Public sector vs high pay city job

[Vixen44]

I've just been offered a civil service job. It's outside London on £50k. I'm also far in the interview process for a similar role in a financial services company in the city which I'm guessing would be £90k (plus potentially a bonus).

It's a significant difference in money but then trade off with longer hours, 4 days in the office vs 2 and I'm scared about the stress level. I calculated living in a commutable distance (I.e. door to door under 1hour) to the city one would be £1000 more in rent.

I have two young kids (age 2 and 4). So I don't want to be completely absent. DH is self employed and works from home so he is around. But he would need to scale back his work somewhat to do the drop offs and pickups.

I don't know if I'm crazy to pass on the higher paid job?
I know on the flip side that the civil service pension is good but I'm struggling to calculate how much difference that actually makes in the long term.

Sorry meant to quote you @blueshoes

What happens at 125?

At £125k you have lost all your personal allowance (effectively paying 60% tax). So your tax rate falls back to 45%.

usually people who are earning 100-125 put everything above 100 into pension to avoid the 60%

once you’ve crossed over 125, it’s worth considering paying the tax and taking the net income else you are forever stuck at 100k

NC for this.

In your position I chose the civil service.

I regret it deeply. Some reasons why.

1. Career progression. There just isn’t much at all. Tbh I have not done too badly on this front (I am senior civil service having joined 20+ years ago) but what I see for younger colleagues now really depresses me- there are very few promotion opps and those there are are allocated on the basis of whether a person has brown- nosed enough, not competence. When I meet a really competent junior person now, in fact, I feel sad for them knowing they likely will not get promoted. This ties in with point 3 below but I honestly feel being honest, intelligent, competent and dedicated in the civil service nowadays means you are less likely to get promoted, because you will be less of a bull shitter and more of a doer.
2. Stress. The main issue for me. Excuse me while I laugh bitterly at the idea that the civil service is stress free. Long hours. Weekends. Evenings. Unreasonable expectations. Bullying. Being shouted at. Constant merry go round of pressure.
3. The culture. A fish rots from the head is a saying I think. The civil service has lost standards and integrity and basic competence. The stupidity and inefficiency you will encounter will be simply staggering. I mean, encountering someone who can use basic punctuation is a pleasant surprise.
4. Pay and pensions. After a while point 1 above makes a real difference. I would be far better off if I had stayed in the private sector- and a large part of my pension is actually final salary (as opposed to career average).

I would be cautious here and not make assumptions based on what the civil service was like 20 + years ago. I have seen huge changes in it during my time in it - flowing ultimately from the wish of politicians to make senior civil servants more likely to obey them without question - and those changes have not been positive at all. If you run an organisation on the basis that to progress to the very highest levels in it you need to be a yes-man (or woman) then ultimately that organisation will reveal very high levels of dysfunction.

It depends on where you are financially.
My kids are 2 and 4.

I'm looking to downshift massively in 2-4 yrs so the civil service job would be up my street.

But i'll move to that in my mid 40s with 80% of my planned net worth established.

If you are fairly young I wouldn’t bank on that CS pension being quite as cushy in 30 years. There’s been loads in the paper recently how gold plated public sector pensions are costing the country billions and they may well be unsustainable in the longer term.

Not worth it for measly £90k salary, unless comes with 50%+ bonus. They'll make you work like a dog, so not worth it if you have 2 toddlers. Really silly for you to even consider.

So I entered the civil service as a SEO in my 20s. I got promoted a few times, still in my 20s.

Using the pension calculator on the website based on my own income to date (averagely high for a young age) - even if I stayed in the civil service until retirement, I was financially better off leaving the civil service and taking a higher paying role in private sector. In my position, my accrued pension wasn’t that notable to not look elsewhere.

When negotiating new roles, I had an employment package in mind. A figure where I could choose to put in as much into my pension (employer matched contributions too), whilst still funding my bills and an upgrade in lifestyle.

Everyone is different though - your situation isn’t the same as you are not a CS. Ultimately I am much happier leaving government. I have left all of my old colleagues in the dust so to speak. It’s not just about salary or pension, but being able to meaningfully progress at work, better culture, less blockers. Having an actual good team around me etc.

What a patronising post.

Calling a £90k salary “measly” and “silly to consider”.

by your logic, £50k is poverty.

I am sorry that this is your experience.

Having worked recruitment in the CS I can guarantee that those have who are successful in permanent promotion (via CS jobs) have done so because they have hit key criterias of the job advert. The first part is anonymous so no-one can say for sure who is who! Bullshitting exists in all jobs, and those that can not articulate their own competence will not succeed in any employment promotions, not just CS

I am actively encouraged to leave at the end of my day, and encouraged not the work longer than needed and there are no weekends required. Yes there are departments that work weekends, but you sign up knowing this in advance, and you get a toil day. I am supported by Senior leadership team daily.

