100,000 Civil Servants earn over £50,000 per year, 16,000 earn over £75,000, nearly 3,000 earn £100,000+

Part II of an all-inclusive Facts4EU.Org cruise on the luxury liner “The Civil Service”

Montage © Facts4EU.Org 2024

Facts4EU and CIBUK reveal more about the state of the half-million strong ‘Sir Humphrey’ service

In Part I of this report, Civil Service headcount, functions, and the increasing ‘promotion creep’, we showed how the Civil Service has increased its full-time headcount by 34% in the last 10 years – and how this is rate of increase is accelerating. We also revealed that the Service apparently cannot say what functions over 70% of its staff perform.

In the second and final part today, we look at Civil Service pay, working patterns, and ‘Diversity’. Please note that this report deals only with the Civil Service. The public sector as a whole, (of which the Civil Service is a small part), now employs almost 5.5 million people, as we reported here.

The Civil Service Report 2024
A 2-part Facts4EU.Org research report

Part I - Headcount, functions, and the increasing ‘promotion creep’
Part II - (This report) – Pay, working patterns, ‘Diversity’, and ‘Professions’

The truth behind Civil Service pay

There are several ways that a Civil Service employee’s economic prospects may be improved. The one with which everyone is familiar is the simple ‘pay rise’, achieved by the Civil Service unions negotiating with the Government based on a pay review committee’s recommendations.

The second most obvious way of increasing pay is to promote staff into more senior pay grades - something which the Civil Service has done on a grand scale, as we reported in Part I. Before looking at the pay breakdown below, we remind readers of what the Service itself admitted in its report, which we covered in Part I.

“The Civil Service is becoming more senior in grade. The percentage of civil servants working at grades Executive Officer and above is now 73.8%, up from … 58.7% in 2014."

Brexit Facts4EU.Org Summary

The UK Civil Service in 2024 – Part II

See Part I for 1) headcount, 2) functions, and 3) the increasing ‘promotion creep’. In this second and final part we turn to pay scales and other matters.

4. With increased status comes increased pay

Average full-time salary : £39,240, +32% from £29,750 in 2014
99,755 staff are earning over £50,000 p.a.
15,845 staff are earning £75,000+
2,915 staff are earning £100,000+
260 staff are earning over £150,000+
30 are earning over £200,000 p.a.

The median salary varies by grade, from £24,480 in the administrative grades to £88,970 at SCS level.

5. Proportion of full-time staff continues to grow

Full-time staff 2014 : 327,854 (75.5%)
Full-time staff 2024 : 438,965 (80.9%)
Increase in the ratio of full-time staff in 10 years : +33.9%

Around one in five (19.1%) of civil servants work part-time. This is down from a peak of one in four (25.5%) in 2015. The proportion of full-time staff continues to grow each year and is accelerating.

The percentage of civil servants working part-time is lower in senior grades, decreasing from 26.6% of those in the AA/AO grades to 11.6% at the top SCS level.

6. ‘Diversity, Equality, Inclusion’

Gender balance : 54.5% are women
Ethnicity : 16.6% are from an ethnic minority background, up from 10.2% in 2014
Disabled : 16.9% self-declare as having a disability, up from 8.9% in 2014
Sexuality : 6.9% identify as being lesbian, gay, bisexual or ‘other’ (LGBO), up from 3.7% in 2015

On a headcount basis, Asian civil servants (39,395) make up the largest ethnic minority group in the Civil Service, followed by Black civil servants (19,810).

The proportion of civil servants with a declared disability has increased across all grades compared to 2014. The largest increase has been at Executive Officer level – this has more than doubled and is at 19.2% compared with 9.1% in 2014.

On sexuality the grade with the highest percentage of LGBO civil servants is the highest level of seniority : SCS (7.1%).

Salaries and promotions are not the only benefits enjoyed by Civil Servants

Finally, it must be remembered that there are many benefits in working for the Civil Service.

Job security - Readers may recall the recent case of a senior Whitehall official working in defence, who took home top secret documents which were not permitted to be removed from the building where he worked. He promptly left them on a London bus on his way home. Was he fired from his job and prosecuted? No.
Gold-plated, index-linked pensions - No need to worry about your future as it's guaranteed.
Generous allowances for city working - The salary bands do not include all the other allowances on offer.
'Working from home' allowed - Anyone who has tried to contact a Whitehall official in recent years will know how often a call cannot be transferred to that person's desk, because he or she is 'working from home'.
Two weeks' sick leave considered as part of the perks - Here is the testimony of one Facts4EU.Org reader:
"I met an ex civil servant who told me that at his first meeting with his senior officer he was told - in no uncertain terms - that he must take his allocated two weeks sick leave annually as well as his holiday allowance.... it was a MUST."

Observations

When our colleagues at GB News (to whom we gave our research) contacted Whitehall about pay rises, they were told by a Cabinet Office spokesperson:

"The average rise in full-time salaries aligns with inflation over the same period. Salaries in the public sector must always be justified and closely scrutinised to ensure they represent value to taxpayers."

What the Cabinet spokesman failed to address, however, is the sharp rise in the grading of Civil Service employees. In Part I we showed that 73.8% are now at Executive Officer grade and above, up from 58.7% in 2014. This proportion has jumped by 26% in the last 10 years. Such a dramatic upward regrading or promoting of so many thousands of Civil Servants in recent years is a little unusual, to say the least.

It should be added that ‘upgrading’ a staff member never shows as an increase in the pay settlement received by the Civil Service by the pay review body. It simply vanishes, except on the total bill provided to the Treasury at the end of the year, about which we expect to hear nothing.

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[ Sources: The Civil Service 2024 report ] Politicians and journalists can contact us for details, as ever.

