Civil Servant 1963-1997

Like variety, team working and mental stimulus?  Want to do something useful to society?  The Civil Service can offer all these and more.  But if you yearn to be in the limelight, other jobs offer more opportunities.

I joined the Civil Service as a “fast stream” entrant after Uni – you get a mixture of training and rapid job moves in your first few years, and the chance of faster promotion.  But however you start – from school, from Uni or after other work, there are opportunities for career development and promotion.  Women have equal pay and status with men – though there are still too few women at the very top.

My career spanned social and economic departments (Health, Social Security, Treasury, Customs and Excise).  At different times, I found myself running a group of refuges for homeless people, advising Ministers on how to spend the biggest budget in Government, writing policy documents on support for people with learning disabilities, stopping travellers through Manchester Airport and searching their baggage, giving evidence to Parliamentary committees, and directing the activities of 10,000 staff across half the UK.

If that sounds varied, it barely scratches the surface.  The Civil Service has hundreds of thousands of posts all over the UK.  It employs “Sir Humphreys” who knew all tomorrow’s news yesterday.  It also employs scientists, accountants, lawyers, doctors, foresters, factory workers, inspectors, media staff, human resources specialists, art experts, IT professionals and many, many more.  Many jobs are office-based, covering the full range from support work to analysis, drafting letters, speeches and policy documents, committee work and information management and retrieval.  Other jobs bring you into contact with the public or with colleagues – an organisation that size needs strong corporate services.  Computers are widely used.

Whatever your level of skills and knowledge, there is likely to be a job in the Civil Service to match.  A typical Civil Servant will change jobs every few years and have opportunities for training and for trying different types of work, gaining wide experience without losing rights as a long-term employee.  Increasingly these days, you can influence your own career path, applying for jobs that particularly interest you.

If you like working with a team of congenial colleagues, and trying to solve problems of national importance, the Civil Service should be high on your list.

Contact me via the Minerva Network if you have questions. As I have retired, I am not able to offer work experience, but I know many Departments are prepared to do so, or recruit casual staff for holiday jobs, which is one way of getting paid to find out about a job.