Higher Executive Officer is the grade most people have in mind when they say “a good job in the Civil Service”: a management post with a defined area, a team, and a salary that starts at €60,000. The 2026 open competition closed on 10 September, and candidates now face online assessments in October, a scored shortlisting of their application form in December, and interviews from January 2027. This guide covers the job, the money, the stages and what changes about the interview between EO and HEO.
The role
The Role Information Booklet describes HEOs as managing people and resources, contributing to policy, and delivering services. In practice the job splits two ways. In an operational area (Social Protection, Revenue, Agriculture, the Courts) a HEO runs a section: several EOs and their COs, a set of targets, a budget or a scheme, escalations that the EOs cannot settle, and the monthly numbers going up to the Principal. In a policy area (any department’s corporate or policy divisions) a HEO does the analysis and drafting behind decisions: submissions to the Minister, briefing for Oireachtas questions, consultation papers, memos for Government, with one or two staff and a lot of stakeholders.
What both have in common, and what the framework at this grade is built around, is that the HEO is expected to decide. Within delegated authority, on the evidence, with a record of why. That single expectation is the difference between a HEO answer and an EO answer in the interview.
Pay in 2026
| Point | HEO standard scale (PPC), from 1 June 2026 |
|---|---|
| 1 | €60,029 |
| 2 | €61,785 |
| 3 | €63,537 |
| 4 | €65,286 |
| 5 | €67,044 |
| 6 | €68,792 |
| 7 | €70,547 |
| LSI 1 | €73,077 |
| LSI 2 | €76,546 |
Open-competition entrants start at point 1. Serving civil servants promoted to HEO are placed on the point that gives an increase over their current pay under the promotion rules. The higher scale (€63,537 to €79,038) applies in specific circumstances set out in the pay rules. The other grades are in the pay scales guide.
The 2026 competition, stage by stage
- Application, closed 3pm 10 September 2026. The form asks for career history and for evidence of the capabilities. Keep a copy; it comes back at shortlisting and again at interview.
- Online assessments, October 2026. Unsupervised online tests with a familiarisation booklet sent beforehand. Part II warns that candidates may later be asked to sit tests in a supervised environment, which is how publicjobs checks that the person who scored is the person who turns up. The test score sets your order of merit for the next stage.
- Shortlisting, December 2026. An expert board examines application forms against agreed criteria. With a large field, publicjobs applies a scored assessment of the form and creates a rank order. This is the stage most people under-prepare: the form is written in a hurry in August and marked in December against the framework.
- Interview, January 2027. A capability-based interview, online or in person, and possibly a presentation or practical exercise; the methods list allows both.
- Panel and clearance, from January 2027. Placed in order of merit by interview result; assignments to departments as vacancies arise over a panel life of about two years.
What the interview marks
The HEO Capability Framework has four dimensions and eight sub-dimensions, and the sub-dimension is the unit the board scores:
| Dimension | Sub-dimensions at HEO | What a HEO example needs to show |
|---|---|---|
| Building Future Readiness | Digital Focus, Innovation and Upskilling for the Future; Strategic Awareness and Change | You changed how something is done, used data or a system to do it, and understood why the department needed it. |
| Evidence Informed Delivery | Delivering Excellence; Analysis, Judgement and Decision Making | A deadline or target met through others, and a decision you made on evidence with the risks weighed. |
| Leading and Empowering | Leading, Motivating and Developing; Leading with Specialist Insight | A team you led through something hard, a performance conversation, someone you developed; and your own expertise applied. |
| Communicating and Collaborating | Communicating and Influencing; Engaging and Collaborating | A submission or briefing that changed a decision; a stakeholder outside your unit brought along. |
The 2026 booklet does not publish marks. The one Capability Framework mark scheme that is public, from a department-run AO competition in 2026, scores each sub-dimension from 1 to 50: 1 to 17 fail, 18 to 21 “potential”, 22 to 34 pass, 35 to 50 very good to excellent. A candidate may score in the potential band in one sub-dimension and still pass, but two potentials or one fail ends the interview. publicjobs has not published its own bands for the open competition, so treat this scheme as the closest public reference rather than a guarantee. The practical consequence is that you need eight examples, not four, and at least seven of them have to be real HEO-level evidence rather than “here is how I would approach it”. The Capability Framework guide covers the bands in detail.
The three kinds of question
The framework interview asks for examples, but also for skills and strengths, and for values and motivation. At HEO the mix leans towards the first, but the other two carry marks and are where external candidates often go quiet. Typical questions:
- Take us through your career and why Higher Executive Officer, now.
- Tell us about a time you led a team through a significant change. What resistance did you meet and what did you do about it?
- Describe a decision you made on incomplete information. How did you weigh the risk, and what happened?
- Give an example of managing an underperforming member of staff.
- Tell us about a piece of analysis or a submission you produced that influenced a decision above you.
- Describe a time you used data or a digital tool to improve a process.
- What do you know about this Department’s priorities this year, and where would a HEO’s team touch them?
- What would your current team say about you when something goes wrong?
- What would you find hardest about this post, and how do you know?
The presentation
The methods list includes a practical or presentation exercise, and HEO boards have used one in previous cycles: a topic sent in advance or given on the day, a few minutes to present, then questions. The presentation is marked as evidence for the sub-dimensions it touches (usually Leading with Specialist Insight and Communicating and Influencing) and through the follow-ups: what you read, what you left out, what you would do if the Minister disagreed. Sources and a recommendation matter more than slides.
Where HEO candidates lose marks
- EO-level examples: organising your own work, or supervising two people, told well. The board is asking “what did you decide?” and there is no answer.
- “We” throughout. The framework marks the individual; the booklet advice says so directly.
- No view. A HEO is expected to have an opinion about the area, backed by something they read.
- Application form written without the framework open. It is scored at shortlisting and it sets the board’s questions.
- Skipping the reflection probe. “What would you do differently” is a marked question, not a courtesy.