To ask Public or Private Sector - which to choose?

[needabreak5]

DH and I have always worked in the Private Sector (for a number of organisations).

Generally the roles we have had have been long hours, limited holiday, unpaid overtime, minimum pension, risk or redundancy, being available out of hours. But individual pay increases based on performance, good ‘perks’ - gifts, parties, for example my organisation this year is giving everyone £1500 Xmas bonus, plus a hamper and a party. DH not as generous but does still get nice things ‘on the company’.

DH has applied and been offered a public sector role in the same industry he is in at the moment. his industry is quite volatile and he feels the civil service role may be more secure in a recession. It’s less pay, better pension, more holiday - we have 2 young DC and I’m thinking this might suit us better.

If you have worked a similar role in both private and public sectors which do you prefer. Do you think job security is the main advantage of public sector?

You've summed it up perfectly with better pension, less pay, more AL.
DH worked in both, I only worked in Public sector.
When DH was in Private, he skipped having a pension for 2 yrs and we paid off most of the mortgage.
I suppose it also depends on the field. In DH and mine, everyone who worked in the Private sector had previously worked in the Public sector, most knew each other from there as well.
It was lovely not having to deal with moronic enquiries/moaning etc from the Public, Councillors and MPs.

I've always worked in the Civil Service & I am always astounded when people leave & go to work in the private sector when they appear to be treated so badly. Yes it is less money but the other advantages outweigh that.

You will hear stories all the time that the Civil Service is scaling back & taking on less people / letting people go but it's been 20 odd years & I still have a job and always will.

1 Advantage is that once you're in, you're safe & you can apply to any department & move easily between them. You can also apply for ANY job that's advertised & stand a good chance of getting it, even with no/limited experience.

Local government worker here. Not sure job security exists as you might imagine in the public sector anymore. However you won't be turfed out overnight like a hapless Twitter engineer.

I’m a civil servant. It’s definitely a flexible job if you’ve got a family. I wouldn’t say it’s not stressful though, guess it depends what grade you are, and what you do but I often feel the pressure. But I wouldn’t choose to work in the private sector personally over the public

I’ve recently moved from public (local government) to private sector (big tech). I haven’t been here long enough to know if it was the right decision but the main factors in my decision were:

• opportunity for promotion. In my role I couldn’t get promoted unless my manager left, which I didn’t think he had any plans to do; and the fact that moving up in my area would mainly involve managing more and more people which I don’t enjoy.
• pay. I’ve gone into a more junior role but am paid 20% more than I was as a middle manager in local government. If I could get promoted back to manager level I would be on about twice what I was previously on.
• ”vibrancy.” I’m sure it’s not the case in all local governments but I found that a lot of the time people were very quick to say ‘no’ to things, decisions were extremely hierarchical and processes even for simple things took forever. Time will tell if the new role is better in that sense but I did my research and got the sense that the company I’ve joined will be quicker and more vibrant.

The pension was great, and the main thing that would have kept me there. But I’m only 30 and didn’t want that to be the main motivation for another ~40 years of my career, I figure I can always move back to the public sector in 10/15/20 years to rebuild a bit more of a DB entitlement.

Which agency is he looking at?

I'm public sector and have been for 21 years in different roles and different agencies. I'm not badly paid, it's a good pension, 30 days AL, great flexibility, but sod all promotional prospects unless I'm willing to move from Cornwall to London and work in an office there (never going to happen!).

There's a lot to be said for the job security. We're going through huge change again right now, but there will be no compulsory redundancies because they cost money 😂. I'm very twitchy about my role and where I'll be required to work, as it was fully remote when they employed me and I'm not happy to go into an office full time ever again....

I've worked in both private and public sector. Private was longer hours, better paid, more stress and I do agree with a pp about more of a "buzz". Private sector suited me in my 20s but public sector fits better with a family. I do think about returning to the private sector when my kids are a bit older.

I’ve worked in both. Started in CS, worked in private sector, financial services for about 10 years, then back to CS.

I was lucky though and had good employers in the private sector, they were fairly traditional companies and treated their employees well.

CS has the edge on flexibility and leave and the pension is much much better.

I switched to public from private a couple of years ago after around 25 years in private , I won’t be leaving public again , I get paid more than I did , pension is brilliant and there are so many opportunities to move around - I’m in my third role now and it’s encouraged to develop.

I've worked in both.

Personally I've found that much more is expected of you in the private sector, longer hours etc.

However I HATED working in the public sector. I found it very disorganised and nowhere near as "driven" as the private sector!

The main advantage of public sector is flexibility. They have to offer this because the pay is poor.

I get 33 days annual leave plus bank holidays. Flexi time that I can take as full or half days holidays. Ability to buy and sell holidays. A brilliant pension. I do have to work late sometimes or at night when kids in bed to meet deadlines but I do get the time back and it's maybe only once or twice a month.

The bad bits. My pay has hardly moved in 7 yrs. it was a great when I joined as a newly qualified accountant but now it's way below market rate. This yr I got zero pay rise. Most years it is 1% or below. No bonus or well it's pathetic not even worth mentioning think couple of hundred pound and then taxed. I used to get 10-12% in my previous private sector job in financial services.

