Careers

The Scottish Parliament offers a friendly, respectful working environment. You’ll have the opportunity to develop your career with us and you’ll receive generous flexible benefits.

Work-Life Balance

We offer flexible working arrangements for roles dependent on operational requirements.

Our flexi-time system allows you to work flexibly as business allows.

Hybrid Working

We offer hybrid working depending on operational requirements. As we have one office location, the Parliament building is the main contractual employment location for most staff.

For some roles there’s a requirement to come into the building for meetings and working. We have established agreements in place for Parliament offices which allow home working (except Outreach Officers in Public Engagement).

Further details can be discussed at interview and offer stage, during the recruitment process.

Leave

We provide all our staff:

• 30 days' annual leave plus 11.5 days' public and privilege holidays (pro-rated if you work on a part-time basis)

• Special leave in certain situations

• Contractual maternity, adoption, paternity, and shared parental leave and pay arrangements

• Career breaks - after three years of continuous service, you’ll be eligible to request a career break from 3-12 months in total

Pension

We offer our staff the opportunity to join the Civil Service Pension Scheme. We provide an employer contribution rate of 28.97% of your salary, towards the Civil Service pension. More information can be found on the Civil Service Pensions website.

Health and Wellbeing

We also provide the following health and wellbeing benefits to all our staff:

• Confidential Counselling and Information Service

• Health promotion and awareness programmes

• Occupational health service

• Free flu vaccinations

• Occupational Sick Pay Scheme

• Workplace restaurant providing healthy eating and dietary options

• Cyclist parking and changing facilities

• Cycle to work scheme

• Small onsite gym facility and corporate gym memberships at discount rates

• Healthy living scheme

• Parent Mentor Scheme

Additional Benefits

• Various interest free loans including advance salary for season tickets for travel

• Paid professional subscriptions

• Staff discount in the Parliament shop

We base our recruitment process around our four values:

• Stewardship

• Excellence

• Respect

• Inclusiveness

When applying for roles with us, we’d advise you to read and understand our values and behaviours framework. This understanding will enable you to perform to the best of your ability throughout the recruitment process.

Our values and behaviours framework (173KB, pdf) posted 05 October 2022

Our job descriptions are focused on our values and will have the details you need to write your application, create your interview presentation, and answer our interview questions.

Our four values are a central part of our working culture and our people management processes. They’re used to recruit, manage, and develop our staff.

Our values represents the expectations we have of ourselves and each other, guiding our interactions and day-to-day decisions. These include the personal skills and attributes we bring to our roles. When combined with our skills and knowledge, they enable us to be successful in our roles.

We have a structured approach to recruitment and ensure a fair and inclusive experience for candidates.

More information about our recruitment process