The Public Sector means some form of the government. For many years people have considered jobs in this sector as being quite safe but not as well paid as jobs in the private sector. However, today workers in the public sector are often paid just as well as they would if they worked in a private company.

These jobs no longer offer the "job for life" that some used to have. Cuts in public sector spending, especially from 2011, have meant that there are a lot less jobs in many public sector areas than there used to be. There are 6 main types of Public Sector jobs:

Civil Service

People that work for central government departments, agencies or bodies are often referred to as civil servants. They help to ensure that public services are delivered and provide important functions like security, immigration and benefits.

Examples of Civil Service agencies include the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, the Ministry of Defence and the Department for Work and Pensions. There are thousands of different jobs that civil servants do, for more information you can visit this website.

Local Council

Local council workers provide services to people in the local area. Such services include street cleaning, rubbish collection, youth clubs, community centres, sports centres and libraries.

You can check out the website for your local council or visit the LGCareers website which has lots of information of the kind of jobs available and current vacancies for all councils.

Health and Care

Would you like a job where you can help other people or perhaps care for people that are ill? Maybe you would like to train to be a nurse or a doctor. Or you could work alongside those people in a support role and undertake work such as administration, catering or security.

Our National Health Service (NHS) is the largest employer in Europe, employing more than one million people. Get more information here.

Education (Teaching)

Teachers are always in demand. From nursery to university, there are vacancies all across the country for teachers. You can find out more about being a teacher here.

Emergency services

The emergency services are made up of the Ambulance Service, the Fire Brigade and the Police Force. As well as front-line jobs like police officer or paramedic, all three services have a number of roles supporting day-to-day activities. You can get for information about working for the emergency services by following the links above.

Armed Forces

The UK armed forces work to protect the country and its people. There are 3 parts of the armed forces. They are the British Army, the Royal Air Force and the Royal Navy.

All three are often recruiting and there are many careers other than that of front line personnel. In fact, there are literally hundreds of different career paths that you could take should you choose to join the armed forces. Click the links above to find out more.