As a parent, I would choose CS every time for my family. I've attended every sports day, every play and never been questioned on time off. It's given freely.

I think perhaps you need to evaluate the department you work for, and if it's right for you. Not every CS job is the same clearly!

I think it's really hard to talk in general terms about the CS. My experience is that departments really vary in terms of culture, hours and quality of work, so you really need to speak to people doing that role in that dept to get a sense of what it's like. If you speak to your recruitment contact I imagine they would have no issue with putting you in touch with someone who you could have a chat with.

Having said that, it is certainly not the case that the CS means taking it easy and my experience is that people work the hours necessary to get the job done, which can mean very long hours at busy times. What's different compared to my previous private sector role is that this is at least seen as something people wish to avoid, and trying to keep your teams' hours reasonable is strongly encouraged. SCS are well aware that the pay is shit and that work/life balance is part of what brings good quality people to the CS, so there is not the same long hours culture as you find in parts of the private sector and if your team is regularly doing significant excess hours that's seen as a failure of management rather than a positive.

The pension is excellent although bear in mind a) you may want to pay AVCs or invest in an ISA in case you want to retire early, as the reduction for drawing your DB pension early is significant, and b) while you can take a tax free lump sum on the CS DB pension, the commutation rate is 1:12 which is really poor. For most people with a normal life expectancy, it tends to work out better not to take the lump sum on the DB element (you can still take the lump sum on any DC pension of course).

The environments are so different- personally it would drive me potty with frustration to work in the CS, and I would also be thinking of the future- increased earnings in the city (£90k isn’t going to be a high paying role, so potential for promotion/ opportunity to be earning double in the medium term) whereas CS will go up 3% or whatever forever and promoted roles won’t pay loads more

Thank you!

Thank you everyone for your thoughts. It's really useful to get some insight into the CS.
I am definitely leaning towards it.
I have worked in financial services some time before kids and whilst there was only a handful of those 1am days, it's the daily stress that really scares me. I was burnt out a few times.

Sorry that came out wrong. £50k is a good salary in the civil service with all the additional perks, but imo £90k is terrible in working in the city..because of the long hours, pressure, stress levels and impact family life.

It might be an admin or similar role, plenty of people work “in the city” (just location obv) in jobs that aren’t high stress or long hours

If you're swayed by the civil service pension I would really enquire more about the city role one too. Financial services pensions can be pretty good, though not quite as high. The last two companies my DH has been at, one matched up to 15% (e.g. if you put in 15% they also put in 15%), the other gave 15% for you putting in 6%.

If you’re leaning towards the civil service job have a chat with them and ask lots of questions about the culture, working conditions (eg is it a role that facilitates genuine work life balance). It is a myth that CS is this Mecca of flexibility etc. Some roles are, many aren’t. Notretired’s post sums it up really. I left recently after the best part of 20 yrs, my last post was a senior role - I hadn’t had a good work life balance for the last 6 or so yrs. My last role was unachievable in the contracted hours, high pressure, stressful.

I don’t think people get that each govt department is a stand alone employer with its own culture roles purpose etc. They all come under the umbrella of CS but you’ll find each dept has different hybrid expectations and T&Cs. Like I said, ask lots of questions.

The pension is awesome though! But not awesome enough to make the culture tolerable.

I’d go for the civil service job and reevaluate in 3-5 years time when kids are at school. Moneys not everything

@shuffleofftobuffalocompletely agree, but it’s very easy to transfer to other departments though. I was in a role that wasn’t ticking the boxes for work life balance, managed to transfer within 6 months of making the decision to the perfect role.

It depends on your personal motivation -I would die of boredom in a CS role. Also makes sense for your DH to take greater role in childcare and the mental load associated with kids/ in the CS role you would take on all of that.

@HappilyFreeNow Oh don’t be daft, you can literally be a spy and be a civil servant, a diplomat in a foreign embassy, saying you’d be bored in a CS role is ridiculous, it covers almost every range of job you can imagine.

But they’re not going to be a spy or a diplomat are they? C’mon.

CS is administration of government. It’s not ridiculous to say you’d find that dull.

@Itsmetheflamingo of course it’s ridiculous to generalise a sector that has upward of 500,000 people. It’s not all admin, we have marine biologists!

Worth considering that if you took the private sector job and you got a bonus that put your total comp over £100k, you start to lose your personal tax allowance quite significantly and will also not qualify for the tax free childcare scheme from the govt

There are literally thousands of different types of CS roles not purely administration of government. From science development to nuclear, labs to ministry of defence.

I find it comical when people say CS would be boring or it's all admin/pen pushing. Reality is very different.