Scottish Government workforce diversity and inclusion statistics 2025

Introduction

This publication presents estimates on the diversity of Scottish Government permanent staff and the experiences of different demographic groups. We use a range of internal management information sources to calculate these estimates. The Scottish Government uses these estimates to track progress towards the Key Performance Indicators of its Diversity and Inclusion Employer Strategy.

This publication presents the latest data on representation within the Scottish Government workforce as at 31 December 2025 and how that has changed over 2025. This includes applicants for jobs, external recruits and staff leaving the Scottish Government, broken down by age, sex, disability status, ethnic group, religion, sexual orientation and socio-economic background.

This publication also presents data from the Civil Service People Survey 2024, the annual employee engagement survey carried out across the UK Civil Service. Data in this publication includes employee engagement, inclusion and fair treatment, bullying & harassment, and discrimination scores broken down by age, gender, trans status, disability status, ethnic group, religion, sexual orientation and socio-economic background.

The publication also presents some metrics to understand the experiences of different demographic groups of staff. These are the average levels of absence and sickness, the performance markings awarded, the rates of promotion, and the rates of temporary promotion opportunities. For some characteristics, average annual salary is also presented.

Data for the core Scottish Government (SG Core) are also presented alongside the data for the wider Scottish Government. A list of core Scottish Government Directors General, Scottish Government agencies and other public bodies included in this publication can be found in the notes page.

What you need to know

Contents of the report

The statistics presented in this report come from a number of internal data sources. Under each demographic characteristic, the report is split into three sections (where data is available):

• Workforce composition: these sections contain statistics on the changing workforce in the Scottish Government using management information. They are demographic characteristic breakdowns of:

  • Occupational segregation of staff on 31 December 2025
  • Applications in 2025 at each stage of the recruitment process
  • Staff joining and leaving the organisation in 2025

• Staff experiences: these sections contain statistics on additional management information measures for each demographic group. They are:

  • Levels of absence by demographic group
  • Proportion of each demographic group achieving each performance marking
  • Proportion of promotion of each demographic group in 2025
  • Proportion of each demographic group on a temporary promotion
  • Average pay by sex, disability status or ethnic group

• Workforce culture: these sections contain results from the Civil Service People Survey 2024. They are the following scores for each demographic group:

  • Employee engagement score
  • Inclusion and fair treatment score
  • Proportion of respondents experiencing bullying and/or harassment
  • Proportion of respondents experiencing discrimination

Significance

Some charts below feature arrows (↑, ↓) or colours to indicate when results are statistically significant, which is defined further in the notes page. Testing for statistical significance here does not factor in other variables such as pay grade that can affect results. Results can be marked as statistically significant even when that demographic characteristic is not the contributing factor to the difference. For example, younger staff are more likely to be promoted in a given year than older staff, but rates of promotion are impacted more by pay grade which is closely linked to age.

Comparators

The Scottish Government is committed to increasing the diversity of its staff, with the percentage breakdown within Scotland’s working age population as a target, defined as the population aged between 16 and 64. The diversity of the economically active population is often a useful comparison as well, as some groups are less represented among the economically active population than the population aged between 16 and 64. For example, a significant proportion of Scotland’s population aged between 16 and 29 are in full-time education and are not considered economically active.

Occupational segregation

“Occupational segregation” in this report refers to a breakdown across pay bands and between full-time and part-time workers. Occupational segregation also occurs across job families, but our data on which job family staff belong to is not yet robust enough to report on.

More detailed notes on declaration rates, our data sources, significance and comparators can be found in the notes page of this publication.