If you wanted to join the civil service, what department would you think would be the best to aim for ?

[OrangeCatKitten]

In terms of salary and being interesting with room to grow?

What is the motivation for joining the civil service?

I think DWP is the largest dept but that doesn’t appeal to me personally. It depends on your own interests and skillset but once you’re in it’s very easy to move around.

I'm a few years out of it, but DCMS used to be quite a nice place to work. Cabinet Office and Treasury both very pressured, but prob good if you're ambitious. Ditto FO. I found Education OK and Home Office wasn't bad as long as you keep as far away from Border force as you can. EVERYBODY wanted to work for DFID but I dont know if that's changed since the restructuring.

Health is hugely interesting - I personally had a bad time there with a psycho manager but you can get that anywhere.

have you seen their pension offerings!!

DHSC is awful. I work for NHSE and am leaving because I refuse to be part of it (not through VR, but I’ve got another role in the NHS instead). The merger means it is all very chaotic and turbulent. NHSE staff get paid more and will be coming sideways on their higher pay. Dynamics and culture as the integration gets going will not be enjoyable. So far DHSC colleagues are complaining on all the joint briefings that there are too many NHSE voices and they feel cut out and like they want their own briefings despite the two orgs merging as one…

In my experience, any department as transfers happen all the time. DH is a cilvil
servant and have a lot of friends in it as I also worked in CS so just get your foot in the door

Any job that's going tbh.

Recruitment are seeing hundreds of applicants for single vacancies and thousands of for mass campaigns.

There are also widespread blocks on external recruitment across many agencies so there are fewer vacancies being advertised at the moment.

Just apply for jobs you want and can do. Don't overthink the long term, you can move between departments or grades through future vacancies as an internal candidate. Remember though that all promotions are jobs you apply for - there is no automatic promotion.

I think HMRC. I went from AO to grade 7 and did the fast stream (TSP). Work is interesting, most colleagues are pleasant and pay is higher than some other parts of CS.

Yes I’m think cabinet office or treasury would be most interesting

it’s for my adult child who’s hoping to go into CS after leaving uni

It’s an area I’m really clueless about, so I’m just trying to learn a bit more

im going to need to google a few of your replies but thanks so much for the info

my adult child is also hoping to do the fast track thing
I’m hearing it’s super competitive to get on

The one they can get in to. Not easy to get in to the CS these days. And to be honest all departments have interesting work and boring work. Once they get in, moving around internally is easier.

Fast stream has always been competitive. They need serious experience and practice at the assessments, don’t expect being good at university to be enough. Took me three goes to pass it!

DD joined the fast stream after uni a few years ago. She didn’t get any choice as to which department she was sent to initially though.
She’s still there, but now in a department that she has background knowledge for.

What year are they? Fast stream applications for 2026 entry closed last month. They move between depts so useful to get experience of different places. There are also one or two other CS grad schemes though, run by individual depts.

Its really hard to get onto the fast track, and imo its a bit of a mixed blessing. Treasury and Cabinet Office hard to get into. But whatever dept you get into, there is interesting work and you can then move around. So just get in where you can and manouvre from there!

Treasury and HMRC pay best, DWP pays worst I think. DEFRA, DESNZ, MOD, DfT, Cabinet office would all be interesting.

A lot of the fast streamers are internal recruits. They also withdraw recruitment for the scheme at short notice. Some don’t complete it and apply to g7 jobs as progression is not guaranteed and the pay scale can fall behind those working in similar roles.

I’ve always avoided the bottom heavy operational departments (HMRC, DWP and that kind of thing). As a specialist, policy focussed departments tend to have much better promotion prospects. I got from SEO to G6 in 3.5 years. I also have MUCH less responsibility as a G6 in my policy department vs what DWP G6s have to do. I also find the less front facing the department the more you’re treated like a grown up.

It really depends what is local to you though.

Based on my experience, HMT is good (and people who work at HMT know it). Home Office can be interesting but you’re constantly in danger of having to work on small boats. Deadlines seem to be non-existent for them though. FCDO is interesting but are facing massive headcount cuts and lots of people are looking for a way out.

Cabinet Office is going through voluntary redundancies atm, it’s a department that got much too big and is rapidly reducing in size under Cat Little, so opportunities may be fewer there currently.

I hope your adult child is doing their own research on this too! Fast stream is competitive and isn’t the guarantee people think it is. You are expected to move from role to role , often across widely varying subjects/teams and that doesn’t suit everyone.

Theres a huge amount of roles within each department too so they need to do in depth research and think about the skills they have.

And whilst transfers within and across depts are possible , they are often the first to be cut when headcount pressures are on. So my advice is that your child doesn’t take a job they know won’t suit them in the belief they can quickly move to something else.

Tell your son to get onto The Civil Service Reddit page and look for the Fast Stream megathread. That'll answer lots of his questions and help him understand it all a bit better.

FS is highly competitive. And I really do mean HIGHLY competitive.

Last round saw 72,691 applicants. Of which 754 were offered a job. So 1% success rate. In fact they offered 75ish more people a job than they originally had vacancies for.

assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/68cd421fa1e4472207995dc1/Fast_Stream_Annual_Report_2025_V5.pdf

To be fair that’s not dissimilar to the stat for some CS roles. I’ve certainly seen 100+ applicants to 1 role before!

Thanks for all this really useful inside info, great to get some tops from people that gave experience
She's very passionate about improving women's rights, so if there's a department that would fit in well with would be good

She's only in year 1, so don't know if anyone has any advice about internships or work experience

Treasury is full of wankers but it looks good on your CV (but it's REALLY full of wankers)

Cabinet office much the same but with lower IQ

Dcms aren't called the party department for nothing

I'd personally go for the security services but I watch too much slow horses

What does she mean by women is the trouble with that line of work (not being facetious)