В британской гражданской службе актуарии стали самой высокооплачиваемой профессией, опередив инспекторов по планированию

In 2019, the Cabinet Office published its first ever breakdown of salaries by profession, which revealed that planning inspectors had the highest average salary (then £56,350) in the civil service. Seven years on, what’s changed? Recently-published figures for 2025-26 show that the actuary profession is now the best paid, earning an average of £91,640, followed by education and training inspectors – who receive a median salary of £74,490. Planning inspectors are now in third place, with an average salary of £66,560. The average salaries in these professions compare to an overall median salary in the civil service of £37,820. The Cabinet Office – which publishes the data – notes that the overall average is “heavily influenced” by the fact the operational delivery profession – which has a median salary of £32,140 – makes up more than half of the total civil service headcount. Back in 2019, operational delivery was the lowest paid profession but that position is now held by the debt profession, which has a median salary of £27,840. The debt profession was only launched last year and makes its first Civil Service Statistics appearance in this year’s figures. Coming in third bottom, the counter fraud profession has a median salary of £32,840, putting it just above operational delivery. There is a pretty significant jump to the profession with the next highest average – the knowledge and information management profession’s median salary of £38,640. The figures are not broken down by grade, and so some figures may reflect the seniority of civil servants in the profession as well as comparable pay-per-grade rates.   How has the gap between the highest and lowest earning professions changed? In 2019, the profession with the highest median salary (planning inspectors – £56,350) had an average salary that was just over twice as much as the lowest (operational delivery – £24,480). In 2026, the average of actuary professionals (£91,640) is more than three times the profession with the lowest median salary (debt – £27,840). What about the biggest gap in pay within a profession? In 2019 the biggest variation was seen in the medical profession – with civil servants in the top quartile of earners taking home an average of £82,050 compared to £29,610 in the lowest quartile. In 2026, the biggest variation is in same profession – albeit it is now called the clinical profession in a change made in 2025 to make the profession more inclusive of all clinical colleagues working across health and social care. Officials in the upper salary quartile in the clinical profession take home £99,410 on average in 2026  compared to £39,470 in the lower salary quartile. The profession with the smallest gap between the lower and upper quartile is counter fraud (£32,140 vs £39,260).