Life in the Civil Service

by Harry Rose

Working for the Civil Service in the Department for Work and Pensions on my placement has been a great experience so far. Besides continually learning new skills, I have direct involvement in important tasks such as preparing documents for government ministers. In my opinion, the extremely accommodating work-life balance is what has made working in the civil service so appealing. For example, whenever you work more than your contracted hours you can claim them back on another day. Besides that, there is a vast network of placement students, and we often meet up for socials, informal networking sessions, and occasionally post-work drinks.

"It is extremely rewarding to know that your work has a real impact on society".

The Universal Credit Official Statistics team produce stats on the number of people and households on Universal Credit as well as the number of claims to and starts on Universal Credit. Moreover, the statistics we produce in our team are used by policymakers, academics, think tanks, and charities. It is extremely rewarding to know that your work has a real impact on society, something that is perhaps unique to the Civil Service. Sometimes our stats are even mentioned on the news, for example.

During the placement, I have been able to develop my programming skills in several programming languages. With these skills, I have taken on various projects where I have been able to improve and develop the code that produces statistics. I wrote code, for example, that graphically represents several breakdowns of data used by the Statistics team. This helped the team easily identify anomalies which improved the quality assurance process. Moreover, I have developed my presenting skills by presenting at team meetings. More recently, I presented on the topic of how Excel can be used to interpret the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic at a meeting of over 50 people.

"For me, it has confirmed that I want to pursue a career in data and analytics."

I decided to do a placement because full-time work experience is invaluable when applying for graduate roles. Not only is it a great way of building practical skills but it also helps you understand where you want to take your career without the long-term commitment of a graduate scheme. For me, it has confirmed that I want to pursue a career in data and analytics.

Despite currently being eight months into my placement, the time has flown by. People may think that a placement year sounds like a long time, but it does not feel that way once you are in the role. Though I am looking forward to going back to university, I will miss my team and the lack of stress after 5 pm.