Guidance

Management Courses

Explore the courses the Civil Service offers managers and aspiring managers to help them gain the skills they need to lead and manage teams successfully.

This suite of courses is designed to provide the skills and knowledge civil servants need to meet the challenges of their role - irrespective of their level of seniority.

For example, a Grade 7 policy officer who is new to line management could benefit from the Management: Foundation Programme while an executive officer who is an experienced line manager could choose to reinforce their skills with a Management: Practitioner Programme. Similarly, a new entrant senior executive officer with no line management responsibility may find the Line Manager Induction Programme a useful grounding.

Line manager Induction Programme

This two-hour course aims to explain what the civil service expects of its line managers and is good preparation for the Civil Service Line Management Standards. It sits alongside individual departments’ own support for new line managers which will likely focus on the practicalities, policies and day-to-day processes, as well as any additional departmental managerial expectations.

Civil Service Line Management Standards

A toolkit to help line managers understand the Standards with examples of the activities a line manager can undertake in applying them to their own role.

Achieving Your Potential Programme - coming soon

Aimed at those currently not in management positions, Achieving Your Potential will provide the skills, knowledge, networks and experiences to confidently progress into a management role.

Management: Foundation Programme

This programme is available for any civil servant new to management. It is a modular programme, including peer-to-peer learning and networking opportunities.

Management: Practitioner Programme

This programme will focus on the more challenging aspects of leading and managing. Modules include strategy, technology, data and communicating change with authenticity.

Management: Senior Practitioner Programme

This programme will focus on the complexities of being a leader and manager with a large number of people reporting to you and your teams. You will be able to describe the systems-thinking required to balance the strategic needs of your business unit with the broader needs of the agency or department. This skill will help you to deliver complex objectives.

Updates to this page

Published 11 April 2022
Last updated 29 January 2024 + show all updates
  1. Removed content which is now covered within: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/civil-service-orientation https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/civil-service-talent-management/civil-service-talent-management

  2. Link added to Directors Network page

  3. Information on the Directors Network added.

  4. Information on the Directors Leadership Programme has been updated. Information about the offer for public sector leaders has been moved to another page with a short update in its place. Links to the guidance on Accelerated Development Schemes have been added.

  5. Short courses and the offering for public sector leaders has changed. The information has been updated to reflect this.

  6. Added links to book onto the Management Practitioner Programme. Swapped the order of the Personal Effectiveness and Foundation Programmes.

  7. Registration link added for the Data and Digitalisation short course. Registration link added for Leadership Connections (for deputy CEOs).

  8. Location change for the first Data and Digitalisation short course. It will now be taking place in Manchester.

  9. Updated to note that courses are now running rather than planned and that one is closed. The offer for public sector leaders has also changed, with new short courses, programmes and events as well as more detail on previously existing parts of the offer.

  10. Added information about apprenticeships

  11. Removed out of date events and added a link to the Leading to Deliver prospectus.

  12. First published.

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