How many people work in the UK Civil Service?
Two Government departments together account for more than a third of the Civil Service headcount.
The UK Civil Service workforce is the largest it has been for nearly two decades and has swelled by more than 100,000 in recent years due to the impact of Brexit and the Covid-19 pandemic.
A total of 548,000 people were employed in the Civil Service as of December 2024, according to the latest available figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS).
This is up 2% year-on-year from 535,000 in December 2023, and up 21% from 453,000 in December 2019 just before the start of the pandemic.
Headcount had fallen as low as 416,000 in June 2016, the month of the EU referendum.
Since that date the total has risen steadily.
The latest headcount of 548,000 is nearly a third higher (32%) than it was in 2016, or an increase of 132,000.
Of the 548,000, nearly 441,400 are full-time roles and the remainder are part-time positions.
The last time quarterly headcount was higher than the current figure was in September 2006, when it stood at 549,000.
The total was on a downwards path during the second half of the 2000s and this trend continued into the 2010s until the EU referendum in 2016, after which headcount began to climb.
It grew by 40,000 in the years between 2016 and the start of the pandemic, as thousands of people were recruited to manage the complex and lengthy Brexit process.
There was then a further jump once the pandemic was under way, as the Government hired staff to oversee huge projects such as the furlough scheme, testing for Covid-19 and the rollout of the vaccination programme.
Headcount increased by 56,000 between March 2020, when the first lockdown began, and March 2022.
Chancellor Rachel Reeves told Sky News on Sunday the Government was looking to cut Civil Service numbers and was “confident” the figure could be reduced by 10,000.
This would take the current headcount down to 538,000 and reverse most of the increase in the 12 months to December 2024.
Two Government departments together account for more than a third of the full Civil Service headcount: the Ministry of Justice (17.6% of the total) and the Department for Work & Pensions (17.5%).
The next largest are HM Revenue & Customs (12.7%), the Ministry of Defence (10.6%) and the Home Office (9.4%).
These five departments together account for just over two-thirds of the total headcount.
