To leave the Civil Service?

[HungerGamess]

I joined the Civil Service when I turned 24 and I’m 29 now. My pension age is 68, so there’s potentially 44 years of service to contribute towards my Civil Service pension. I’m on the alpha scheme and apparently if I stayed on the same salary I would be eligible for a £55k annual pension.

Since I joined my department, I have been promoted to SEO grade. I enjoyed my career to begin with but I have landed in a team with a horrendous culture & several ongoing legal matters. Given the contentious matters I am aware of, I don’t feel another role at the same department would be any better (although I might consider working at a different government department).

I applied for a few roles outside of government and have secured a dream role with a £12k pay rise - which would equal a Grade 7 salary in my current department. It’s aligned with my long-term career interests, and I would have scope for promotion using this experience.

Aibu here - would a £12k pay rise be worth the loss of pension if I left? I haven’t really thought about the pension I would miss out on as that feels so far away. Particularly as I am unhappy at work in the meantime!

Sounds like an obvious one. Probably better prospects in the new job as well. The CS pension is about 27% so you can work it out.

Very few people do 44 years of uninterrupted service and that pension estimate doesn’t sound right. It’s higher than SO salary!

I’m biased, in that I work for the NHS and am likely to be sucked into DHSC with the merger. I don’t like how the civil service works, and I have seen very closely over the last five years what DHSC is like and I want no part in it whatsoever. The government talk about waste in the NHS, they need to look closer to home. It’s another level entirely, but they refuse to deal with it.

I am not convinced Reform will get in, but the civil service will be in for brutal reform if they do. I’d run as fast as you can.

I joined the Civil Service in 1988. At the time I was just grateful for a job. 37 years later I'm still in service and have 4 years to go until I can collect my State Pension and my Alpha. I was lucky in that, when I joined, there was a better final salary pension which I collected when I was 60. I am also lucky that I have worked in the same building with much the same people all my career so many of my current and ex colleagues have become close friends. I am also lucky that for the last 5 years (or so) I have been doing a job that I find interesting and fulfilling and work with a team of lovely supportive people. The family friendly policies are real, although I never did, many of my colleagues work term time only. I never had problems getting time off work to care for sick children and management were very supportive when I was caring for my elderly parents & MIL, but then I didn't take the mickey and saved up my flexi leave for emergency caring responsibilities.

However, I would not recommend it as a career choice for young people anymore. The new Alpha pension is no-where as generous as the old Classic and, as it's a career average pension, discriminates against people who reduce their hours or take time out to care for children and/or older parents or partners. The current climate focusses on league tables, targets that aren't targets (they say that they are 'benchmarks' or 'aspirations' not targets) and I know that many staff feel undervalued and stressed.

Only you can decide what is best for you and your family, but I have always felt that the grass isn't necessarily greener.

Sounds great - can you take a career break from the civil service rather than resiging? It would give you some time to decide. Good quality external experience could really help with promotion if you did go back.

I'm a civil servant, and I think we do sometimes think that the private or third sector will be much more efficient, less disfunctional than a government department, but hearing from friends in the private sector as they have progressed through their cateers, I'm not so sure.

OK I just checked and you’re right. 2.32% of salary a year so in 44 years you’d get over 100% of average salary. That’s amazing! I’d still take the other job though. More money now.

It’s from the pension modeller on the myCSP website - I work for a high paid CS dept

I’d urgently book in with a specialist pension adviser.

In general, if you’re feeling like this, I would definitely move. But you should have the financial information before you do so.

Going forward the likelihood is that CS won't get such enormous pension paid into their pots but get more paid now. If Reform gets in which looks likely they are going to cut back on pension contributions for CS.

@EnglishRainim in the same boat. 23 years NHS service and I don’t want to become a civil servant.

Oh god no that £12,000 will not bridge the gap, you’ll need to be much more considered if it is to be a financial decision to make sure you make an informed choice.

Before jumping ship have you seen what else is around? When you’ve got your foot in the door in the CS there is so much opportunity, just because you don’t like your current job doesn’t mean there isn’t another one out there.

BUT saying all that, you shouldn’t take a job purely for the pension, the most financially sound decision isn’t necessarily the right decision for you. You have a lot of working years ahead of you and you don’t want to fall into a pension trap in your 20s! My CS pension has always been the cherry on the cake, it gives me a lot of reassurance, but it is not THE reason I remain.

Thank you. How much would this cost, would you know?

Yes, you’re right. To be honest I never really considered the pension much before but it’s genuinely the only thing I would “miss out” on I suppose.

I don’t feel I can stay in my current role for much longer though, so I don’t feel I have the ability to wait around for a better CS role to present itself. I’m sick of the culture to be honest, I have experienced the worst of the worst in my time here! I don’t think I have felt happiness since 2023, it’s that bad.

Plus I have in demand tech skills, so I’m fairly confident my salary will rise. This job with a £12k pay rise gives me exposure to certain tech platforms that I don’t have access to within CS (due to the outdated technology), and having strong experience in this would move my career forward.

I would suggest looking at roles with other Government departments too. But I’d probably move - you can always rejoin, and probably at a higher grade. (Although aren’t the higher grades on a common pay scale rather than department specific.)

Why would you wait for another role? I mean look around on CSJ for other roles in other departments, if you’ve been in a few years and are tech based you may be able to look at G7.

Not trying to dissuade you from trying outside, but I would rinse the inside for all it’s worth to start with. I am tech based as well and what I have found the CS useful for is training (they’ve paid out over £20,000 in professional courses for me in 5 years!) and the tech sector is pretty volatile out there right now.

I guess I am just saying I would carefully see what opportunities you have on the inside first, the private sector isnt going anywhere but it could be hard to get back in (although less of an issue with tech I think, digital roles tend to be exempt from recruitment freezes etc).

That’s fine, it’s good to hear a devil’s advocate!

I’d have to wait as the application process takes a long time in CS, plus none of the jobs out right now in my area are suitable. I only have 2 departments near me.

I’m a badged Data Scientist and I’m wanting a technical/leadership role as opposed to any role at that grade. I already feel kind of pigeonholed in an unsuitable role for my career.

I think CS can be generous with training but the offer in my directorate is basic. I have a degree that’s more technical so the courses on offer, don’t really help my career (eg Excel training courses when I studied LLM models).

If I was in tech and had options to move into the private sector, I would definitely take it, with the caveat that the private sector market right now is terrible.

I showed this to DH and he said that data science leadership roles in tech can pay silly money. While you might only be getting £12k more, there's a lot more potential in the future. Tech CS roles are notorious for terrible pay - DH is on around £180k in the private sector, but jobs advertised in the CS pay around £80k at his level.

Oh I would definitely move in your case. A specialist pension adviser in my field would do a comprehensive session for about £500 but there might well be options for you either internally or via your union.

No I understand and if you are unhappy you certainly shouldn’t stick around, especially if it’s not expanding your career.

Trying not to be too outing myself, but I assume you are aware there are some areas in government with much larger and impactful data science communities than others…some at the heart of government, these could be really interesting but not always readily available to hop into. If you do go into the private sector I would keep an eye on these departments as I am sure you’d be a good candidate with a mixture of experience. They often WFH…

Thanks everyone for your great advice.

Things have moved quite quickly.
I have slept on it, and just accepted the new role. My department actually sent a reference over immediately (unheard of efficiency!) and I have a start date now.

I think I’ll keep applying for different roles, ultimately the more I get paid the more the pension is offset…but who knows, maybe I’ll even return to CS in the future. I’m just excited to be doing something different.