Brexit Facts4EU.Org, Thurs 19 Sept 2024

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Reader Comments 11

1. Sparky , Thursday, September 19, 2024, 05:57:

Shock horror. Civil servant pay has increased 34% since 2014. Guess what, inflation since 2014 is 34%.
.
As for numbers, simple answer provided on civilservant.org. An additional 100,t000 have been required because of Brexit. The report also points out that the EU employs 60,000. An additional 100,000 on an average salary is £75 million per week. That’s only part of the cost of Brexit.
.
Brexit keeps delivering!

2. Gazzablack , Thursday, September 19, 2024, 06:55:

1, sparkless
.
That's 4% fewer than in 2005
I seem to remember we were firmly ensconsed in the EU in 2005

3. NH , Thursday, September 19, 2024, 09:52:

1. Sparky
You seem to love presenting false information and pretending every problem has been caused by Brexit. !
.
The Civil Service is not just for dealing with Brexit. Total Revenue and Customs employees are just below 70,000 and The Department for business and Trade has less than than 10,000 (2024) so obviously there has not been an additional 100,000 to deal with Brexit. The increase in employees from 2021 to 2023 was almost zero. The big increase was 2023 to 2024 a long time after Brexit.
.
Since the pandemic the public sector productivity has declined by 6.6% which is believed to have effected the departments with high levels of "work from home" employees so it may be higher for the civil service than other parts of the public sector. Obviously this means that you need a lot more employees to produce the same amount of work.
.
For you salary claims you have ignored the recent inflation busting pay rises the Labour Government has given the Civil Service. You have also ignored the fact that for every £1 civil service employees pay for their pension the Government is presently having to commit £5. This now adds approx. 25% to their salaries and is likely to keep increasing above the rate of inflation.

4. Sparky , Thursday, September 19, 2024, 10:47:

2 G. The lowest CS employment level was 2016 following 2008 and austerity. Since 2016 employee numbers has grown annually, mmm, what was it that happened in 2016?
.
3 NH. No, I'm using information from civilservant.org . 2023 is not a long time after Brexit, clearly the pandemic is behind us at that point but we didn't leave the EU until 2021 and we haven't yet introduced full border checks so no doubt more employees to come, particularly after the Cons have destroyed their reputation over Brexit and and handed Labour at least 2 terms. The 2016 ref was clearly a Pyrrhic Victory. As I said earlier Brexit keeps delivering.

5. NH , Thursday, September 19, 2024, 11:20:

4. Sparky, "I'm using information from civilservant.org . 2023"
So you are using civil servants (Big Remain-Rejoin Supporters) for information to justify your claims. Their answer is in the EU there are more civil servants and they are paid substantially more. Could this be why they want to be in the EU ?
.
None of the official Government information supports your claims. We are now paying civil servants substantially more for less work.
.
Brexit has shielded us from huge additional debts, huge additional payments, EU recession as we are now the fast growing economy in the G7 and it's taken us from being the worlds 7th largest exporter to the world's 4th largest. Yes it does keep delivering even though UK Governments are reluctant to take full advantage of it !
.
When are you going to give us some good news about what the EU is delivering for it's population ?

6. Gazzablack , Thursday, September 19, 2024, 11:44:

4, sparkless
.
And the highest was in 2005, pre austerity.
Mmmm what was it that happened in 2005?
That's right, nothing much, and certainly not Brexit.
.
What happened in 2016?I
Oh yes, we voted to leave the EU
But, as you admit yourself in your post above, we didn't physically leave until 2021
.
.
You appear to be clueless about the UK if you genuinely think that Labour will serve two terms, they'll be lucky to complete the one.
.
.

7. Sparky , Thursday, September 19, 2024, 12:51:

5 NH. I forgot, of course any information that doesn't suit the narrative must be a remain organisation. Shielded from other costs?, quite the opposite it has escalated costs such as more civil servants. Or the new Border Force fleet delivery delayed until 2030 and now £300 million due to cock ups by the last Gov.
.
6. G. 2005 was the last Labour Gov which the chaos provided by Brexit has gifted back in Gov. I would like to see a smaller civil service but Brexit has created more checks/admin etc, not just fro the CS but for anyone exporting to the EU. .
.
Yes I do think they will serve two terms. I also predict that the Cons will recover votes under a new white male leader (part of the reason Rishi did so badly for the benefit of Reform) but not enough to win at the next GE but enough to pull back votes from Reform.

8. Gazzablack , Thursday, September 19, 2024, 14:31:

7, sparkless
.
You're clearly clueless.
.
Labour accrued a mere 20% of the available votes at the GE, and their popularity has tanked since then.
.
If you want to study chaos, then you'll find it in Germany and France, rather than the UK
.
.
The UK and Thailand signed an enhanced trade pact this week.
The EU started negotiations for what they describe as an FTA with Thailand in September.
So the EU playing catchup again
If and when negotiations are complete, and agreement reached, vested interests will prevent ratification for years to come.you
(By March 2024 only 17 out of 27 EU members had ratified the Canada-EU FTA, 10 years on from it's provisional application).
.
.
Did you know?
UK Gross National Income GNI) would now be a larger percentage of EU GNI, than it was a decade ago?
Now 17.7% up from 14% in 2014.
That means the UK share of the EU budget would've been even higher now!

9. Ashley Great Britain , Thursday, September 19, 2024, 14:32:

I've just heard from some insider info that Deutsche Bank has just collapsed or is in the process of collapse.
Currently some people are flying around trying to save their assets and investments.
This will lead to Euro zone shock.

10. Ashley Great Britain , Thursday, September 19, 2024, 14:40:

Update to last.
It's not Deutsche Bank that's gone bust its ISG Ltd.
ISG is a major construction company that deals with assets and buildings for companies such as Deutsche Bank, Link laters, Addleshaw etc.

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