Checked 1 November 2026. Recruitment information can change. This guide reflects the Bank's How to apply page as last updated on 11 December 2025, fetched on 1 November 2026; check the current page, and your invitation, before your assessment centre.
The Bank of England's virtual assessment centre is the last of three assessed stages, and the Bank says it consists of one group exercise and one interview, with motivation, behaviour-based and analytical or technical questions. The Bank's How to apply page does not describe the group brief, its timings or how it is marked, so this guide gives you a free, original sample brief with four roles to practise, a practice assessor sheet built on the Bank's three published Behaviours, and worked examples for the group and the analytical questions. ProSyllabus is an independent practice site, not affiliated with the Bank of England. The sample brief below is our own invention, not Bank of England material.
Bank of England Careers, How to apply (last updated 11 December 2025).
Key facts
| Fact | Detail | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Where the assessment centre sits | Final stage, after the situational judgement test and the video interview | How to apply |
| Format | Virtual: one group exercise and one interview | How to apply |
| Interview questions | Motivation, behaviour-based, and analytical or technical | How to apply |
| Interview method | The Bank uses STARR: situation, task, action, result, reflection | How to apply (Using AI, point 9) |
| What the Bank looks for | Its Bank Behaviours: act inclusively, drive growth, deliver outcomes | How to apply; Application tips |
| When you hear after the video interview | Successful applicants are told two weeks after the application deadline | How to apply |
| AI tools | Not to be used during the video interview, live interview or group exercise; if you need AI-based tools as support, tell the Bank in advance | How to apply (Using AI, points 10 and 11) |
| Adjustments | Ask at each stage: BOEadditionalsupport@penna.com | How to apply |
| Not on the How to apply page | Group size, length of the group exercise, the brief, and how it is marked | Checked on the How to apply page, 1 November 2026 |
| Graduate round (1 Nov 2026) | Applications closed; register interest for 2027 opportunities | Graduate programmes |
How the assessment centre fits the process
The Bank runs the same route for its Future Talent programmes: an application form, then three assessed stages. Applicants normally progress through each in turn; eligible Disability Confident applicants are fast-tracked to the video interview.
| Stage | What happens | Our guide |
|---|---|---|
| Application form | Eligibility, background, education and work experience, CV upload, and free-text questions about you and your motivation | Graduate scheme guide |
| 1. Situational judgement test | Scenarios from working life at the Bank; the Bank says it shows how closely you align with its values | Free SJT sample later on this page |
| 2. Video interview | Recorded answers, reviewed later; a short think time, a time limit on each answer, no re-recording | Video interview guide |
| 3. Virtual assessment centre | One group exercise and one interview (motivation, behaviour-based, analytical or technical questions) | This page |
The application form answers are not forgotten: the Bank says it considers them throughout the process. Candidates applying through the Disability Confident scheme who meet the minimum requirements go straight to the video interview. For the earlier stages, see the video interview guide and the graduate scheme guide.
What the Bank says about the group exercise
Very little, and that matters for how you prepare. The How to apply page says the assessment centre is virtual and has one group exercise and one interview. Its AI guidance names the group exercise again, asking you not to use AI tools, assistants or platforms during it so that you are present. The page gives no brief, group size, timings or marking scheme. Follow any instructions in your invitation, and ask the recruitment team if anything is unclear.
What it does publish is how it wants people to work: the three Bank Behaviours. The Bank calls them an outline of how it does things, how it treats others and how it expects to be treated. A group exercise gives you chances to show actions consistent with all three at once, live, with other people, so they are the sensible thing to prepare against.
| Behaviour | The Bank's description (summarised) | In a group exercise |
|---|---|---|
| Act inclusively | Earn trust and confidence through consistent honesty, integrity and authenticity; embrace different perspectives and cultures; inspire colleagues to do their best | Bring everyone's facts in, listen, credit others, be straight about what your role note says |
| Drive growth | Have the courage to do what is right; show self-awareness through reflection and feedback; help colleagues of all backgrounds meet their goals and the Bank's | Challenge with evidence, change your mind when the facts change, help the group work better |
| Deliver outcomes | Focus on what matters most; develop a vision, explore future scenarios, respond to change, set strategies; meet commitments individually and together | Keep to the goal and the time, test options against the constraints, land a decision |
Group exercises in recruitment commonly give each candidate a shared brief plus some information of their own, so the group only sees the whole picture if people share. Our sample is built that way. The Bank's exercise may be built differently; follow the instructions you are given on the day.
