Professions in the Civil Service
The workforce in the Civil Service is made up of a wide range of professions and includes every kind of professional – from beekeepers and veterinary surgeons, to bomb disposal experts and accountants. There are currently 22 recognised professions, each led by a government head of profession.
To help staff working in the Civil Service progress in their careers, profession-orientated networks have been established. These networks complement the Professional Skills for Government framework (PSG) and aim to support the delivery of public services by setting clear professional standards for each profession and linking them to career pathways.
The networks offer help for staff ranging from training and members newsletters through to vacancy information and detailed skills frameworks that incorporate the PSG.
Finding your professional network
Information about these professional networks is on the Civil Service website:
- Government Communication Network
- Government Economic Service
- Government Finance Profession
- HR Professionalism and Performance
- Government Internal Audit profession
- Government IT Profession
- Government Knowledge and Information Management Network
- Operational Delivery Profession
- Policy Profession
- Government Procurement Service
- Government Social Research service
- Government Science and Engineering
- Government Statistical Service
- Property Asset Management
Developing professional standards
For many professions, standards have already been set and are in use. In other areas such as policy development and operational delivery (where there are no equivalent professions outside the Civil Service), heads of profession in government departments are working with Government Skills to develop standards.
Heads of profession also need to work with departmental HR teams to ensure that standards are embedded into departmental business processes.
‘Embedding Professional Skills’ provides good practice principles to support professions, departments and devolved administrations in incorporating professional skills standards into business processes.
Download Embedding Professional Skills guide [PDF file, 423kb]