The civil service has grown by 7,000 staff over the past year despite pledges by past governments and the current administration to cut costs and numbers.
There were 549,660 civil servants at the end of March, putting Whitehall’s size at a 20-year high, with the Department for Work and Pensions being the leading employer overall.
However, the rise in numbers is less than the increase in 2023-2024 when headcount and full-time equivalents (FTEs) both jumped by around 23,000.
The main reason for the lower increase is that the year to 31 March 2025 saw lower levels of new entrants to the civil service overall compared with the year before. The number of new entrants in 2024-25 was 44,310 – down from 63,330 in 2023-24. The lower numbers joining the civil service came as several departments introduced recruitment freezes in 2024-25.
Civil service
Thousands of civil service roles to leave London
There was also a slight fall in the number of officials leaving the civil service: 38,610 people left in 2024-25, while 39,585 departed in 2023-24. This small drop – combined with the numbers leaving being a proportion of a bigger civil service – saw the turnover rate fall from 7.5% to 7.1% and the resignation rate fall from 4.2% to 3.6%.
The latest figures also show that 75% of staff are in management roles and above, compared with 60% a decade ago. Civil service middle management, known as grades 6 and 7, grew 5% last year after doubling over the previous decade. Growth in the top ranks of Whitehall also accelerated, up 3.2% last year.
While pay at each rank of the service has fallen significantly in real terms, because there are more senior staff proportionately, the overall pay bill is now higher than it was in 2010.
Civil service numbers fell to a low of 418,340 in 2016 before beginning to rise again as government took on more responsibility as a result of Brexit.
Women now make up 49% of the senior civil service. A record 18% of civil servants are from ethnic minorities, up from 11% a decade ago, while the proportion of disabled staff has doubled to 18%.
The Department for Work and Pensions was the largest employer with a headcount of 96,890, according to the figures published today, up from 93,815 in 2024, marginally more than the 96,210 in the Ministry of Justice, up from 95,990 in 2024.
This was largely because of its high number of part-time workers. When it comes to full-time equivalent headcount the MoJ remains the biggest department with 90,100, while DWP has 84,415 FTE staff.
A third (32.4%) of DWP staff work part-time; only topped by HM Land Registry’s 34%. At the MoJ, 17% of staff work part-time, which is below the civil service average of 19.4%.
HMRC was the third largest civil service employer with 70,925 staff.
A government spokesman said: “These increases are driven by operational frontline roles. We have set out plans to reduce back office costs by 15% over the next five years, delivering savings of over £2bn a year by 2030 and targeting spending on frontline services.
“We have already announced a new cross-government fund for exit schemes to reduce staffing numbers over the next two years, as well as introducing measures to make it quicker and easier to remove poor performers from post.”
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