Cabinet Office Pay 2026/27: Salary by Grade and Take-Home
What the Cabinet Office pays at each Civil Service grade - published medians as at 31 March 2026, with 2026/27 take-home after tax, NI and the alpha pension.
What the Cabinet Office pays by grade
The Cabinet Office supports the Prime Minister and Cabinet, and owns the functions that run across government - propriety and ethics, civil service HR, and the pay remit guidance that governs every other department in this list.
Cabinet Office publishes a median salary for each responsibility level in each organisation, as at 31 March 2026. That is what people were actually paid on the day, not a band anyone is placed on: pay below the Senior Civil Service is delegated, so the Cabinet Office sets its own ranges and no national scale exists to print.
| Grade | Cabinet Office median | vs whole service | Rank of 9 |
|---|---|---|---|
| AA / AO | £27,410 | -£610 | 7th |
| EO | £31,010 | -£1,130 | 8th |
| SEO / HEO | £38,600 | -£5,330 | 9th |
| Grade 6 / 7 | £65,050 | -£780 | 5th |
| Senior Civil Service | £103,390 | +£7,850 | 1st |
Senior Executive Officer and Higher Executive Officer are published as one combined level, so there is no HEO-only median for the Cabinet Office or for anywhere else. Grade 6 and Grade 7 are combined the same way.
Take-home on those medians
Each median netted through Income Tax, employee National Insurance and the alpha pension contribution due at that salary. alpha is a net pay arrangement: the contribution reduces taxable pay, so it gets full relief at your marginal rate, but National Insurance is charged on the whole gross regardless.
| Grade | Median | alpha | Income Tax | NI | Take-home | Monthly |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| AA / AO | £27,410 | £1,261 (4.6%) | £2,716 | £1,187 | £22,246 | £1,854 |
| EO | £31,010 | £1,426 (4.6%) | £3,403 | £1,475 | £24,706 | £2,059 |
| SEO / HEO | £38,600 | £2,104 (5.45%) | £4,785 | £2,082 | £29,629 | £2,469 |
| Grade 6 / 7 | £65,050 | £4,781 (7.35%) | £11,540 | £3,312 | £45,418 | £3,785 |
| Senior Civil Service | £103,390 | £7,599 (7.35%) | £25,748 | £4,078 | £65,964 | £5,497 |
What the numbers actually say
The Cabinet Office has the highest Senior Civil Service median of the nine departments here and the lowest SEO/HEO median of the nine. No other department in the table has that combination, and it makes the gradient from the middle grades to the top the steepest here.
The statistics give a median for the Senior Civil Service as a whole, not for each SCS pay band, so they do not show why its senior median is the highest. What they do show is the other end: its SEO/HEO staff, 4,715 of its 10,235 people and its largest single level, are paid the lowest of the nine.
The departments nearest to it
The three departments closest to the Cabinet Office on the all-grades median. The full nine-department comparison, and the whole-service medians, are on the Civil Service pay page.
| Department | All grades | SEO / HEO | Grade 6 / 7 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cabinet Office | £47,670 | £38,600 | £65,050 |
| Dept for Education | £49,000 | £42,810 | £62,340 |
| Ministry of Defence | £39,120 | £45,550 | £65,560 |
| Home Office | £39,000 | £46,270 | £68,320 |
The 2026/27 award at the Cabinet Office
The Cabinet Office sets its own pay award for grades below the Senior Civil Service, inside a Cabinet Office control of 3.5% for 2026/27. That control is a cap on the growth of the department's total remuneration cost, and the guidance is explicit that it "does not confirm the amount that an individual in a department will receive": a department can spread it evenly or target the grades it struggles to fill, and going above it needs HM Treasury ministers to agree.
The medians above are a snapshot taken on 31 March 2026. They already contain whatever this department had paid by that date and nothing after it, and they have deliberately not been uprated by the cap - that would produce our number rather than the published one.
Related
- Civil Service pay 2026/27: every grade, the SCS ranges and all nine departments
- By grade: AO, EO, HEO, SEO, Grade 7, Grade 6
- Civil servant pay and take-home
- Salary calculator for any figure not on this page
Frequently asked questions
Why is the Cabinet Office SCS median the highest?
The published statistics do not say. They give one median for the whole Senior Civil Service in each department, with no split by SCS pay band, so a department with more Directors and Directors General would show a higher median, but the tables do not show whether that is the reason here.
Does the Cabinet Office set its own pay?
It sets its own delegated-grade pay like every other department, inside the same cap it publishes for everyone. Senior Civil Service pay is not delegated: the ranges are set centrally and apply across the service.
What does a Cabinet Office HEO earn?
There is no HEO-only figure in the statistics, only a combined SEO/HEO level, and the Cabinet Office figure for it is the lowest of the nine departments here.