As part of our continuing analysis of this year’s ONS (Office for National Statistics) Annual Civil Service Employment Survey, Ollie Hirst and Gavin Freeguard look at the professions of the various posts in the Civil Service. We are very grateful to the ONS for providing us with the relevant data.
The UK Civil Service is made up of 25 professions, of which ‘operational delivery’ is the biggest. It is important that government departments know which of the 25 civil service professions their employees belong to: it allows them to know what capabilities they possess (the work they do and have experience of) and to make better resourcing decisions – especially if what the department does fundamentally changes, or if there are to be further headcount reductions.
- Very few departments have apparently undergone discernible change in the balance of professions, despite (in some cases) a considerable change in role and size for the department.
- The Cabinet Office and DfE appear to have been subject to multiple adjustments or reclassifications.
- DfID has seen a marked increase in the proportion of its staff working in operational delivery posts (from 23% in 2010 to 36% in 2015) at the expense of policy-oriented positions (which have decreased from 40% to 22%).
- The percentage of Civil Service posts in other fields – including communications and marketing, corporate roles, and specialist positions – has been relatively stable in most departments since 2010, although Defra has seen its specialist staff fall from 9% of its workforce to under 2%.
However, the lack of a standardised method of reporting and classifying professions across different departments means there is the potential for inaccuracy and inconsistency, in comparing departments and across years. Data published by departments themselves is also patchy.
Abbreviations for government departments can be found here.
- Topic
- Civil service
- Publisher
- Institute for Government