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Publication - Statistics

Public Sector Employment in Scotland Statistics for 2nd Quarter 2025

Published
16 September 2025
Directorate
Chief Economist Directorate
Topic
Economy, Public sector, Work and skills

Statistics based on administrative records and surveys of individual public sector bodies carried out by the Scottish Government and the Office for National Statistics (ONS). This is a snapshot of employment as at June 2025.

Part of

Supporting documents

Key points

Summary - based on headcount data:

  • in June 2025, there were 596,100 people employed in the public sector in Scotland, accounting for 22.3% of total employment[1]
  • in June 2025, employment in the public sector remained at a similar level to June 2024
  • when major reclassifications are excluded, the public sector decreased by 0.1% between June 2024 and June 2025[2]
  • of the total 596,100 people employed in the public sector in Scotland, 547,500 (91.8%) were employed in the devolved public sector in June 2025. This was a similar level to June 2024
  • between June 2024 and June 2025, employment in the devolved public sector increased by:
    • 1,130 (0.6%) in the NHS
    • 430 (1.5%) in the Devolved Civil Service 
    • 210 (0.9%) in Other Public Bodies
    • 500 (5.9%) in Public Corporations
    • 400 (1.5%) in Police and Fire Services
  • while employment in the devolved public sector decreased by:
    • 2,460 (-0.9%) in Local Government
    • 340 (-2.8%) in Further Education Colleges
  • in June 2025, there were 48,600 people employed in the Reserved Public Sector in Scotland. This was slightly (0.1%) more than in June 2024. The Reserved Public Sector accounts for 8.2% of total public sector employment in Scotland
  • between June 2024 and June 2025, employment within the Reserved Public Sector decreased in the Armed Forces by 270 (-2.7%) and the Other Public Sector[3] by 80 (-0.6%), and increased in the Reserved Civil Service by 380 (1.4%)  
 

[1] Estimates for total employment and private sector employment are based on the Labour Force Survey, ONS. ONS Labour Force Survey (LFS) estimates for January to March 2019 onwards were reweighted in December 2024, causing a step change discontinuity. Therefore, the LFS reweighting exercise creates a break in the series between December 2018 to February 2019 (Q4 2018) and January to March 2019 (Q1 2019) for regional total employment and regional private sector employment. LFS estimates are designated as official statistics in development.

[2] Further details on major reclassifications are provided on page 8 and on the About public sector employment statistics page of the Scottish Government website.

[3] Public corporations, public sector financial institutions and public bodies have been combined into ‘other public sector’ to ensure employment figures for individual organisations are not disclosed.  

Contact

For enquiries about this publication please contact:

Labour Market Statistics,
Office of the Chief Economic Adviser
E-mail: LMStats@gov.scot

For general enquiries about Scottish Government statistics please contact:

Office of the Chief Statistician
E-mail: statistics.enquiries@gov.scot

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