whole. Each Department has its own culture, ways of working and expectations. In general, you gain more autonomy and more responsibility and accountability the higher up the organisation you rise. Jobs vary a lot - from Customer Services, to Operational Delivery, to Policy and Strategy develomment, to Management and Leadership. There are specialist areas that span the civil service, such as IT, HR, Law, Procurement.Most jobs require good IT skills, good people skills and an ability to undertake detailed work, at pace, with accuracy on the detail and an understanding of how your work contributes to the bigger policy or strategy direction of the Department concerned.

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Insights into UK Civil Service

Based on 55 survey responses

What people like

Inclusive work environment
Supportive environment
Feeling of personal appreciation

Areas for improvement

Fair pay for job

Enjoyable

HR Administrator (Current Employee) - London, Greater London - 2 September 2023

Pro:Friendly environment, good benefits, good work / life balanceCon:Lack of progression unless you know the right people for a managed movePay is low compared to private sector

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Get a good group and your set

AO (Current Employee) - Pembrokeshire - 31 August 2023

Great Benefits Get a good team they'll get you through the dips Possibilities to move up/ Try something different often Need to be adaptable -Quickly Fast PacedCan get repetitive

Pros

Multiple Benefits

Cons

Poor communications from high up

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Amazing

Administration Officer (Current Employee) - Sheffield - 28 February 2023

Ever since I have been here I’ve only received support and good things. You can choose hours, you can listen to music, there’s literally so many benefits that I can’t even be bothered to write

Pros

Canteen in building everyone nice work good

Cons

None

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Exciting place to work , daily challenges and teams from diverse backgrounds.

Child maintenance support and case handling services (Former Employee) - Leicester, Leicestershire - 17 January 2023

Great place to work . Challenging cases . Allows you to work independently and collaborate with team members . Great place to build confidence and empower others .

Pros

Good pension benefits.

Cons

Long hours on the computer

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Underrated

Enterprise Architect (Current Employee) - London, Greater London - 10 November 2022

nice people, relaxed, strong public service ethos, competent people. Pay is a bit below market rate but non pay benefits are strong. Depends on your life stage.

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Good place to work

Dwp (Current Employee) - Edinburgh, City of Edinburgh - 23 May 2022

The civil service is a good place to work if you are content to do a job with job security. If you are looking for a big wage this is not the place for you .Good holiday an public holidays .there is no great pension at the end of it as some people make out .but with job cuts the may expect you to cover more than asked .if so just do your core hours an finish

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Asylum Decision Maker

Asylum Decision Maker (Former Employee) - Liverpool, Merseyside - 28 April 2022

Terrible role, training appalling, constant pressure, salary always wrong, the whole organisation needs to be brought kicking and screaming into the 21st century, pay lip service to your welfare needs, ok if you want to remote work with no support.Overwhelmed in endless report writing to a strict legal framework and making decisions that don’t make sense.Staff are leaving in droves.Avoid.

Pros

Remote working

Cons

Everything else

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Enjoyable

Payroll Clerk (Current Employee) - Norwich, Norfolk - 28 June 2021

Hard work but great working environment and good management to work for, with some excellent perks and good flexible working. Unfortunate that the pay is low for the standard of work we provide.

Pros

Flexible Hours, good working conditions, good holiday entitlement and good managers

Cons

Poor pay

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Productive and fun workplace!

Administrative officer (Current Employee) - Belfast - 24 March 2021

I would give this job salary 5/5 if they paid us £15 h/r. This job requires auditing, accounting, data input, excellent eye for detail and you must pay attention to everything you do. This is the government and you are paid to do a job right!Work / Life balance is excellent. Management will be lenient if you having existing priorities. Where applicable they can offer A/L at short notice and encourage you to take it. This job is not for anyone who dislikes hard work!You must be intelligent, motivated to serve the public and a person of whom gets satisfaction from improving peoples lives.The people who work there really care, are extremely helpful and will have you laughing until the end of your shift!

Pros

Overtime rates are excellent, Working hours are extremely flexible, Very secure job

Cons

Demanding pace of work

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Mod

Administrative / Work Services Officer (Current Employee) - RAF Wittering - 27 April 2019

Stable reliable place to work. The work life balance is positive and the opportunity to train in different areas is high. The pay could be better but the leave balance is excellent

Pros

Good work life balance

Cons

Low pay

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Excellent jobs, with interesting work colleagues

APPS to Departmental Secretary (Former Employee) - London UK - 28 August 2018

A good place to work. There are jobs to suit all skill types. The working conditions are good. Most of my managers were good at their jobs. They have flex time working which helps with work/life balance

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Avoid

Analyst (Current Employee) - Cheltenham - 22 June 2018

The benefits package is under constant threat, and the salary not great. No real-terms increases for years now. The work feels increasingly incidental to the bureaucratic demands.

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Ok to work here

Deputy Director of Communications (Former Employee) - London, Greater London - 10 May 2018

It depends very much on which dept/team you work in but my experiecne varied greatly. I went from having a great team leader to an awful one who micro-managed everything you did. There wasn't much room for advancement - they only wanted to promote those who 'fit'or Fast streamers who had had 6 months owrk experience in a Dept.

Pros

Good holiday benefits

Cons

Long hours

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Civil Service

Administrative Officer (Former Employee) - Belfast, County Antrim - 3 May 2018

It's the civil service so all bank holidays are off, flexi time means you can take a 2 hour lunch and go home at 15:00. Work is dull and monotonous and usually involves dealing with irate members of the public.

Pros

Flexi time

Cons

Dull

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Good work life balance, good culture, good opportunities

Economist (Former Employee) - London, Greater London - 31 March 2018

Good work life balance and culture. Good opportunities to upward manage and work across a variety of different projects, exposure to many senior stakeholders from an early stage. Good job security and opportunities for advancement. Salary and benefits stagnate and lags behind many similar roles in the private sector.

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Overstretched staff

Executive Officer (Former Employee) - Southampton, Hampshire - 20 March 2018

Too few staff for workload which was increasing due to difficult labour market conditions. Increases in pressure on staff resulted in poor levels of customer service provided by staff.

Pros

reasonably flexible hours

Cons

pay cuts, poor morale, high staff sickness rates

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The Planning Inspectorate

Case Officer (Former Employee) - Bristol, Bristol - 16 November 2017

Encoding, database entry: validating or refusing various types of planning appeals from general public and businesses. Full process of Appeal cases by sending out my own Inspectors to planning sites to decide if developments should be allowed, postponed or declined.

Pros

Job security

Cons

Low salary and repetitive work

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Relaxed and friendly environment

Insurance Consultant (Former Employee) - Maidstone, Kent - 8 October 2017

The company provides a nice, relaxed environment to work in and the focus is to make money to give to the connected civil service charities. Clientele was mostly low to mid net worth looking for an affordable, decent insurance policy for their home and motor risks. \

Pros

Well looked after in terms of free food and drink

Cons

Lack of advancement

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Poor promotion prospects due to stremlining of the Civil Service.

Flight Operations Assistant (Current Employee) - Cosford, Shropshire - 3 May 2017

Although the Civil Service offer a fairly secure career opportunity there has been very little opportunity for promotion since the Government decided to streamline it. The pay freeze over the past 5 years means that there is now better earning potential in the private sector.