Civil Service job ad salary range?

[newhomein2025]

Hello - I’m hoping for some advice re an advertised salary for a role. It says:
‘Salary £25,235 - £28,131
Our starting salary is £25,235 with the maximum salary on this
scale being £28,131 as of January 2025 (subject to future pay awards).’

If your current salary is £28800, and you have lots of transferable experience, could you expect to receive the rate of £28,131? Or does everyone start on £25,235? Thanks.

Can I also ask about CS pensions? Ad says:
‘Alongside your salary of £25,235, Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service contributes £7,310 towards you being a member of the Civil Service Defined Benefit Pension scheme. Find out what benefits a Civil Service Pension provides.’

It’s just shy of 29%. So do you actually get that much added to your pension every year?

Increments disappeared in most central departments around 2013. I know because I received a lump sum at the time to be bought out of my contract and into the new one. It was a George Osborne initiative I believe.

I have supported someone to start above the bottom of the scale, but she had evidence of her previous salary and I considered she had good skills. She was so good she was promoted in under six months.

To add, on increments, they were abolished ages ago which is partly why we now have so much churn and people chasing promotion, often before they are really ready, because it is the only way to earn more.

Re the pension and 29%... sort of as an equivalent. It's a defined benefit and it is full salary at 43 years or 1/43. This is 2.23% year on year you essentially bank.

So on 26,000 at 2.32% you lock in £603 for each year worked at your retirement age for the rest of your life.

Say you did 10 years, that's just over £6k a year.

To get that in private sector you need a pot of money and realistically can only draw 4% a year if you want it to last your retirement. So to ensure you can pay out 6k a year, you'd need a pot of £150,000

(£150,000 x .04= 6,000)

That is why the pensions are so good.

If you want to understand the pension better and why most of us are willing to work for a lower wage to get them, you can do your research on civil service pensions site. The one you'd be in is called alpha. You should consider this and the whole package before you make your decision.

That said, as a G7 and a specialist, I was able to negotiate.

@HairOfFineStraw Gosh, it’s quite complicated, thanks for the explanation.

If it's copfs/Scottish government then you will get an annual increment until you reach the Top of the pay scale. After the first year you will also get any pay rise that has been agreed. It's highly unusual but not impossible not to start at the bottom of the scale, but you would have to have a really exceptional case. And yes that employer's contribution to your pension sounds about right. Once you've been in post two years (generally) you can apply for promotion. Particularly at the lower grades if you are any good, it's not at all unusual to be successful in gaining promotion several times without ever reaching the top of one pay scale - so you might move up the first three steps on the pay scale for your band, get promotion and move straight to the bottom of the next band . (I work for Scottish government and am pretty sure COPFs are part of the SG bargaining unit)

Looking more into the salary - it says:

Rewarding success:
We offer performance-related pay. Most positions have a starting salary and a pay scale you can progress through, as you gain experience and meet objectives.

Pay scales:
The salaries below are reviewed annually and reflect salaries from 1 January 2025. We have recently increased salaries for several grades to reflect the levels paid by the Scottish Government.

Band B:
Max -2: 25,235
Max -1: 26,858
Max: 28,131

@nonevernotever Yes, it’s COPFS. Thanks!

That’s great news OP, sounds like they offer pay progression so a) I suspect you’ll be in for more of a fighting chance to negotiate b) will end up there anyway.

When I started you got an increment every year until you reached the top of the pay scale, now it is mainly performance related.

Reas about the Alpha pension scheme. It’s one of the main benefits of working for the civil service.

The pension is excellent. I’ve done 24.5yrs so far, and love looking at the pension modeller on the website. It’s pretty amazing, though i’ll have done about 40yrs service if I retire at 67.

Looks like there are still incremental rises in Scotland. There’s a lot of opportunity for progression, I am in London so lots of departments to choose from if I want to progress / have a change. Many people start as an AO, and soon go up the ladder. I’ve seen a few jump from AO - HEO, skipping EO.

Thanks for the update @NineLivesKat I was in the CS over two decades ago and I assumed things had stayed the same 😄

Wow that's really shitty isn't it. They advertise a range but you don't reach the top, local government seems a lot better then in that case. We had two big pay rises the last 2 years too. I realise it had been pretty stagnant before that though! My friend works in civil service she said the interview process is strange the way they mark things in behaviours, she said she'd never go for a higher job even though she's more than capable because of the marking system.

I work in local govt. Came into a role 2020 at bottom of scale and went up to max. then took on an assistant and had my role "job evaluated" to a higher scale with the proviso that I start on the top of the range. It worked because I do a niche job. If it is a co-ordinator roll or support role, unlikely to work. I am a mid manager just into high tax bracket - if that helps.

agree. It's psychometric testing, if you have the slightest neurodivergence (even dyslexia or ADHD) you will fail. It's discriminatory but the civil service know best..🤔

I appreciate that they’re saying “here is the salary range for this role in the future” but I think jobs should only be able to advertise a range that they will actually pay a new employee. Which in this case sounds like a single non-negotiable figure, and not a range.

it means that in addition to your (usually 8% individual contribution) they will top up 29% so it means that potentially 37% of your monthly salary is going into a pension, this is calculated AFTER tax and NIC deductions, so 37% of net salary

Your friend is being a bit daft then, frankly!

Your friend isn’t going for a job because she doesn’t have the confidence, not because she thinks the making system is daft.

The salary ranges are needed because lots of people aren’t actually on the bottom. The way cost of living annual rises are applied means people are on all sorts of different salaries, then you have people doing level transfers across departments that shouldn’t lose salary but need to exist within a range. You also have people on the top end of the salary scale from when pay progression existed. I agree it should be made clearer that pay progression doesn’t work how it does in many other organisations, but the salary scales are still required and utilised.