Can't bio service job offer. Advice needed!!

[MrsArchchancellorRidcully]

Hi. I had a civil service finance job offer a couple of weeks ago which I queried due to the salary offer of £39000. I was previously on quite a bit more and got made redundant in July this year.

They have come back with an offer of £45000, which I assume means they like me! The caveat is that as I hit the top threshold of pay (£46,800 I think) for that grade I won't earn anymore without a promotion.

My question is, is this a good offer (my experience is all in the private sector) and does the min and max salary bands move with annual pay rises. Eg if there was a 1% pay rise offer, the min and max would go up by 1% accordingly?

Any thoughts gratefully accepted!

Well done that's great, it's not easy to get put at the top of the band. So yes essentially they are putting you right at the top so there won't be anywhere to progress to unless you're promoted, but that's the situation for all civil servants at the bottom of the band as they don't use them much anymore, not annually as it used to be. Promotion is pretty much the only way to increase pay.

There are usually annual cost of living increases, these are being reintroduced next year but are usually less than the inflation rate.

There is a retention payment they can agree to if you want to be paid more and they want to keep you, I'm assuming this is still a possibility if you're at the top of your band.

It's been my main motivator for promotion tbh!

(So yes the min and max bands usually go up the same although my last ALB did allocate different percentages to different grades last year)

Yes its a good offer, it is quite rare to be able to negotiate where you start within the banding so they must be see you as an asset :) if there's a pay award then yes the top of the banding will rise so you won't be penalised if you are already at the top, but you won't get any individual increments (if that makes sense). if you wanted to progress and be promoted you could probably do so in a shortish timescale as they evidently see you as being mid to top capability wise.

I also went in at the top of the grade, so yay us for negotiating!

Pay offers are negotiated every year in every agency. As a general rule, top of the pay grade get the least and the bottom of the pay grade the most.

At the top, you'll be offered, say, a 1-2% payrise but that'll be about it unless you work for an agency who do pay bonuses based on your annual performance grade.

I get the minimal % and my agency doesn't do the bonuses.

That’s a very, very good offer for CS! Congrats 😄

Re the pay rises, incremental pay basically doesn’t exist anymore. If you are near top of band your increases will usually be minimal at departmental pay reviews.

Honestly you’ve got a great offer there and I would take it, go in, have a look round and then head for the next grade ASAP. I suspect they might think you’re more G7 than SEO hence the great offer, especially if you’re bringing considerable finance experience with you. it really doesn’t happen too often.

Worth noting also that bonuses in CS are usually only given for exceptional work, it’s not a given/contractual like in some private sector places - generally they are quite unfair as the higher grades get the higher awards (£1k max) and it relies on people nominating you and a panel agreeing it. Some delta (like the one I work for) have foregone that pot of money in order to generally increase pay for everyone - so we can get £100 voucher max as a “bonus” but our pensionable pay is better as a result.