Free sample group-exercise brief
Use this brief to practise with three friends, or alone by reading each role in turn and arguing each case. It is set at an invented central bank and asks an everyday operations question, so you practise the group skills rather than subject knowledge. Nothing in it is the Bank's.
Free sample brief · for four candidates
Where should the northern office go next?
Shared brief (everyone reads this). You work at the Central Bank of Aldmoor, an invented central bank. Its northern regional office has 60 staff who meet local businesses, run events and send reports to head office. The office lease ends in 12 months and today the office costs 820,000 a year (Aldmoor's currency). Your group must recommend one option to the board and give one or two clear reasons. The three options on the table:
- A. Renew the current lease: city centre, 60 desks, meeting rooms for up to 80. 820,000 a year, plus a 150,000 one-off repair to the lift.
- B. Move to a smaller city-centre office: 36 shared desks, bookable meeting rooms. 610,000 a year, plus a 220,000 one-off move.
- C. Join a shared public-sector hub: 30 desks in a building shared with other public bodies, rooms booked across all of them. 450,000 a year, plus a 120,000 one-off move.
The B and C buildings are step-free. There is no single right answer: recommend the option you can best defend.
Role notes (each candidate reads only their own)
1. People and workplace lead
You speak for the staff who work in the office.
- In a staff survey, 72% want to keep at least two office days a week.
- Desk counts: about 27 desks are used on Mondays, Thursdays and Fridays, and about 48 on Tuesdays and Wednesdays.
- Three staff have access needs, and the current building's lift breaks down often.
2. Regional business lead
You run the office's work with local businesses.
- The office hosts about 40 business meetings and 6 larger events (about 80 guests each) a year.
- Businesses say a city-centre address makes them more likely to come; the hub in option C is 25 minutes from the centre by bus.
- Option B's largest room seats 30, so its 6 events would need a hired venue, about 5,000 each.
3. Security and IT lead
You protect confidential work and the office's systems.
- Some work is confidential and must be done in a secure room. Options A and B have one.
- Option C would need a secure room fitted: 90,000 one-off, and about 8 weeks of work.
- In option C the network set-up also needs agreement from the other bodies in the hub.
4. Finance lead
You make sure the plan is affordable.
- The running cost must stay under 900,000 a year.
- The board wants at least 150,000 a year saved against today's 820,000, from next year.
- One-off costs come from a 250,000 fund for this year, which cannot be exceeded.
How to run it at home: four people (or one person playing each role in turn), 10 minutes to read, then 30 minutes of group work: 25 minutes to discuss and 5 minutes to agree a recommendation and say it in under a minute. These timings are ours for practice; the How to apply page does not specify the exercise's timings, and your invitation is what counts. Everything in this brief is invented by ProSyllabus.
Notice what the role notes do. Each holds a fact the others need: Finance knows option A misses the savings target, Security knows option C costs more than it looks, Regional knows option B needs hired venues for its events, and the People lead has the desk counts that decide whether 36 or 30 desks are enough. A candidate who keeps their note to themselves makes the group's answer worse, and an observer can see that.
Figures from the invented brief; our arithmetic (B: 610,000 + 6 x 5,000). The board's savings target means at most 670,000 a year (820,000 - 150,000), so A misses it. One-off costs: A 150,000; B 220,000; C 120,000 + 90,000 secure room = 210,000, all within the 250,000 fund.
What assessors can see you do
Make your reasoning and contributions clear so an observer can follow them: a good idea you never say, or a question you never ask, leaves nothing to observe. So turn each Behaviour into actions you will take on purpose.
Practice assessor sheet: what to note, by Bank Behaviour
Ask a friend to watch your practice run with this sheet and tick each thing they actually see you do. It is our practice tool built on the Bank's published Behaviours, not the Bank's own marking form, and the How to apply page does not describe how assessors mark.
| Bank Behaviour | Seen in the room | Hurts you |
|---|---|---|
| Act inclusively | Shares their role facts openly and early; asks a quiet member for their facts; builds on another person's point and credits them by name | Talking over others; holding back their own facts to win; dismissing a view without hearing it |
| Drive growth | Challenges politely with evidence; changes their view when a fact shows they were wrong and says so; invites a quick check on how the group is working | Going along with a weak plan to avoid conflict; defending a first position after the facts turn against it |
| Deliver outcomes | Keeps the group on the board's goal; proposes a way to use the time; checks the budget and the constraints; pulls points into a decision and a summary | No decision at the end; a plan over budget or against a constraint; long side debates on detail |
Behaviour names and their meaning: Bank of England, How to apply (Our Bank Behaviours). The observable actions are ours.
