Why the Same Civil Service Grade Pays Differently
Two adverts for the same grade can show very different salaries. This explains the delegated pay framework behind it, and why only your advert applies.
You have two adverts open for the same grade. Both say Higher Executive Officer. The salary lines do not match, and the gap is too large to shrug off. One department is offering thousands more than the other for what reads like the same title and, on paper, similar responsibilities.
The instinct is to assume something is wrong. That one advert is underpaying. That the higher one is too good to be true. That grade titles do not actually mean anything reliable. None of that is true. Civil Service pay was never built as one national salary scale. It was built as a framework the centre sets once a year, which departments then fill in themselves.
This post walks through who actually sets the number, why the same annual settlement still produces different results in different departments, what location does on top of that, and what changes if you are already a civil servant rather than applying from outside. None of it tells you what your specific advert should pay. Only the advert does that.
Who actually sets civil service pay?
No single office does. It is deliberately split into two different jobs. “Individual government departments and agencies have delegated authority to decide on pay and conditions for their workforces below the Senior Civil Service,” according to the Civil Service Pay Remit Guidance 2026 to 2027, published by the Cabinet Office on 21 May 2026 and covering the 2026/27 financial year.
Delegated does not mean unrestricted, though. “These choices must be made within the delegated framework and controls set out in the Civil Service Pay Remit Guidance,” the same document states. Cabinet Office and HM Treasury reissue that guidance every year, and a department’s overall settlement needs sign-off before it reaches anyone’s payslip: “All pay remits must be approved by a Secretary of State or responsible minister,” per the guidance. The system is controlled at the level of process and open at the level of outcome. That combination is the first reason two adverts can differ.
Why doesn’t the pay remit guidance produce one national salary?
Because what it caps is a department’s total pay bill, not any individual’s pay. The guidance measures this as the Increase in Remuneration Cost, or IRC, which it describes as “the standard measure of the paybill changes in a department” that “refers to an overall budgetary value, not to individuals’ pay.” For 2026/27, that cap sits at a maximum of 3.5 per cent, as set out in the pay remit guidance. Crucially, the guidance is explicit that the cap and your payslip are not the same thing: “The IRC does not confirm the amount that an individual in a department will receive and individuals may receive a higher or lower award than the IRC.”
Departments then decide how to spend that 3.5 per cent across a workforce that already looked different going into the year: different grade mixes, different existing pay ranges, different professions in short supply. The same percentage applied to two different starting points produces two different results. On top of that, a department can apply for extra room through a pay flexibility case, where it shows evidence of “low levels of pay that are below relevant comparators” causing genuine recruitment and retention problems, with business cases due by 31 October 2026 for this remit year. A department already struggling to hire into a particular grade has an official route to widen the gap further. That is not a flaw in the system. It is the system working as designed.
How does the department you apply to change the number?
Because each one designs and runs its own pay ranges inside that annual envelope. “A civil servant’s salary depends on grade and role, with each grade having different levels of seniority, responsibility and expertise which is reflected in the pay scales. Salary can also vary depending on the government department you work in,” according to Civil Service Careers’ grades and pay page, checked while writing this on 9 August 2026. For context, that page currently lists average starting salaries of £23,000 for AA/AO, £27,000 for EO, £32,000 for HEO, £39,000 for SEO and £49,000 for Grade 7. Read those as cross-department averages, not promises. A specific department’s range for a specific grade can sit above or below that figure depending on how it has used its own IRC settlement this year, and what its pay structure already looked like going into it.
It can vary inside a single department too. A recruitment and retention flexibility case does not have to cover a whole organisation. The pay remit guidance allows departments to target “specific grades and/or professions within their department,” so a digital or data specialism at HEO can sit on a different range from a generalist HEO role in the same building. The grade name tells you the level of the job. It does not tell you which pay structure that particular role has been built into.
How does location change the number again?
