Civil Service location frustration

[FoxHedgehogBadger]

Not an AIBU or question, just a rant really.
I’m civil service, London-based, looking for a new job at the moment.
There’s a big drive to push civil service jobs out of London, which I do understand the reasoning behind.
Here’s my big frustration: So many jobs are advertised, with the location given as something like “Birmingham, Bristol, Cardiff, Leeds, Manchester, Milton Keynes, Newcastle, Sheffield”.
So basically, they are not trying to build a team or department in a specific place, you are going to work in a local hub office, probably sitting without any direct colleagues.
So if the job can actually be done anywhere, why not just let me apply to do that in London!

At the other end of the scale, I have seen a job I fancy with an ALB within the same department as mine but they have said that it can only be based at a limited number of locations, the nearest of which is 3.5 hours away by train. It’s frustrating because someone from that ALB works in the same department office as me, but apparently this job cannot be done from our office.

I am going to contact them to ask if they will consider applications based at smaller regional offices. Otherwise they’re significantly limiting their pool of applicants.

I possibly work in one of the jobs you have seen.
Very strict on the 60% attendance but incredibly flexible otherwise. Apart from when it can’t be!

My mentor was a child of immigrants and she was actually the one that raised it, she went to Oxbridge, her face looks different to the crowd, but she has the way of speaking that is recognised and familiar in the CS. Literally every female SCS in my org (last year, may have changed this year) was Oxbridge, but not the men. Men are allowed a lower bar of course

Appreciate you might be able to separate class and Oxbridge, I know not everyone who goes is middle class, but usually by the time you’ve been, you’ve learned to speak and meld with middle class professionals which the CS loves. CS SCS has always skewed towards Oxbridge.

And of course there’s not necessarily anything wrong with that perse, I appreciate a good education is a pretty fair bar to have in public service lol, but considering we work for the public it does create skewed policy I think. I’m pleased we’re seeing a growth in apprenticeships into the CS.

The cost of having an office in London is significantly higher than the cost in other locations. The CS dept where I work doesn’t advertise many London posts as we’re moving to a smaller office so less desk space available.

I know plenty of sole breadwinners in GLS. That's about cutting your cloth surely?

Errr it would be a >75% pay cut so not much cloth left. Willing to bet that the people you’re thinking of either benefited from family help for eg deposit, bought in London more than 10 years ago, have no kids or all 3.

No. But many live outside London
There's heaps of people in GLS that don't come from wealth

They don’t need to have come from wealth to have benefited from cheaper property prices and/or no tuition fees and/or lower cost of living when younger. I find it hard to believe that there are significant numbers of the people you are describing who are under 40. Things have massively changed in a short space of time.

A long commute to never see my family doesn’t really give me the work life balance I’m looking for, if there is an 80% in-office requirement (the case for all the jobs I’ve seen recently). It’s not really sustainable any more for normal people.