Secondments: try a different public-sector job without quitting

Most career moves are a leap. You resign, you start somewhere new, and if it turns out to be the wrong call, there is no way back. A secondment is the rare exception: a temporary move into a different job — sometimes a different organisation altogether — with an agreement that your own role, or one like it, is waiting when you return.

The public sector uses secondments more than almost any other part of the economy. Civil Service departments lend staff to each other and to outside bodies. NHS organisations move people between trusts and into national programmes. Councils second officers into partnerships, charities and joint teams. For the person doing it, a secondment is a low-risk way to test a new field, build skills and make contacts. For the employer, it is a way to develop people and fill gaps without permanent hires.

Yet plenty of public-sector workers go years without realising secondments are open to them, because the opportunities are often advertised quietly or arranged through conversation. This guide explains what a secondment is, why employers say yes, what to think about before you go, and how to come back well.

What a secondment actually is

A secondment is a temporary assignment to another role for a fixed period, agreed between you, your current employer and the team or organisation receiving you. Crucially, your employment usually continues with your home employer throughout. You have not resigned; you are on loan.

The details live in a written secondment agreement, and it is worth reading yours carefully. It should cover how long the arrangement lasts, who pays you, who manages you day to day, what happens about leave and sickness, how the secondment can be ended early by either side, and — most importantly — what you return to.

Secondments come in two broad kinds:

Internal secondments move you to a different team, directorate or site within the same organisation — for example, a council housing officer joining a regeneration project team for a year.
External secondments move you to a different organisation — a civil servant joining another department or an arm's-length body, an NHS manager joining a national improvement programme, or a public-sector specialist spending time with a charity or partner organisation.

Internal moves are simpler to arrange and more common. External ones tend to involve more paperwork but often deliver the biggest development payoff, because everything around you is new.

Why employers support them

It is fair to wonder why any manager would lend out a good member of staff. But secondments survive in the public sector because everyone in the triangle gains something.

The host team gets a skilled person quickly, without a permanent recruitment round, often bringing exactly the fresh perspective a project needs. The home employer gets back a more capable person with new skills, new contacts and a wider view of how the system works — and develops its people without losing them. Public-sector bodies also share problems (funding, demand, joined-up services), so moving people around genuinely spreads knowledge between organisations that need to work together.

And you get the biggest prize: real experience in a different role, with a safety net. The Civil Service in particular treats moves between roles as a normal part of building a career, and NHS Employers publishes guidance for organisations on managing secondments well, so hosts and home employers both have a template for doing this properly.

What a secondment does for your career

A secondment works on a career in three ways.

First, it generates evidence. Applications and interviews across the public sector reward concrete examples of delivering in different contexts, leading through change and influencing people you have no authority over. A secondment produces those examples faster than staying put ever could, and the STAR method gives you a ready structure for telling them later.

Second, it tests a direction cheaply. Suppose you work in a hospital admin team but wonder about project work, or you are a policy officer curious about frontline operations. A secondment answers the question with experience instead of guesswork. If you love it, you have a head start on moving permanently. If you do not, you go home wiser, with nothing lost.

Third, it widens your network. Six or twelve months somewhere new means new colleagues, new managers who have seen your work, and a much better feel for how another part of the public sector recruits. People who move well tend to keep moving well, partly because more people know what they can do.

How to find or propose one

Some secondments are advertised — watch your organisation's internal jobs board, staff bulletins and intranet, and ask HR how temporary opportunities are shared. In the Civil Service, many temporary roles are visible to staff across departments. In the NHS and local government, national programmes and partnerships often recruit by secondment because they are funded for fixed periods.

But many secondments are made, not found. If you can see a piece of work that needs doing and a team that needs you, you can propose the arrangement yourself. A few things make a proposal much more likely to land:

Bring a business case, not a wish. Explain what the host team gains, what you will learn, and what your home team gets back when you return.
Solve your manager's problem first. The main objection will be covering your work. Suggest how — a development opportunity for a colleague, a phased handover, a part-time pattern.
Time it well. Propose the move for after a busy period or a project milestone, not in the middle of one.
Ask for a defined period with a review point. Fixed and reviewable feels safer to everyone than open-ended.
Get it in writing. Whatever is agreed about pay, duration and return, make sure it ends up in a proper agreement, not just a chat.

If your organisation has a mentoring scheme or career conversations, use them to signal early that you are open to a secondment. Managers pass opportunities to people they know are looking.

Pension, pay and continuity: check before you go

Because you normally remain employed by your home organisation, a secondment usually protects the things long-serving public-sector staff care about most: continuous service, pension membership and existing terms. Usually — but not automatically, and the details depend on how the arrangement is set up, especially for external moves.

So before signing, check three things with HR. Ask how your pension contributions will be handled while you are away — public-sector schemes have their own rules, and our guides to public sector pensions and the Local Government Pension Scheme explain the general shape of these schemes. Ask whose pay scale and terms apply during the secondment. And ask how the time away counts towards your continuous service. ACAS provides general guidance on employment terms and changes to them if you want a neutral reference point.

None of this should put you off. It is routine paperwork, and HR teams handle it constantly. The point is simply to get the answers before you go, not after.

Returning well

The end of a secondment deserves as much thought as the start. Handled lazily, you slot back into your old chair and the experience fades. Handled well, the return is where the career value gets banked.

A month or so before you finish, talk to your home manager about what you are bringing back and how it could be used — a skill the team lacks, a contact that opens a door, a better way of doing something you used to do on autopilot. Update your CV and your evidence log while the detail is fresh; a year later you will not remember the specifics that make examples convincing. Ask your host manager for written feedback, and keep the relationship warm — hosts often become referees, and sometimes future employers.

Then think honestly about direction. Some people return recharged and climb at home. Others realise the secondment was a preview of the job they actually want. Both are good outcomes — the secondment did its work either way.

If the experience has you curious about what else is out there, you can browse live vacancies across the NHS, Civil Service, councils, police and more on our public-sector jobs board — reading adverts in a field you are considering is a quick way to see what skills it values.

Sources and further reading

This article is general careers information, not formal advice. Always check the official source and the specific job advert for current details.