CS Interview Coach
Start Free

Civil Service Senior Executive Officer (SEO) jobs

There are currently 185 SEO vacancies open across the Civil Service.

Senior Executive Officer is where management becomes the job rather than part of it. An SEO typically leads HEOs who lead their own teams, which means most of your output reaches the outside world through other people. The skill the grade actually tests is whether you can get good work out of a team you are not doing the work for.

SEOs own a workstream end to end and are usually the accountable name on it. That includes the parts nobody enjoys: resourcing it, defending its budget, explaining why it slipped, and deciding what to stop doing when something more urgent arrives. Where an HEO escalates a conflict between priorities, an SEO is expected to resolve it and live with the consequences.

It is also the grade where relationships outside your own team start to determine whether you succeed. SEOs spend a substantial share of their time with other departments, arm’s-length bodies, suppliers and stakeholders who do not report to them and do not have to agree. Influence without authority stops being a phrase in a framework and becomes the daily texture of the work.

On assessment, SEO shares a behaviour level with HEO but panels calibrate the examples upwards. They are listening for decisions with real consequences, for evidence you managed through others rather than around them, and for judgement about when to escalate and when to absorb. An example where you personally rescued the situation by working harder is an HEO answer; at SEO the panel wants to know what you changed so it did not need rescuing.

Live vacancies

Search and filter all 185 vacancies

The full board also shows how many posts each campaign is filling, which the official results list does not.

Common questions

What is the difference between HEO and SEO?
HEOs typically lead a team and own an area of work; SEOs typically lead managers, own a workstream end to end, and are accountable for resourcing and prioritising it. Most of an SEO’s output is delivered through other people.
Do I need Civil Service experience to get an SEO role?
No. Many SEO campaigns are external and open to all, and departments actively recruit at this grade from outside. You do need to translate your experience into the Success Profiles framework the panel will score you against.
Is SEO the same behaviour level as HEO?
Yes — both sit at the same level of the Success Profiles behaviours. The difference is in the scope and consequence of the examples panels expect, not in the framework itself.
What does an SEO earn in the Civil Service?
SEO pay varies significantly by department, profession and London weighting, and specialist SEO roles in areas like digital and finance often pay above the departmental norm. Filter the board by minimum salary to see current live ranges.

Read the full guide — what the grade involves, how it is assessed, and worked answers.

Vacancy data is sourced from Civil Service Jobs. This tracker is not affiliated with the Civil Service or the Cabinet Office.

Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0.