This article is written by Liam Coughlan at the UK Home Office.

Three years ago, I left a career in management consulting to pursue my ambitions of working in central government. I had spent years delivering projects in the financial services industry and my career was heading in the right direction, but I couldn't shake a feeling deep down that I didn't truly feel connected with my work. I didn't hate it, I worked with some great people, and I was paid fairly well. But I had a sense that, for me, it didn't really matter. Sure, I had professional pride, but I didn't have the sense of passion and purpose that some of my colleagues did. So, I started to wonder whether I could apply my skills to things that really mattered to me. It didn't take me long to realise that working in the Civil Service and central government was the direction I wanted to move in.

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Why did I come to that conclusion? Well, I've always been fascinated with politics. I’m not sure why – my family home was largely apolitical, and politics wasn't a particularly hot topic in the playground of my state school in Birmingham. But I was always drawn towards it. Initially, it was the politicians and their personalities, but as I matured, I started to care more about policies and how they impact society. So eventually, after a few years of dabbling in financial services, the idea of working on big, important policy projects in government started to appeal to me. In 2020 I made the leap and joined the UK Home Office as a programme manager, and since then I've led several projects across different parts of the organisation. People often ask me if I'm glad that I made the move and what the biggest differences are between a career in the private sector and the civil service. It’s something I was asked to write about recently, so I took the time to give it some thought and set out what I’ve observed since making the transition.

Purpose and meaning

The most obvious difference I have noticed since moving is that, on a personal level, my work feels far more significant and important to me now. I now spend my time working on projects which will genuinely impact the lives of people in wider society. It feels like the quality of my work and the success of my projects now fundamentally matters. That is not to say that people in the private sector don’t do important work. They clearly do, and I worked with many incredibly talented and passionate people in financial services who delivered some insanely difficult projects. But since joining the public sector I’ve been able to find that extra motivation to push myself in the knowledge that those benefiting from my work are not just my bosses or company executives, but ordinary people in society that rely on the civil service.

After three years, I can now look back and I’m sure I made the right decision.

This observation is not exclusive to me, but something many civil servants have shared with me. I have met so many genuinely talented, hard-working and passionate people in government who are there because they believe their work is important, it matters, and they, on an individual level, can make a difference. These are people who could, in all likelihood, earn more money working in the private sector, but they choose not to because a sense of purpose is higher on their scale of motivation than financial rewards. This sense of meaning and purpose is infectious, and it rubs off on others. I can certainly say that since joining the government, I’ve felt more closely invested in what I do, and this is in no small part down to the enthusiasm and passion that I see in my colleagues.  

Responsibility and accountability 

One thing I noticed very quickly in my career in government was the huge amount of accountability and responsibility you are given very early on. In consulting, I was used to working on tough projects with challenging deliverables, but there was always a team around me with senior directors and partners ultimately owning the responsibility. When I joined the Home Office I realised pretty quickly that my exposure had increased, and I was going to have to step up in a big way to own the success of my projects. Part of this is a natural result of not being a consultant and working under the umbrella of a partnership, but it is also just the reality of the civil service. Everything is super important; everyone is busy and there is a continuous challenge of limited resources and time. Whereas in consulting I sometimes found it difficult to get the level of responsibility I thought I was ready for, in the public sector it was handed to me from day one with the hope and expectation that I would be able to cope.

My experience here may be slightly skewed by my time of joining and the fact that I arrived right at the start of the Covid-19 pandemic. There was no opportunity for bedding in and any friendly water-cooler moments where you learn the secrets about how to get things done quickly. It was all hands to the pump, thrown in at the deep end, working on things that had to be delivered yesterday. For me, this was great because I felt ready for this, I wanted more responsibility and I enjoy having the freedom to get on with working things out for myself. But I can appreciate how someone else at a different stage of their career might have struggled with the level of autonomy and responsibility so early on in a new role. It can be a blessing or a curse, but at my stage of career, the level of responsibility, autonomy and accountability has been something I wanted and have relished. 

Culture 

It is difficult to be precise about the cultural differences between the private sector and the public sector. They are obviously both huge and diverse sectors, and the two organisations I have worked for may not be representative of them. Again, my experience here is influenced by the fact I joined at an unprecedented time, right at the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic. The bustling, thriving office that I witnessed during my first interview was not there by the time I joined. Instead, I started during the days of fully remote working and spent a year working in my living room without any face-to-face interaction with colleagues. Even after returning to the office, it took quite a while for the momentum to build and for that sense of familiarity and community with colleagues to grow. It has regathered now and there is certainly a feeling of camaraderie with the office regulars, but I’m not sure it has ever quite reached the levels of the buzz of the office pre-pandemic. 

In the private sector, I found that there was a never-ending cycle of social events popping up in the calendar, with invitations to hear about the latest proposition, tool or idea that another department had come up with. These events were usually over drinks (funded by the company) and were always well attended with the latest group of new employees keen to show their face and make connections. In my experience, these things don’t really happen in the civil service, or certainly not at the scale of the private sector. This is probably down to the obvious challenge of funding. Spending of tax-payers’ money is quite rightly scrutinised very closely, so there is very little scope for discretionary spending on social events for colleagues to network, socialise and learn about other departments. Although I do think that more could be done without necessarily the need for funding, and that is something I have tried to address by creating a social running club within my department’s office. I think a huge part of work is meeting others and building meaningful relationships which extend beyond transactional work conversations. For me, one of the unfortunate outcomes of the pandemic years is that we have lost a little bit of that opportunity to build those meaningful relationships, and I imagine this is an issue not exclusive to the civil service. 

Three years on: was it the right move?

When I received the offer to join the Home Office three years ago I was also mulling over a competing offer from a bank in the City of London. It was a similar role but offered a higher salary, so it was a bit of a dilemma for me. I thought about it long and hard over a few days before I finally made the decision to follow my gut and join the Home Office, despite the fact this went against the advice of many who told me to follow the money. But for me, this was an opportunity to work on meaningful work that had an impact on society. I knew I could make more money elsewhere, but what I really wanted was fulfilment, and that was only going to come through doing things that I considered important.

After three years, I can now look back and I’m sure I made the right decision. Working at the Home Office has exposed me to a new way of working and given me incredible opportunities to work on projects which are central to the government’s and the public's priorities. Whilst I loved my time in the private sector, since joining this department I have just felt like the stakes are higher for the work that I do, and that has given me extra drive and ambition to bring the best version of myself to work. I’ll always leave the door open to returning to the private sector, and I still look fondly, particularly on the lasting relationships I built with colleagues in consulting. But for now, I’m happy to be working on challenging, important pieces of work with inspirational colleagues who do their work because they have a deep sense of purpose in what they do.

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