Staff benefits

Whatever your role, they take your career and development seriously, and want to enable you to build a really successful career with the Department and wider Civil Service. It is crucial that their employees have the right skills to develop their careers and meet the challenges ahead, and you’ll benefit from regular performance and development reviews to ensure this development is ongoing. As a Civil Service employee, you’ll be entitled to a large range of benefits.

• 26.5 days annual leave on entry increasing to 31.5 days after 5 years’ service. This is in addition to 8 public holidays. This will be complemented by one further day paid privilege entitlement to mark the Queen’s Birthday.
• A competitive contributory pension scheme that you can enter as soon as you join where they will make a significant contribution to the cost of your pension; where your contributions come out of your salary before any tax is taken; and where your pension will continue to provide valuable benefits for you and your family if you are too ill to continue to work or die before you retire.
• Flexible working patterns including part- time and access to Flexible Working Schemes allowing you to vary your working day as long as you work your total hours.
• Generous paid maternity, adoption and shared parental leave which is notably more than the statutory minimum offered by many other employers.
• Childcare benefits (policy for new employees as of 5 April 2018): The government has introduced the Tax-Free Childcare (TFC) scheme. Working parents can open an online childcare account and for every £8 they pay in, the government adds £2, up to a maximum of £2000 a year for each child or £4000 for a disabled child. Parents then use the funds to pay for registered childcare. Existing employees may be able to continue to claim childcare vouchers, so please check how the policy would work for you here.
• Interest-free loans allowing you to spread the cost of an annual travel season ticket or a new bicycle.
• The opportunity to use onsite facilities including fitness centres and staff canteens (where applicable).
• Occupational sick pay.