By splitting each department’s pay ranges into separate London and national bands, rather than adding a flat top-up to one national figure. GOV.UK guidance on moving jobs between departments confirms that “departments have different location pay areas,” and that adverts should state the relevant location, pay range or location allowance that applies to that specific post.
What happens when someone crosses that line is set out, department by department, in each organisation’s own transfer rules. One internal Defra document, last updated in March 2022, sets this out in unusual detail. Rather than adding a fixed London allowance, moving between a national and a London role recalculates your pay to keep you at the same percentage point up the new range. In its worked example, someone on a national HEO salary of £30,000, sitting 27.54 per cent of the way up that national range, was moved to the equivalent point up the London HEO range and landed at £33,474, not a flat addition on top of £30,000. The specific figures in that example belong to Defra in 2022 and nowhere else. The method is the useful part: location pay is not a bonus bolted onto a national number. It is a second, parallel pay structure running underneath the same grade.
Does it matter if you are already a civil servant or applying from outside?
Yes, because the two groups are appointed under different rules, even though those rules follow the same shape everywhere.
For new entrants from outside, Defra’s 2022 pay-on-appointment policy sets out what one department expects in practice: new recruits “should be appointed on the pay range minimum,” and any higher offer needs an approved business case before it can be made, with recruiting managers told not to “agree or offer any salary above the pay range minimum with candidates before following the processes set out in this document.” That business case has to show the role’s specific requirements, market rates for similar work, and proof the minimum was already offered and turned down. It is not a manager’s preference.
For existing civil servants transferring between departments at the same grade, the same GOV.UK transfer guidance describes a shape rather than a fixed number. On a level transfer, someone whose pay sits below the new department’s minimum is moved up to it. Someone whose pay sits above the new maximum has the excess handled through the receiving department’s own mark-time arrangements, which decide whether it is retained or gradually eroded over time. On promotion, the same guidance describes an increase of “a per cent” or a move to the new range’s minimum, whichever is higher, without fixing that percentage, because each department sets its own figure. Defra’s 2022 policy fixes its own version at 10 per cent.
The shape repeats everywhere: a floor that protects you, and a department-specific number layered on top of it. What that number actually is belongs to the department in front of you, this year, not to this page.
So which figure should you actually believe?
The one on the advert you are looking at, because it is the only number that has already been run through this department’s specific settlement, its specific ranges and its specific location split, for this specific year. Everything above explains why the gap exists. None of it overrides what a live advert states. The grade framework fixes where each grade sits in scope and responsibility. It was never built to fix what that grade is paid, because that decision sits with the department, not with the grade.
FAQ
Does a higher salary in one advert mean it is a better job? Not necessarily. A wider or higher pay range usually reflects the department’s own settlement and location split for that year, not a harder role or greater seniority at the same grade.
Will my salary change if I transfer between departments at the same grade? It depends on the receiving department’s own transfer policy. The general pattern in GOV.UK guidance is that your pay is protected on a level transfer, moved up if it falls below the new department’s minimum, with any amount above the new maximum handled through mark-time arrangements rather than lost outright. The receiving department sets the specific detail.
Can I negotiate a higher starting salary as an external candidate? Usually not by default. Departments generally expect to appoint new entrants at the pay range minimum, with anything higher requiring an internal business case before an offer can be made. Practice varies by department, so read what your own advert says about starting pay.
Does the pay remit guidance set my exact salary? No. It caps how much a department’s total pay bill can rise this year. It does not fix what any individual role pays, and departments can and do target more or less than the headline figure at different roles within that cap.
Where do I find the salary that actually applies to me? On the advert for the specific role. It is the only figure that has already been calculated against the grade, the department and the location you are applying for.
Where to look next
If you are still deciding which grade to aim for, rather than trying to reconcile two adverts at the same grade, the guide to which grade fits your experience level is the more useful next stop. PublicServicePathway is independent and is not affiliated with or endorsed by the UK Government or Civil Service; every figure and quotation above is drawn from the official sources linked in the text, not from us.