Guidance: Government professions

Professions work across government on behalf of departments, agencies and functions to develop specialist skills and knowledge in people, set standards and define career pathways. This includes:

You can find out more about developing within your profession on our ‘Specialist skills’ page.

There are four types of government professions:

The operational delivery profession is the public face of the Civil Service with over 250,000 members. They are responsible for the services that people use everyday, such as processing visas, passports, and driving licenses, running benefit offices, job centres, and courts across the UK, and working in consular offices around the world.

Public policy is the management of the government’s role in improving and maintaining the welfare, security and prosperity of the nation. It covers a wide range of activities and includes:   

assessing the infrastructure needs for various parts of the country 

ensuring the UK is on track to achieve high profile ambitions and international obligations, like net zero carbon emissions and levelling up the economy.

A function is a grouping aligned across government to manage functional work such as human resources, commercial, or finance. Government functions form a framework for collaboration within organisations and across organisational boundaries, to support efficient and effective delivery of policy, outcomes and services. Find out more on our ‘Government functions’ page.