Civil Service Pay 2026/27: Grades, Departments and Take-Home
What every Civil Service grade actually pays in 2026/27: published medians for AA to Grade 6, the Senior Civil Service ranges from 1 April 2026, how far the nine departments covered here sit either side, and take-home after tax, NI and the alpha pension.
Why there is no Civil Service pay scale
Police officers, prison officers, teachers and NHS staff are all paid on a published national scale: a table of points, negotiated centrally, that anyone can look up. The Civil Service works differently below the Senior Civil Service. Each department and agency has delegated authority to set pay for its own staff, inside a control that Cabinet Office expresses as a cap on the growth of the department's paybill rather than as a rise for any individual. For 2026/27 that cap is 3.5%.
The practical consequence is that a Higher Executive Officer in one department and a Higher Executive Officer in another are on different money, doing recognisably similar work, and neither is an exception. So the government does not publish a scale. What it publishes each July is a statistical snapshot: the median salary at each responsibility level, for the whole service and for every organisation, as at 31 March. Those are the figures on this page, and they are worth reading for what they are. A median is what the middle person was actually paid on the day, awards and progression included. It is not a starting salary, not a ceiling, and not a point anyone is placed on.
What each grade pays
Medians as at 31 March 2026, for the whole service, with the spread showing how far individual organisations sit either side. Senior Executive Officer and Higher Executive Officer are published as a single combined level, so there is no HEO-only figure to quote.
| Level | Whole-service median | Lowest organisation | Highest organisation |
|---|---|---|---|
| AA / AO | £28,020 | £25,500 UK Statistics Authority | £31,990 Ministry of Justice |
| EO | £32,140 | £26,950 Ofqual | £43,280 National Crime Agency |
| SEO / HEO | £43,930 | £38,020 Ofgem | £54,730 Ofsted |
| Grade 6 / 7 | £65,830 | £58,300 UK Statistics Authority | £89,790 Estyn |
The endpoints are usually small regulators and inspectorates rather than the big departments, which is why the spread looks wider than the gap you would see moving between, say, DWP and the Home Office. The nine departments this site covers are compared further down.
Senior Civil Service ranges
SCS pay is not delegated, so this is the one part of the Civil Service with a genuine published scale. Cabinet Office sets one set of ranges for the whole UK, with no separate London band. From 1 April 2026 every SCS member received a 2.5% consolidated increase to base pay, backdated, and the band minima each rose by £5,000.
| Band | Role | Range | Take-home at the minimum |
|---|---|---|---|
| SCS Pay Band 1 | Deputy Director | £86,000 to £117,800 | £56,645 |
| SCS Pay Band 1A | Closed to new recruitment | £86,000 to £128,900 | £56,645 |
| SCS Pay Band 2 | Director | £105,000 to £162,500 | £66,827 |
| SCS Pay Band 3 | Director General | £135,000 to £208,100 | £77,889 |
A separate 1% of the SCS paybill funds performance-based progression. Remuneration above £174,000 needs Treasury Senior Pay Control approval unless it qualifies for an exception set out in the guidance. Pay Band 1A is closed to new recruitment: it exists for people already on it, so its ceiling is not a job anyone can apply for. Permanent Secretary pay sits outside this framework entirely.
Take-home at each level
Each published 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 comes out before Income Tax, so it gets full relief at your marginal rate, but National Insurance is still charged on the whole gross.
| Level | Median | alpha | Income Tax | NI | Take-home | Monthly |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| AA / AO | £28,020 | £1,289 (4.6%) | £2,832 | £1,236 | £22,663 | £1,889 |
| EO | £32,140 | £1,478 (4.6%) | £3,618 | £1,566 | £25,478 | £2,123 |
| SEO / HEO | £43,930 | £2,394 (5.45%) | £5,793 | £2,509 | £33,234 | £2,769 |
| Grade 6 / 7 | £65,830 | £4,839 (7.35%) | £11,829 | £3,327 | £45,836 | £3,820 |
The nine departments covered here
Median salary by level for the nine departments this site covers, ordered by the all-grades column. Read that column carefully: it is the one most often quoted as "what the department pays" and it mostly measures how senior the workforce is.
