Home Office Pay 2026/27: Salary by Grade and Take-Home
What Home Office pays at each Civil Service grade in 2026/27, from the published Cabinet Office medians as at 31 March 2026, with take-home after Income Tax, National Insurance and the alpha pension.
What Home Office pays by grade
The Home Office covers immigration and borders, policing policy, security and counter-terrorism, with a workforce that mixes large operational caseworking with a concentrated professional and analytical core.
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 Home Office sets its own ranges and no national scale exists to print.
| Grade | Home Office median | vs whole service | Rank of 9 |
|---|---|---|---|
| AA / AO | £27,550 | -£470 | 6 |
| EO | £35,410 | +£3,270 | 1 |
| SEO / HEO | £46,270 | +£2,340 | 1 |
| Grade 6 / 7 | £68,320 | +£2,490 | 1 |
| Senior Civil Service | £92,750 | -£2,790 | 5 |
Senior Executive Officer and Higher Executive Officer are published as one combined level, so there is no HEO-only median for Home 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 | £27,550 | £1,267 (4.6%) | £2,743 | £1,198 | £22,342 | £1,862 |
| EO | £35,410 | £1,629 (4.6%) | £4,242 | £1,827 | £27,712 | £2,309 |
| SEO / HEO | £46,270 | £2,522 (5.45%) | £6,236 | £2,696 | £34,817 | £2,901 |
| Grade 6 / 7 | £68,320 | £5,022 (7.35%) | £12,751 | £3,377 | £47,170 | £3,931 |
| Senior Civil Service | £92,750 | £6,817 (7.35%) | £21,805 | £3,866 | £60,262 | £5,022 |
What the numbers actually say
The Home Office pays the highest SEO/HEO median and the highest Grade 6/7 median of the nine departments here. At the middle and senior professional grades it out-pays HM Treasury, which is not where most people would guess those two departments sit relative to each other.
Its AA/AO median, by contrast, is sixth of the nine, which gives it one of the widest internal gaps here between the administrative grades and the professional middle. Note that the modest end is AA/AO specifically: at EO the Home Office is first of the nine. Border Force and immigration caseworking sit at the lower end; the security, digital and analytical professions that the department competes hardest to recruit sit at the upper.
The departments nearest to it
The three departments closest to Home 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Home Office | £39,000 | £46,270 | £68,320 |
| Ministry of Defence | £39,120 | £45,550 | £65,560 |
| HMRC | £37,680 | £40,520 | £64,620 |
| Ministry of Justice | £35,530 | £43,840 | £65,330 |
The 2026/27 award at Home Office
The Home 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
Does the Home Office pay more than the Treasury?
At SEO/HEO and at Grade 6/7, yes, on the published medians. At the all-grades level HM Treasury is far ahead, because that column is dominated by how senior each workforce is rather than by pay rates.
What does a Home Office caseworker earn?
Immigration and asylum caseworking posts are usually advertised at Executive Officer level, so the EO row is the reference point. Border Force officer roles are also EO-graded and carry shift allowances on top.
What is a Home Office HEO salary?
There is no HEO-only published median: the statistics combine SEO and HEO. The combined figure for the Home Office is in the table above and is the highest of the nine departments here.