Civil service jobs explained and their role within the public sector

The civil service is a branch of government and its bureaucracy, employees with civil service jobs are known as civil servants. They will work within all branches of the government apart from the armed forces, although there are many public sector jobs available in say administration in the Ministry of Defence. Many graduates get civil service jobs straight away in the civil service administration, as the government has many graduate recruitment schemes. Civil servants in effect implement and deliver the policies which the government of the day decides on.

It should be noted that someone who is employed in a QUANGO [which stands for quasi-autonomous national government organisation] is not considered as a civil service employee, but is considered as a public sector employees. This is because QUANGOS are considered as non departmental public bodies, and not public administration. The civil service is also sometimes known as the public service for obvious reasons. Now some public sector employees are not known as civil servants, there is some debate over this, for instance NHS employees are not known as civil servants. Currently in the civil service of the United Kingdom there are about 173 different departments, now each department is separate from others and has its own budget and its own recruitment department.

Links to useful related topics:

Civil Service Fast Stream

Links to CVs:

CV examples

How to write a CV

Interview questions and answers