Senior Civil Servants: Recruitment
(asked on 2nd September 2026) - View Source
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask His Majesty's Government what proportion of appointments to the Senior Civil Service since 1 April 2026 have been made to candidates whose principal previous employment was (1) elsewhere in the Civil Service, (2) the wider public sector, and (3) the private or third sector; and how those proportions compare with (a) 2023-24, (b) 2024–25, and (c) 2025–26.
Cabinet Office does not yet hold data centrally for Senior Civil Service entrants after 1st April 2026, though individual departments may hold this data for their own Senior Civil Servants.
The following table shows the proportion of centrally-managed Senior Civil Service entrants from (1) elsewhere in the Civil Service, (2) the wider public sector, and (3) the private or third sector from 2023-24 to 2025-26:
Table 1: Proportion of SCS entrants by recruitment sector 2023-24 to 2025-26
| Proportion of Entrants | ||
Financial Year | Government department | Private sector | Voluntary and wider public sector |
2023-24 | 79.7% | 10.3% | 10.0% |
2024-25 | 78.6% | 11.0% | 10.4% |
2025-26 | 75.2% | 13.8% | 11.0% |
Source: Cabinet Office SCS database
2025-26 figures are provisional and may change.