Five habits to practise
- Say your role's key facts in the first few minutes, in one or two sentences, so the group can use them.
- Suggest a simple plan for the time: share facts, agree what matters most, test the options, decide.
- Ask the person who has spoken least for their view, by name, before the group decides.
- Tie every argument back to the board's goal and the budget, not to which option you were given.
- Near the end, summarise the decision and the reasons, and check the group agrees.
Our advice for practice. The How to apply page does not specify how the group exercise is marked.
Your practice-run checklist
After each practice run, tick what a watcher actually saw you do. Not every line fits every run: change your view only when the evidence warrants it, and use the list to spot habits you never show.
0 of 9 done
Ticks are saved only in this browser on this device.
Three worked examples
The first two use the sample brief above. The third is an analytical question of the kind the Bank says its assessment centre interview includes (analytical or technical).
Worked example 1 · Group exercise: opening the discussion
Four candidates have read the Aldmoor brief. Nobody has spoken yet. You are the Finance lead.
- "Shall we each give our key facts first, about thirty seconds each, then agree what we are judging the options on? I'll start." You have proposed a process without taking over.
- "The board wants at least 150,000 a year saved against today's 820,000, so anything above 670,000 a year misses the target. Renewing as we are, option A, does." A fact that rules an option out, stated plainly.
- "And one-off costs come from a 250,000 fund we can't go over." Now everyone can test their own option against it.
- Then hand over: "People lead, how many desks do we actually use?"
What it shows: Opening with a process and your facts gives you an early chance to show deliver outcomes and act inclusively, and it costs nothing. Holding back the savings target to keep a favourite option alive would show the opposite.
An original ProSyllabus walkthrough. The organisation, figures and lines are invented; it is not a Bank of England exercise.
Worked example 2 · Group exercise: turning a clash into a decision
Twenty minutes in, one candidate argues for option C (the biggest saving) and the People lead for option B (enough desks). The group is stuck.
- Name the test, not the winner: "Both meet the 670,000 target and fit the 250,000 fund, C even with its 90,000 secure room. So which one works for staff and for businesses?"
- Do the desk sums out loud: 2 days x 48 + 3 days x 27 = 177 desk-days a week. B has 36 desks x 5 days = 180, so B works only if the Tuesday and Wednesday peak is spread across the week, at about 35 a day. C has 30 x 5 = 150, so office days would have to fall by about 27 desk-days a week.
- Use everyone's facts: C is 25 minutes from the centre, which businesses say puts them off, and its secure room takes about 8 weeks. B keeps the city-centre address but needs hired venues, which brings it to 640,000 a year.
- Propose and check: "So: option B, with set team days so no day needs more than 36 desks, and events in hired city-centre venues. About 640,000 a year and 220,000 one-off. Does anyone see a risk we've missed?"
- Name the gaps before someone else does: "We're assuming staff will accept set team days. Two office days each still fits (60 x 2 = 120 desk-days), but we should test it with staff before signing. And the 5,000 per event is an estimate."
What it shows: You moved the group from two positions to one test, used the facts each role brought, kept to the target, the fund and the desk numbers, and left room for challenge. Another group could reasonably choose C with fewer office days; the reasoning is what shows.
An original ProSyllabus walkthrough. The organisation, figures and lines are invented; it is not a Bank of England exercise.
Worked example 3 · Analytical interview question: reading a chart
Question (invented): "A chart shows annual inflation falling from 7% to 3% over a year, while average pay growth stays at 5%. What does this tell you about households, and what else would you want to know?"
- State the main point simply: pay is now rising faster than prices, so on average real pay is growing, by roughly 2% a year (5% minus 3%, a rough guide).
- Avoid the common slip: falling inflation means prices are rising more slowly, not that prices are falling. The price level is still higher than a year ago.
- Say what an average can hide: lower-income households spend more of their budget on items such as food and energy, which may have risen faster than the average.
- Say what you would ask for next: pay growth by sector and income group, the inflation rate for different households, and whether housing costs such as rents and mortgages are rising.
What it shows: For practice, aim to give a clear first answer, check what the data supports, and name useful follow-up questions. Practise explaining your reasoning and checking your calculations; the How to apply page does not say how these are weighted.
An original ProSyllabus walkthrough. The organisation, figures and lines are invented; it is not a Bank of England exercise.
More analytical prompts to practise aloud (our own)
- Why might a change in interest rates take time to affect inflation? (Think about fixed-rate mortgages, savings, borrowing decisions and expectations.)
