Civil Service Pay by Department
Median Salary by Grade and Department (31 March 2026)
| Department | EO | SEO/HEO | Grade 6/7 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Home Office | £35,410 | £46,270 | £68,320 |
| Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office | £36,500 | £44,490 | £67,030 |
| HM Treasury | £32,560 | £45,200 | £66,130 |
| Ministry of Defence | £31,440 | £45,550 | £65,560 |
| Ministry of Justice | £33,550 | £43,840 | £65,330 |
| Cabinet Office | £31,010 | £38,600 | £65,050 |
| Department for Business and Trade | £34,230 | £45,430 | £64,930 |
| HM Revenue and Customs | £32,230 | £40,520 | £64,620 |
| Department for Transport | £30,960 | £41,940 | £63,640 |
| Department for Work and Pensions | £32,140 | £39,600 | £62,970 |
| Department for Education | £31,480 | £42,810 | £62,340 |
| Department of Health and Social Care | £33,950 | £43,520 | £62,140 |
| Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs | £30,420 | £43,080 | £62,000 |
Civil service pay below the Senior Civil Service is delegated: each department negotiates its own pay ranges within the Cabinet Office pay remit, and they settle in different months. There is no national scale, so the figures here are published medians — what people at this grade actually earn — rather than a rate you are entitled to.
This is where delegated pay becomes visible. At the same reporting level, the published medians differ by thousands: £46,270 at SEO/HEO in the Home Office against £38,600 in the Cabinet Office, and £35,410 at EO in the Home Office against £30,420 at DEFRA.
Two cautions before reading too much into it. The published groupings combine SEO with HEO, and Grade 6 with Grade 7, so a department with proportionally more senior staff in a group looks better paid. And location matters — departments with more London-based roles will show higher medians because London pay is built into departmental ranges.
The calculator carries all 149 organisations in the published table, so you can pick your own employer and benchmark your salary against it.