Question to the Cabinet Office:

To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, what was the total cost of National Insurance to Civil Service employers in each year from 2023-24.

The Cabinet Office does not hold actual payroll outturn employer National Insurance (NI) contributions costs for all Civil Service departments and organisations.

However, departments are required to publish payroll outturn information including employer NI contributions each month as part of Monthly Workforce Management Information (MWMI) transparency reporting on gov.uk. MWMI data for Cabinet Office from March 2011 to July 2026 can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/payroll-costs-and-non-consolidated-pay-data-cabinet-office

In addition, the Cabinet Office does produce estimates for the snapshot Civil Service total paybill that includes estimated employer NI costs. These estimated NI costs are provided in table 1 below:

Table 1: Estimated nominal ‘snapshot’ employer National Insurance costs for the civil service, 2024 to 2026

Source: Internal Analysis based on data from the Annual Civil Service Employment Survey (ACSES), Cabinet Office

Notes:

Employer NI costs are estimated using civil servant salary, allowance and NCPRP data from ACSES as at ‘snapshot’ date of 31st March in each year, and have been adjusted for missing values. They have not been adjusted for inflation (i.e. they are nominal values).

Employer National Insurance rates increased from 13.8% to 15% on the 6th April 2025. The new rate has been used to estimate Civil Service employer national insurance for 2025 and 2026.