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NI civil servants offered 9% pay deal

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The offer covers around 25,000 staff who work for Stormont departments

Northern Ireland civil servants have been offered a pay deal worth 9% over two years.

The offer consists of 3% backdated to August 2024 and a further 6% from August 2025.

It covers about 25,000 staff who work for Stormont departments.

If the offer is accepted it will add about £128m to the civil service annual pay bill.

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Finance Minster Caoimhe Archibald announced the rise

Unlike other parts of the public sector, such as the health service, there is no independent pay review body for the NI Civil Service.

Instead the finance minister makes an assessment of what is affordable.

Finance Minister Caoimhe Archibald said she regretted that the 2024 offer was not at the same level as that awarded to other public sector workers.

But she added that the 9% total is "a first step towards longer term pay deals giving certainty to workers."

'Disappointed'

The union representing senior civil servants, the FDA, recommended they accepted the offer.

Robert Murtagh, FDA national officer for NI, said it was a "genuine attempt by the finance minister to tackle pay erosion in the NI civil service that has risen over the last decade".

"While we are disappointed that the minister was unable to find further funding to increase the 3% pay offer for this year, we appreciate that 6% from August 2025 is a significant improvement and compares favourably to other public sector pay awards across NI and the UK," he said.

During Stormont's budget crisis in 2022 civil servants got a pay rise worth less than 2% in cash terms while inflation was close to 10%.

Official data suggests that the typical full time public sector worker in Northern Ireland saw their real pay fall by over 7% in 2022 and almost 3% in 2023.

Since the restoration of Stormont a number of pay deals have been agreed while the rate of inflation has also come down.