Career change - want to join civil service

[Plant2628]

I am in the North. I would like to give it a shot finding a role in the civil service. I am a qualified solicitor. But I do not want a legal role. I work in governance currently. I do a fair bit of line management and training which I like.

I want a change - operational, learning and development, events, policy

I am open to being flexible.

Has anyone any suggestions? There are a lot of jobs - not sure what to target level wise etc or which of the above I would have a good shot at.

Anyone work in any of those areas and can share insight?

Posting here for more traffic.

Thank you everyone!!

Also interested!

I changed career a couple of years ago and joined the Civil Service, it's been a great move for me!

If you are looking at Governance roles, there is usually an expectation of a Project Management qualification, but there are other Project and Delivery focused roles which are less reliant on that (and when you are in the CS there are lots of opportunities to gain new qualifications).

Rather than thinking about specific roles first, it might be useful for you to read up on the professions within the CS. (Nearly) all roles are aligned with a profession, and this cuts across all Departments.

Professions | Civil Service Careers

Once you've identified a profession (or professions) you are interested in, you can then go further into researching the various levels / grades of jobs within them - the idea is that these are all becoming increasingly standardised across departments.

In terms of locations, each Department has a number of locations throughout the UK where they have staff. When roles are advertised on Civil Service jobs, you can filter by office location.

Civil Service job search - Civil Service Jobs - GOV.UK

Also, definitely worth reading up on application and interview techniques for CS roles, as they are quite specific!

Loads of info online about it all, and there's a good reddit forum too

Search on secretariat if you want pure governance roles - there's a huge amount of decision-making in CS and other government departments, sometimes involving millions or billions of pounds, and it all needs a paper trail. If you want to stay in governance then one of the ICSA short courses may help. Also read up on Cabinet Office rules in terms of minutes and running meetings.

Interested more in operational, learning and development or policy roles

Something different

Thank you all for the tips