Why are UK civil servants earning more than Prime Minister Keir Starmer?

The number of civil servants in the United Kingdom earning salaries comparable to — and in many cases higher than — the British prime minister has surged over the past two years.

According to official data released by the UK Cabinet Office, hundreds of government employees are now earning six-figure salaries that equal or surpass UK PM Keir Starmer’s earnings.

In just two years, the number of civil servants receiving annual salaries between £150,000 and £200,000 has more than doubled.

Between March 2023 and March 2025, this bracket grew by 114 per cent, with a 49 per cent increase in 2024 followed by a further 44 per cent in 2025 so far.

As of the latest figures, 375 civil servants fall within this pay band, and another 35 earn over £200,000 per year.

These individuals are primarily engaged in high-level policy, management, and delivery roles, typically at director level or above.

Their roles are considered vital to the functioning of central government, and in some cases require niche technical expertise that commands competitive salaries.

The figures exclude frontline professions such as medical consultants or members of the armed forces, reported the Financial Times.

Where the UK PM stands on the pay ladder

UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer receives a total salary of just under £170,000, comprising a Member of Parliament’s base pay of £93,904, along with an additional entitlement of approximately £80,000 for leading the government.

In keeping with the tradition followed by predecessors including David Cameron, Starmer does not claim the full entitlement.

Despite holding the country’s most senior political office, the UK premier is now out-earned by at least 278 civil servants.

This includes several officials who work directly with him. For instance, Morgan McSweeney, Starmer’s chief political adviser, earns between £155,000 and £159,999.

Jonathan Powell, who once played a central role in brokering peace in Northern Ireland, and Varun Chandra, a former corporate intelligence executive turned business adviser to the Prime Minister, both fall into the £145,000-£149,999 bracket, reported the Financial Times.

The majority of ministerial advisers receive between £76,000 and £115,000, while around a third are paid less than £76,000 annually.

Were the prime minister’s salary to be adjusted in line with inflation from 2010 — the year Gordon Brown’s successor accepted a pay cut — the annual remuneration would now be north of £300,000, according to the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales.

Why civil servants are paid mor

In July, new guidelines issued by the UK Treasury raised the salary cap for civil servants whose pay requires ministerial sign-off from £150,000 to £174,000 — an increase of £24,000 or 16 per cent.

Simultaneously, the cap for performance-related bonuses requiring oversight rose from £17,500 to £25,000.

This change affects roughly 260 individuals in the £150,000-£200,000 salary range and about 30 whose earnings exceed £200,000.

Additionally, 2,915 civil servants are now recorded as earning above £100,000 annually.

According to the Treasury, the previous threshold had remained static since 2017, despite broader wage growth in both the public and private sectors.

Defending the update, a Treasury spokesperson stated: “The previous threshold for senior civil servants’ salaries was set in 2017, and since then, average pay across the private and public sector has risen. The new, below-inflation, threshold rise would apply to a minority of senior civil servants and would be subject to rigorous scrutiny.”

Nonetheless, the policy has faced political backlash. The TaxPayers’ Alliance, a fiscal advocacy group, criticised the decision, suggesting it lacked adequate transparency.

“Taxpayers will be outraged that top civil servants are being handed even more generous pay raises with less oversight,” William Yarwood told The Telegraph.

“This quiet rule change opens the floodgates to inflated salaries behind closed doors at a time when Whitehall should be making cuts.”

Conservative UK MP Richard Holden echoed the sentiment, labelling the revised framework as a “grubby deal” and accusing the Labour-led government of prioritizing its public sector allies.

“They are a party in hock to public sector pay, and trying to sneak out bumper pay deals for mandarins and quangocrats by the back door shows they don’t have the national interest at heart,” he told the Daily Mail.

How inflation has shaped the UK public sector

The spike in civil service salaries is closely linked to inflation-driven adjustments designed to maintain wage competitiveness. The Senior Salaries Review Body recommended a 5.5 per cent raise for senior civil servants in 2023-24, followed by a 5 per cent increase in the next cycle.

By April, civil servants received a further 3.25 per cent uplift to base salaries, reflecting easing inflationary pressure.

Nonetheless, these cumulative increases — implemented to protect purchasing power and avoid a talent exodus — have resulted in more officials crossing the six-figure mark.

Data from the Institute for Government estimates the total wage bill for civil servants reached approximately £19 billion in the most recent financial year.

The median salary across the service stood at £35,680 in March 2025, a 5 per cent increase from the previous year, or a 2.6 per cent rise after adjusting for inflation.

In recent years, the civil service workforce has grown substantially. As of 2025, around 550,000 individuals are employed, amounting to 516,000 full-time equivalents — the highest since 2006.

Plans are now underway to reduce headcount by 10 per cent during the current parliamentary term, with the aim of reversing growth caused by pressures from Brexit and the COVID-19 pandemic.

The median gender pay gap has also narrowed to 6.4 per cent in 2025, down from 8.5 per cent the previous year — the smallest since such records began in 2020.

Amidst continued fiscal constraint on the public, income tax and national insurance thresholds have been frozen since the 2021-22 financial year, and Starmer has recently declined to commit to lifting this freeze before 2029-30.

Also, in her first Budget, UK Chancellor Rachel Reeves also extended the freeze on inheritance tax thresholds until the end of the decade — a cap that has remained unchanged since 2009.

Why the gap is only going to increase

Beyond general wage adjustments, one of the key forces behind rising public pay is the demand for cybersecurity and digital expertise.

The UK government has repeatedly acknowledged that attracting top-tier talent in these areas requires compensation levels well above traditional public sector norms — even higher than the prime minister’s salary.

Appearing before the Public Accounts Committee in March, the UK civil service’s Chief Operating Officer Cat Little said, “We have got to pay these people more… They are very, very scarce competitive skills in a very hot market, and if we’re going to deliver on our ambitions, we need the leadership and the technical expertise there to do it.”

Her comments came in the wake of a National Audit Office report that criticised the government’s limited progress toward achieving cyber resilience, a goal set for 2025.

Recruitment constraints — including uncompetitive salaries — were cited as one of the key obstacles to reaching this target.

Little also noted that new frameworks had been introduced to address digital pay disparities, acknowledging that skilled cyber professionals could not be expected to join the civil service under the same salary structure as generalist roles of equivalent seniority.

UK MP Rachel Gilmour, also part of the Committee, underlined the long-term fiscal logic of these decisions, reported The Register.

She referred to the costly ransomware attack on the British Library in 2023 and argued that hiring a few high-skilled cybersecurity professionals could significantly reduce the state’s vulnerability to similar threats.

“The fixation should not be on how much an individual is paid but more so on the potential cost savings,” Gilmour said.

With inputs from agencies