Civil Service Executive Officer pay

An Executive Officer (EO) in the MOD earns between £30,740 and £33,730 on the scale in force from 1 August 2025. That is one department’s figure. Every department sets its own EO pay, so the number on the advert is the only one that applies to the post you are looking at.

One department’s EO range

The Ministry of Defence publishes the minimum and maximum for each grade of its core civilian workforce. The page was last updated on 23 January 2026 and the rates apply from 1 August 2025, because the MOD pay year starts in August.

Grade	Minimum	Maximum
AO	£27,650	£27,650
EO	£30,740	£33,730
HEO	£37,720	£41,460

The step from the top of EO to the bottom of HEO is £3,990 in the MOD. The page does not mention London rates, allowances or progression, so treat it as a core MOD baseline. Our MOD civilian pay guide has the other grades.

Why the number changes between departments

Departments below the Senior Civil Service have delegated authority to decide pay and conditions. A National Audit Office report found 16 different departmental pay structures, which means some departments pay significantly more than others at the same grade. Its worked example used HEOs in 2022: Defra’s national band was £30,317 to £32,803 and HMRC’s was £34,404 to £36,985, so Defra’s highest salary was £1,601 below HMRC’s lowest. The report says similar differences appeared at every other delegated grade apart from Grade 7, so EO is affected too.

A job title gives the grade only, and moving between departments at the same grade can change your salary even when the job is the same size.

Spot rates, ranges and London

Some departments use a range with a minimum and a maximum, as the MOD does for EO. Others pay a single spot rate by grade and pay zone. The DWP annual report for 2024 to 2025 says that at DWP everyone in the same grade and pay zone is on the same rate, and that most EOs were on the spot rate as at March 2024. DWP work coaches are EOs, so the work coach pay guide picks this up.

Where a department has pay zones, London usually pays more than the national rate. An older example is an Office for National Statistics release for August 2022, which showed EO at £24,836 to £29,086 nationally and £27,696 to £32,186 in London. Those figures are four years old, so they show the size of the London premium (about £3,000) and nothing about today’s rates. The London weighting guide covers other public sector schemes.

Progression is not guaranteed

The Serious Fraud Office told a recent Freedom of Information request (reference 2026-035) that it has no mechanism for employees to progress to the maximum salary point in their grade. Other departments use time served or performance. Ask at interview how you move through the range, and how long it took people in the team.

The 2026/27 award and the squeeze at the bottom

The Civil Service pay remit guidance published on 21 May 2026 caps the increase in each department’s pay costs at 3.5%. It is a budget for the department, so individuals can get more or less. The guidance also describes a voluntary Pay Compression Framework for AA to EO, because the National Living Wage has pushed up the bottom of the scale and squeezed the gaps between grades. Departments choose whether to use it, and cases for 2026/27 had to be in by 31 October 2026.

What you take home

At £30,740 you pay income tax of about £3,634 and employee National Insurance of about £1,454 a year before pension, and at £33,730 about £4,232 and £1,693. Both are worked out on the 2026/27 allowance of £12,570. Civil servants are normally in the alpha pension scheme, where the member rate is 4.6% on pay up to £36,199, so an EO outside London usually pays the lowest rate. The alpha pension guide has the bands, and the take-home pay calculator does the full sum.

To compare posts, look up each advert on Civil Service Jobs and read the pay zone, the hours and whether the salary is a range or a spot rate. The executive officer profile describes what the job involves.