- A staff survey says 72% of people want at least two office days. What would you check before relying on that figure?
- If a small firm's costs rise 10% and it can only raise prices 4%, what are its options?
For motivation and behaviour-based questions with STARR model answers, see the Bank of England interview questions guide.
Practise the earlier stage: free situational judgement sample
The situational judgement test comes first, and most applicants reach the assessment centre only after passing it and the video interview. The box below starts a free sample from our Bank of England situational judgement practice: a few scenarios, then a full result page. Everything in it is original.
FreeTests: Act inclusively
Bank of England SJT Practice: free sample
Answer 4 questions against the clock, like the real exam. You then see the right answer, the reason and your time on each. About 5 minutes · free · no sign-in.
4 questions to answer
Start nowThis one is free · no sign-in needed
Your result shows how long each question took you.
Common mistakes in group exercises
| Mistake | Why it costs you | Fix |
|---|---|---|
| Speaking most and thinking that wins | Talking over others works against act inclusively; volume is not quality | Fewer, sharper points; bring others in |
| Staying quiet to avoid a mistake | Assessors cannot note what they do not see | Share your facts early; ask one good question |
| Treating your role as a side to win | The task is the best answer for the organisation, not for your role | Argue from the goal and the evidence |
| No decision when time runs out | Works against deliver outcomes | Agree a time plan; propose a decision with time to spare |
| Ignoring the budget or a constraint | A plan that cannot happen is not a recommendation | Do the sums out loud; check every constraint |
| Using AI help during the exercise | The Bank asks candidates not to use AI tools during it | Practise beforehand; be present on the day; ask in advance if you need AI-based support |
A virtual exercise adds its own traps. Test your camera, microphone and connection before the day, keep your face visible, and make it easy for others to speak: on a video call, pausing and naming the next speaker helps more than it would in a room.
Frequently asked questions
What happens at the Bank of England assessment centre?
The Bank says its assessment centres consist of one group exercise and one interview, and that the interviewers ask motivation, behaviour-based and analytical or technical questions. It is the final of three assessed stages, after the situational judgement test and the video interview.
Is the Bank of England assessment centre virtual?
Yes. The Bank's How to apply page calls the final stage a virtual assessment centre.
How long is the Bank of England group exercise?
The Bank's How to apply page does not give the length, the group size or the brief. Follow any instructions in your invitation. Our sample brief uses 10 minutes to read and 30 minutes of group work, for practice only.
How is the group exercise scored?
The Bank's How to apply page gives no marking scheme. It does publish its three Bank Behaviours (act inclusively, drive growth, deliver outcomes), which describe how it expects people to work, so preparing to show them is the safest approach.
What questions are asked in the Bank of England assessment centre interview?
Motivation, behaviour-based and analytical or technical questions, according to the Bank. It says it uses the STARR method (situation, task, action, result, reflection) for interviews.
Can I use AI during the assessment centre?
No. The Bank asks candidates not to use any AI tools, assistants or platforms during the video interview, live interview or group exercise. It says AI can be used to research the Bank and to practise beforehand. If you need AI-based tools for additional support, contact BOEadditionalsupport@penna.com in advance to discuss it.
How do I ask for adjustments?
The Bank asks candidates to contact BOEadditionalsupport@penna.com at each stage to discuss adjustments or additional support.
Is there an Excel test at the assessment centre?
The How to apply page says applicants to the Economist or Data streams of the Industrial Placement Programme will be asked to complete an online Excel test. Check your own programme's details.
Practise every stage
Bank of England Complete: SJT + Interview + Assessment Centre
- Group-exercise and analytical-interview practice for the assessment centre, with briefs that are not on this page
- A video interview bank with a timed answer drill and model answers
- The full situational judgement test practice, mapped to the Bank Behaviours, and an Excel task set
See what is in the complete kit →
Independent practice, not affiliated with the Bank of England.
Sources
- official — Bank of England Careers: How to apply (application form, situational judgement test, video interview, assessment centre, Bank Behaviours, using AI); page last updated 11 December 2025
- official — Bank of England Careers: Application tips (interviews, Bank Behaviours, adjustments); page last updated 4 November 2025
- official — Bank of England Careers: Future Talent (apprenticeships, internships, industrial placements, graduate programmes, PhDs)
- official — Bank of England Careers: Graduate programmes (applications closed; register interest for 2027); page last updated 15 April 2026
official = a document published by the conducting body. reported = a news or coaching site we could not check against an original. Where sources disagree this page says so rather than picking one.
