Applying to civil service from academia - pay drop?

[JessaJess]

I'm trying to make the jump into the civil service from academia and struggling with the applications. I'm currently a principal lecturer at a post-92 (I think that's probably SL-equivalent at RG?) in STEM. I've been applying for Grade 7 roles, which would put me roughly at about the same pay I'm on as a PL. However, I'm not having any success and I'm wondering if I should be applying at a lower grade. A lot of my work is very abstract - basically I just write papers, so I don't have much evidence of any activity within an actual work / product development / client-focused environment.
Has anyone else moved to CS, and did you need to take a pay-cut to get there? I can manage a bit of a drop, but I don't want to be back on minimum wage!

Grade 7 roles are quite hard to get. I would also think about the other things the Civil Service offers such as job security, flexibility and work-life balance. (As well as a good pension and opportunities for progression/development).
But also I would suggest thoroughly researching the Behaviours and skills looked for in the roles you apply for. For example I recently recruited someone and we basically ignored the CV, we were selecting based on the CV.

Look for research related jobs, Scientific Officer roles etc, they may be easier to prove competencies for. Some departments have lots of these type of roles. Grade 7 is a management position so they'll want to see evidence of leading teams etc, as well as everything else.
Half of my part the civil service seems to have a PhD, they don't make you stand out.

If you can’t evidence product development or client focussed activity, don’t apply for roles asking for those skills/behaviours… Apply for research focussed roles or ones where a high level of written comms is needed. Presumably you could evidence influencing skills from grants bids? What about policy? To be blunt would you expect someone from outside academic to arrive straight into a PL/SL position? Or would you expect them to start as a lecturer? Same applies, so maybe look at SEO roles.

The issue is that the roles I've been applying for don't ask for those! It's a user research position. I had informal feedback that these aspects were what I was lacking, though.

Good advice from all about looking more holistically at the whole package: you're right I wouldn't expect someone from academia to come in at PL / SL level. And I'm definitely not expecting my PhD to make me stand out! I'm just trying to calibrate whether I should be going for lower roles instead of parity with the kind of things I'm doing now in academia, and it sounds like that probably is the case.

When I was in civil service I recruited quite a few from teaching etc. You need to demonstrate you are flexible, operationally minded. The risk in their mind is you won’t adapt. Have you got anything outside academia on your cv? As pp said going in at SE0 and proving yourself probably more realistic.

I made the move from academia (SL) to local government (via retraining in a new skill) and I'm looking to move to the CS in the next few years. Even moving from LG I'm likely to have to take a small pay cut to get into CS (which will be offset by a better pension, but will still be a drop in income). I already took a substantial pay cut moving from academia to LG. I'm not sure I'll ever get back to what I was earning as a SL as I'd been in academia for decades and I'm in my 50s, so have limited time to move back up the ladder. But, my quality of life is so much better. The work is really rewarding and (mostly) interesting. I'm using a lot of my skills from academia. My team is lovely. And it's amazing to actually be properly line managed for the first time in my life - that has been quite a revelation!

I've found lots of good advice on the CS sub-Reddits. Many on there recommend going in at a lower grade and working your way up (which apparently can be done relatively quickly via strategic applications for promotion). And the application process is a job in itself - lots of advice on there and other sources (e.g. YouTube vids) on how to complete the application and then the interviews.

Good luck!