The government will tighten eligibility criteria for Whitehall internships as part of a broader push to make the civil service more representative of the UK population. Meanwhile, new figures show a higher proportion of employees from minority groups than ever before.
The main internship scheme designed to attract university students to the civil service will now only be available for students from “lower socio-economic backgrounds”, taking into consideration what jobs their parents did when they were 14.
Pat McFadden, the chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and the minister responsible for Civil Service reform, said that Whitehall needed to reflect the broader community.
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“We need to get more working-class young people into the Civil Service so it harnesses the broadest range of talent and truly reflects the country,” he told the BBC.
“Government makes better decisions when it represents and understands the people we serve.”
Those who are successful on the internship will then be prioritised for entry to the Fast Stream, the main graduate programme for entry to the civil service.
Currently around a quarter of higher education students are from a lower socio-economic background, but the group represented only 12% of successful applicants to the Fast Stream in 2024.
Under the scheme, which will open to applicants in October with the first cohort starting in summer 2026, the intake will be restricted only to students from less well-off backgrounds.
The programme will give around 200 undergraduates experience of civil service work, including planning events, writing briefings for ministers, shadowing senior civil servants and carrying out research for policy development.
The current summer internship programme is for undergraduates in their final two years of university, lasts six to eight weeks and is paid, with a salary of £430 per week.
The Social Mobility Foundation welcomed the move. Its head of advocacy Sarah Atkinson told Personnel Today: “We’re delighted by the government’s decision to ringfence internship opportunities for students from lower-income backgrounds.
“While some organisations have already taken steps in this direction, it’s encouraging to see the government leading by example. We know that talent is everywhere, but opportunity is not, and sometimes bold action is needed to create a truly level playing field.”
The government is also trying to establish more career paths into the senior ranks of the civil service outside of London, announcing earlier this year that by 2030, half of the placements on the Fast Stream will be located outside of the capital.
The Labour government has been critical of some of the practices of the civil service since coming to office in July last year. In December, Sir Keir Starmer said that “too many people in Whitehall are comfortable in the tepid bath of managed decline,” incurring criticism from civil service unions.
Meanwhile, new figures show that the Civil Service’s median and mean gender pay gap have fallen to their lowest levels since reporting began.
The median gender pay gap fell from 8.5% in 2024 to 6.4% in 2025, figures in the new 2025 Civil Service Statistics release show, and the mean gender pay gap has narrowed from 7.4% in 2024 to 6.9% in 2025.
The proportion of civil servants declaring that they have a disability has reached a record high, matching representation in the economically active working-age population for the first time, the figures showed. Almost 18% of officials have declared a disability, up from 16.9% in 2024, and 8.9% in 2015.
Since 2015, there have been year-on-year increases in the percentage of civil servants who declare themselves as disabled.
The proportion of civil servants from an ethnic-minority background has also once again hit a record high, but remains below the proportion in the economically active working-age population.
Of those with a known ethnicity, 18% are from an ethnic-minority background, up from 16.6% in 2024 and 10.6% in 2015. This compares with 18.6% in the economically active working age population.
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