| Department | AA / AO | EO | SEO / HEO | Grade 6 / 7 | SCS | All grades |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| HM Treasury | £28,090 | £32,560 | £45,200 | £66,130 | £92,150 | £60,670 |
| Dept for Education | £27,240 | £31,480 | £42,810 | £62,340 | £88,110 | £49,000 |
| Cabinet Office | £27,410 | £31,010 | £38,600 | £65,050 | £103,390 | £47,670 |
| Ministry of Defence | £29,030 | £31,440 | £45,550 | £65,560 | £98,380 | £39,120 |
| Home Office | £27,550 | £35,410 | £46,270 | £68,320 | £92,750 | £39,000 |
| HMRC | £28,020 | £32,230 | £40,520 | £64,620 | £92,930 | £37,680 |
| Ministry of Justice | £31,990 | £33,550 | £43,840 | £65,330 | £96,920 | £35,530 |
| DWP | £27,840 | £32,140 | £39,600 | £62,970 | £91,620 | £32,140 |
| Dept for Transport | £26,610 | £30,960 | £41,940 | £63,640 | £92,550 | £31,600 |
HM Treasury tops the all-grades column at £60,670 and Dept for Transport sits bottom at £31,600, a gap of £29,070. Their AA/AO medians are within £1,480 of each other. The difference is grade mix: a small policy department is mostly Grade 7 and above, an operational one mostly AO and EO.
DWP shows it most clearly. Its all-grades median of £32,140 is identical to its EO median, which tells you the middle of that entire workforce sits on an operational grade. At the other end, Home Office pays the highest Grade 6/7 median of the nine at £68,320, against £62,340 at Dept for Education.
The 2026/27 award
Two separate settlements, and only one of them is a number you can apply to your own salary.
Below the SCS, Cabinet Office sets the Increase to Remuneration Cost at a maximum of 3.5%. The guidance is explicit that this measures the change in a department's total remuneration cost and "does not confirm the amount that an individual in a department will receive". A department can spread it evenly, or target it at the grades it cannot recruit into, and individuals may get more or less. Anything above the cap needs HM Treasury ministers to agree.
In the SCS, the award is a flat 2.5% consolidated increase from 1 April 2026, backdated to the start of the SCS pay year, plus the band minima increases in the table above and 1% of the paybill for performance progression.
Note what this means for the medians on this page: they are a snapshot taken on 31 March 2026, so they already include whatever each department had paid by then and nothing after. They have deliberately not been uprated by the cap. A figure produced that way would be ours, not the Cabinet Office's.
alpha pension contributions
Civil servants are in alpha, a career-average defined benefit scheme. Member contributions are tiered on pensionable earnings, and the rate that applies to the whole salary is the one for the tier it falls in.
| Pensionable earnings | Member contribution |
|---|---|
| £0 to £36,199 | 4.6% |
| £36,200 to £56,000 | 5.45% |
| £56,001 to £150,000 | 7.35% |
| Over £150,001 | 8.05% |
On the SEO / HEO median of £43,930 that is £2,394 a year at 5.45%, which reduces taxable pay but not the pay National Insurance is charged on.
Related
- Civil servant pay and take-home
- AO pay, EO pay, HEO pay, SEO pay, Grade 7 pay and Grade 6 pay
- Prison officer pay scales, also civil servants and also in alpha
- Local government pay scales and NHS pay scales for the comparison most people want
- Salary calculator for any figure not on this page
Frequently asked questions
Is there a Civil Service pay scale?
Not below the Senior Civil Service. Each department sets its own pay ranges inside a Cabinet Office cap, so a single national scale for AA to Grade 6 does not exist and any site publishing one has estimated it. What is published is the median at each level: £28,020 at AA/AO, £32,140 at EO, £43,930 across the combined SEO/HEO level and £65,830 at Grade 6/7, as at 31 March 2026. The Senior Civil Service is different and does have published ranges.
What is the Civil Service pay rise for 2026/27?
Below the SCS there is no single figure. Cabinet Office sets the Increase to Remuneration Cost at a maximum of 3.5% for 2026/27, which caps the growth in a department's paybill rather than promising any individual that rise, and each department decides how to target it. The SCS award is a flat 2.5% consolidated increase from 1 April 2026, with a further 1% of the SCS paybill funding performance-based progression.
Why is there no separate HEO median?
Because the published statistics combine Senior Executive Officer and Higher Executive Officer into one level. There is no HEO-only median in the source, so quoting one would mean making it up. The combined figure is what this page shows.
What does a Grade 7 take home?
On the published Grade 6/7 median of £65,830, take-home is about £45,836 a year or £3,820 a month after Income Tax, National Insurance and a 7.35% alpha contribution. The pension comes out before Income Tax but not before National Insurance, so the contribution costs less than its face value in tax but nothing in NI.
Which department pays best?
It depends on the grade, and the all-grades column is misleading. HM Treasury has the highest all-grades median of the nine departments here at £60,670 against £31,600 at Dept for Transport, but that mostly reflects how senior each workforce is rather than what it pays for the same job. At Grade 6/7 the nine run from £62,340 at Dept for Education to £68,320 at Home Office.
Do these figures include London pay?
They include everyone, but they are not broken down by location. Departments run their own London ranges and the published table has no location split, so this page does not quote a London differential. The range on the vacancy is the number to trust.