The average salary in the civil service has risen by 6% in the last year, according to the latest annual civil service statistics.
The 2026 Civil Service Statistics release shows that the median salary in the civil service has gone up from £35,680 as of April 2025 to £37,820 as of April 2026, an increase of £2,140.
The median salary has increased across all grades, ranging from 3.2% at SCS level to 5.2% at AA/AO level.
Looking grade by grade, the median salary is now:
- SCS: £95,540 (up from £92,540)
- G6/G7: £65,830 (up from £63,630)
- HEO/SEO: £43,930 (up from £42,060)
- EO: £32,140 (up from £30,980)
- AA/AO: £28,020 (up from £26,640)
The median salary is higher for full-time staff (£38,770) compared to part-time staff, who earn a median salary of £32,140.
Women have a median salary of £34,580, lower than the £37,210 for men. The percentage difference in the median salaries of male and female civil servants is 5.7%. This is more pronounced for part-time civil servants, where men earn 9.5% more than women, whereas among full-time staff men earn 3.2% more than women.
The Cabinet Office's statistical bulletin on the 2026 statistics notes that "salary differences between the sexes are partly explained by their relative representations across the grades".
Grade inflation a key contributor to the increase
Cabinet Office's bulletin on the statistics notes that the increase in median salary represents the average across all staff "and may not be representative of changes affecting individuals or their salaries".
One of the reasons for this year's increase is the 2025-26 delegated pay remit of 3.25%. Another big reason is the continuing grade inflation in the civil service.
The percentage of civil servants working at the most junior grades (AA/AO) has fallen each year since 2016, when it stood at 37.9%, and is now less than a quarter of the workforce for the first time (24.5%).
Much of the increase in seniority has come in the middle ranks, with the percentage of civil servants working at grades 6 and 7 now 16.7%, compared to 9.7% in 2016, and HEO/SEO officials now representing 31.3% of the workforce, up from 24.1% in 2016.
In recent years, grade inflation has not come at the senior civil sevice level, with the SCS remaining a flat 1.5% proportion of the civil service for the last five years. Going further back, it has contributed to grade inflation, rising from 1.2% in 2016.
At EO level, representation has remained fairly similar over the last decade, dropping from 27.0% in 2016 to to 26.1% in 2026.
Jack Worlidge, an associate director researcher in the Institute for Government's civil service team, suggested in a blog post last year that the shift towards a civil service that is significantly more weighted towards the middle and more senior ranks could be partly explained by "a necessary or inevitable shift in the grade structure of the civil service, for example reflecting the automation of administrative roles".
He said there was "clear evidence for this" in some departments. But he said "grade inflation" was the "major cause".
"This has occurred through officials being promoted earlier than they otherwise would have been, and roles being advertised at higher grades, as ways to recruit and retain the best officials in an environment of inflation-eroded pay," Worlidge said.