Civil servants in each of the UK's nations
Civil servants working in England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, overseas or with no location recorded, headcount at the 31st of March, from the Cabinet Office's Civil Service statistics.
Civil servants, all locations
557,825
31 Mar 2026
Verified against source, 29 October 2026, 11:49 UTCSource: Cabinet Office. Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0.
Data table
6 rows
| Category | Headcount |
|---|---|
| England | 446,440 |
| Scotland | 57,800 |
| Wales | 42,655 |
| Northern Ireland | 5,060 |
| Overseas | 3,785 |
| Not reported | 2,085 |
Source and licence
- Publisher
- Cabinet Office
- Check it yourself
- https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/civil-service-statistics
- Licence
- Open Government Licence v3.0 – Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0.
- Retrieved
- 29 October 2026, 11:46 UTC
- Raw files fetched
- https://www.gov.uk/api/content/government/statistics/civil-service-statistics-2026SHA-256 a553358381079d99490cde51fae1fef0ddf16a85e727e491579a680d845ad44d · 26,053 bytes
- https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/6ad7476437f279373fa3c9c9/Statistical_tables_-_Civil_Service_Statistics_2026_V2.odsSHA-256 4c422e94fd6ba23f4a31fa94e72c7131f2dd88d36768a1548a5c0a65e907a3e5 · 475,992 bytes
Verification
Verified against source, 29 October 2026, 11:49 UTC Run at 29 October 2026, 11:49 UTC; 6 of 6 figures matched the live source.
| Result | Check | Detail |
|---|---|---|
| Pass | Provenance recorded | Cabinet Office; Open Government Licence v3.0; retrieved 2026-10-29T11:46:46Z; 2 raw file(s) |
| Pass | Raw files match recorded SHA-256 | 2 of 2 files intact |
| Pass | Re-parsing raw files reproduces figures | 6 of 6 figures and the headline reproduced |
| Pass | Figures are finite numbers | 6 figures, 0 invalid |
| Pass | Live source matches every figure | 6 of 6 figures match exactly after downloading 2 source file(s) again (2 byte-identical); the headline matches |
| Pass | GOV.UK table is current | latest period 2026-03-31 ended 212 days before retrieval (limit 500), from Statistical tables - Civil Service Statistics: 2026 V2 |
| Pass | Regions and nations add up | table_10's nine English regions add up to England and the six rows shown to the total for all regions, within the 2.5 a count that each figure's rounding to 5 allows (2 of 2 exactly) |
| Pass | Table 13 by sex agrees | 6 of 6 figures match the sum of table_13's headcounts of men, women and people of unreported sex, within the 10 that rounding each of the four counts to 5 allows |
| Pass | Source page answers | https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/civil-service-statistics – HTTP 200 |
Notes
- Headcount of permanent and temporary civil servants by where they work. The Cabinet Office rounds counts to the nearest 5 and withholds counts of 1 to 4, so totals may not add up exactly.
- England's figure is the sum of its nine regions, as the Cabinet Office gives it; London alone has more civil servants than Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland together.