Clerical Officer and Executive Officer Competitions 2027: What We Know

publicjobs (the Public Appointments Service) runs the open competitions for Clerical Officer, Temporary Clerical Officer and Executive Officer posts in the Irish Civil Service. We found no calendar of future competitions on its pages. This guide sets out what the official record shows: when recent competitions opened and closed, when their Stage 1 assessments ran, what had been announced for 2027 when we checked, and how to hear when the next competition opens. ProSyllabus is an independent study site, not part of publicjobs or the Public Appointments Service.

publicjobs competition documents and job search, read 25 Oct 2026.

When we checked the publicjobs job search on 25 October 2026, none of the 268 open vacancies was a Clerical Officer, Temporary Clerical Officer or Executive Officer in the Civil Service grade competition, and we found no announcement of one for 2027. Individual employers, such as county councils, colleges and education and training boards, were advertising their own Clerical Officer and Executive Officer posts there; those are separate recruitments with their own booklets. The grade competition then in progress was Higher Executive Officer in the Civil Service 2026: applications had closed on 10 September 2026, online assessments were scheduled for 15 to 22 October 2026, and publicjobs said Stage 1 results would issue at the end of November.

These are the dates in the official documents we could read. Older publicjobs documents are read through their Wayback Machine copies, because the old publicjobs.ie document links now redirect to a notice about the legacy platform.

Some patterns stand out, and they are only patterns. The last two Temporary Clerical Officer Nationwide competitions closed in November (28 November 2024 and 18 November 2025). The permanent Clerical Officer Nationwide 2026 competition ran from late February to 12 March 2026. In the 2026 Clerical Officer and Temporary Clerical Officer competitions the questionnaire was inside the application window, so the time to apply was short: two to three weeks. The Executive Officer documents we found are for the 2022 and 2026 competitions. None of this is a promise about 2027.

In both grades your Stage 1 score sets your place in the order of merit for the next stage; for the 2026 Clerical Officer, Temporary Clerical Officer and Executive Officer competitions that next stage was interview. publicjobs calls its approach demand-led: the number of candidates called forward and the time between stages depend on the vacancies it receives. Our guides to the Clerical Officer Assessment Questionnaire and the Executive Officer online tests set out each format in detail.

A competition does not end when its closing date passes. publicjobs moves candidates through the stages in batches and places those who succeed at the final stage on a panel, ranked in order of merit, from which posts are offered as vacancies arise. Its Our Recruitment Process page says panels are typically active for approximately 18 to 24 months, that candidates can come under consideration at any point, and that there is no guarantee that being placed on a panel will lead to a job offer.

This may be one reason a year can pass without a new competition for a grade: while a panel still holds candidates, vacancies can be filled from it. Each recent booklet gives its own horizon, the date after which it is not envisaged that appointments will be made from that competition: 31 October 2026 for Temporary Clerical Officer Nationwide 2026, 30 April 2027 for Clerical Officer Nationwide 2026, and 30 June 2027 for Executive Officer 2026. publicjobs had not said, when we checked, what would follow them.

These are the rates in the most recent booklets we read. They are the rates for someone who pays a Personal Pension Contribution; a different rate applies to someone who does not, and pay moves with Government pay policy.

A Temporary Clerical Officer post is temporary: the Nationwide 2026 booklet says the length of a temporary contract varies from post to post and that there is no entitlement to a permanent position. The Clerical Officer Nationwide 2026 booklet describes a permanent post in the Civil Service.

Each competition sets its own requirements, so read its booklet when it opens. In the most recent ones we read, the main conditions were these. For Clerical Officer in the Civil Service Nationwide 2026, applicants had to be at least 17 years of age on or before the closing date and have previous relevant work experience, preferably in a customer service office environment, and relevant ICT skills such as Word, Excel, email and internet. For Temporary Clerical Officer Nationwide 2026, applicants had to be at least 16 years of age on the closing date, and chose one county from a list of the 26 counties where they would be prepared to work; vacancies extended only to a city or town in the chosen county, and the choice could not be changed after the application was submitted.

For Executive Officer in the Civil Service 2026, applicants needed a Leaving Certificate at Level 4 or above, or a minimum Level 4 qualification on the National Framework of Qualifications. The candidate information listed who was eligible on citizenship: a citizen of the European Economic Area, the United Kingdom or Switzerland, or a non-EEA citizen with a Stamp 4 or Stamp 5 permission (it accepts a 50 TEU permission as a Stamp 4 equivalent). It says candidates must be eligible by the date of any job offer.

publicjobs runs its own job alerts: register on publicjobs.ie and set up an alert for the grades you want. The Executive Officer 2026 booklet itself tells candidates to register and set up job alerts. Because the Temporary Clerical Officer questionnaire has been inside a short application window, an alert on the day it opens gives you the most time.

You can also leave your email at the foot of this page and we will send you one email when publicjobs.ie publishes the next open competition of the kind you choose. We check publicjobs.ie by hand, so ours may arrive a day or two after the competition opens; set up the publicjobs alert as well.