The only reason I stay is because I'm part time and it's pretty impossible to get another role at my level part time. I wfh and I get to nip out to school things and just have a lot of flexibility.

Better work life balance in public sector.

What about all the other important things? Like work culture, getting things done, beaurocracy and pen pushing. If he doesn’t mind the low bar in public sector, he should go for it. But if he wants to keep growing as a professional and retain his will to live, he should steer well clear.

It could be worth going public sector for now as you can transfer in your private pension.

I am university professional services and like many others am looking to go back into private sector after being here 5 years. The university pension was totally decimated a few years ago and to new entrants is no better than a decent defined contribution, add to that being paid 1/3rd less than the market rate for private sector equivalent, jobs advertised with the same (generous) holidays and the 3% pay rise this year makes it an easy decision.

I get frustrated by the pay scales and the lack of opportunities to get a meaningful bonus. I do an extremely highly skilled job well - as do many of my colleagues - yet there are also a lot of people just cruising who earn the same as us due to being on the same payscale. There is a lack of professionalism that they just wouldn’t be able to get away with in the private sector. And so, so much money is wasted here.

So yes, private sector for pay rise, bonus and seeing my efforts rewarded. But I totally understand why many public sector workers are striking. Any employer offering less than at least 7% when inflation is so high should hang their heads in shame.

Just remember not all the public sector is equal. People on Mumsnet are always assuming public sector means civil service and working in local government for eg is a different experience. I work in a local government aligned agency that is very specifically not civil service. If I want to apply for a CS job I'm on the outside applying with everyone else.

I've worked in both, on balance public sector is better for family life, but that's also because I've been here 10 years and am on a union. I never worked as hard as I ever did during the pandemic (I'm not in healthcare either) though, I had no work life balance at all then.

In your particular situation I’d go public

For me personally, always private, but then again I’ve never had to work long hours, be overly stressed and am paid very well with a 20% non contributory pension - a good private organisation will always win against public imo, but if you’re not able to get those roles then that’s decision made surely

It really depends on the organisation. Small private companies, public sector would probably always win out in overall packages. Once you get into larger companies there can be a lot of good benefits. I’m now private sector and have a pension my employer contributes 19% of salary towards with me not obligated to contribute anything at all if I didn’t want to, which is pretty good and not uncommon in my industry. Leave can often be only a couple of days lower - my current entitlement is only four days less than when I worked for the Civil Service. I’m happy to swap that for higher salary, a 20% annual bonus, average annual 8% pay rise, private healthcare, lavish social events paid for by the company and so on. Plus public sector workplace cultures are utterly toxic - my reason for leaving the Civil Service after 18 months, and few of my friends who work in the NHS have anything good to say about the culture. That’s a huge one, you can’t put a price on happiness at work.

Much better quality of life in public sector. Your husband would be MAD to turn down the job imo.

I found public sector so boring. So many rules and bloody policies 😖

I went back to private and was amazed in a 30 minute meeting with my director, we nutted out a fairly decent policy for a whole (new region). The director had authority to approve and so she did and said at the end of the meeting, that's how you get stuff done here, and it's great!

But my experience of private (10+ years all up) is in tech which is different from financial services etc.

We have above statutory annual leave benefit which helps too 🙂

Can you give us an idea of the sector, OP?

I left the private sector for the public sector 20 years ago and wish I had done it sooner. Yes there is job security though but it depends where you work as my dept pulled out of some locations altogether. Unless you mess up badly by breaching security etc, you can normally expect a job for life.

I am a civil servant and remember on joining I expected to be surrounded by jobsworths, but was impressed by the commitment and skills of colleagues even in badly paid junior clerical roles.

The pension is not as good as it used to be and the pay is not great, but annual leave and flexi plus the option for special leave in some circumstances is invaluable. I couldn’t have managed 2 small children and working full time otherwise.

I progressed through the grades from AO to grade 7 and I doubt I would’ve had that opportunity in the private sector.

I have had one experience with a bullying manager but on the whole I have had kind, supportive and committed colleagues and managers.

I went from senior private sector to senior public sector about six years ago and am seriously considering returning to the private sector.

There's no money in the public sector to recruit, so when the workload increases the expectation is that the staff step up. I work ridiculous hours, no bonus, not much of a pay rise and no budget to recruit. Public sector has huge staff retention issues at the minute due to this.

Depends where the job is I suppose as not everywhere is the same.

The pension isn't what it was a decade ago either, in fact my public sector pension isn't as beneficial as the one I left behind.

I left for a work/life balance and was prepared to take the hit on salary etc., for that but it isn't at all what I expected.

For the past couple of years, I have thanked God every day that I chose to stay and work in Local govt . I did 20 years before running my own business and have now retired early with a wonderful LG pension that I can happily live on for the rest of my days. I got more holidays, more training on the job, more flexibility, more opportunities and now a lovely pension

Do people joining now have the same pension eligibility, though? Public sector and CS pension schemes are a lot less generous for new entrants today than they were twenty or thirty years ago, so OP’s OH basing a decision on a “wonderful” pension is more than likely incorrect.