Scottish Government Workforce Statistics March 2025

11th June 2025

The latest quarterly Scottish Government Workforce Information statistics have been published today by Scotland's Chief Statistician.

These statistics cover the numbers of workers, staff sickness rates, and the diversity of staff up to the most recent quarter ending March 2025.

The statistics show that:

At the end of March 2025 there were 8,917 full time equivalent (FTE) directly employed staff, an increase on last year’s figure of 8,843 (0.8%) at the end of March 2024.

At the end of March 2025 99.6% of full time equivalent (FTE) directly employed staff were permanent and 0.4% were temporary. This compares to last year (March 2024: 99.4%, 0.6%).

There was a 17% decrease in the number (headcount) of contingent (non-directly employed) workers from the end of March 2024 (1,290) to the end of March 2025 (1,075), a decrease of 215 workers.

The staff sickness level was 8.7 average working days lost (AWDL) per staff year in the 12 month period ending March 2025, compared with 8.2 AWDL for the 12 month period ending March 2024. This equates to a loss of 3.9% of working days in the 12 month period ending March 2025.

Just over half (56.6%) of the workforce were female, compared to 43.4% male. The proportion of female staff is slightly higher than that in the same period last year (56.4% March 2024).

At the end of March 2025 the majority of staff were aged between 30 and 59, broken down as follows: 30-39 (28.8%), 40-49 (27.9%), 50-59 (22.8%), 13.2% were aged 16-29, and 7.3% were aged 60 or over.

Detailed statistics on the diversity and inclusion of the Scottish Government workforce were also updated today with the inclusion of the 2024 People Survey demographic data and will be available at https://data.gov.scot/workforce-diversity-2024-update