What a Clerical Officer does

A Clerical Officer (CO) does general office and customer-facing work in a Government department, office or agency (the posts may include Garda Civilian positions). In summary, the duties may include answering the public face to face, by phone and by email, keeping records, checking work, filing, routine accounts work and reception duties, using IT daily (for example Word, Excel, databases and email), and supporting line managers and colleagues, with general clerical work under the supervision of a designated manager. The full list publicjobs printed for the Clerical Officer in the Civil Service Nationwide 2026 competition is in the table below, and the Temporary Clerical Officer 2027 booklet repeats it almost word for word. The work also reflects the business of the department: in the Passport Service, for example, the duties include verifying passport and Foreign Birth Registration applications. Both booklets say: “Specific duties may vary depending on the role within the employing Department/Office.”

publicjobs Clerical Officer Nationwide 2026 booklet and Clerical Officer Capability Framework (read 25 October 2026); Temporary Clerical Officer 2027 booklet (read 16 November 2026).

publicjobs says the duties of Clerical Officers may vary depending on the nature of the work of the employing department or organisation, and that the role involves such clerical and administrative tasks as may be assigned from time to time. The Clerical Officer Nationwide 2026 and Temporary Clerical Officer 2027 Nationwide booklets list the same core duties. In our words, with each line traced to the booklet:

Sources: “The Role” in the Clerical Officer in the Civil Service Nationwide 2026 booklet (Vacancy ID 1998) (read 25 October 2026) and “Key Duties and Responsibilities” in the Temporary Clerical Officer in the Civil and Public Service 2027 Nationwide booklet (Vacancy ID 10507, read 16 November 2026). In both, the duty list is followed by the note: “Please note, the above is not an exhaustive list. Specific duties may vary depending on the role within the employing Department/Office.”

A Clerical Officer competition fills posts across the Civil Service. The Clerical Officer 2026 booklet says vacancies may be in one of many Government Departments or Offices, or in an agency of a department, and that this may include Garda Civilian positions in An Garda Síochána. Where a department has advertised its own Clerical Officer or Temporary Clerical Officer posts, its job specification shows what the work looks like there. These are the department-level specifications we found on publicjobs and gov.ie:

Sources: Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, “Temporary Clerical Officer in the Passport Service 2026” on gov.ie (published 17 September 2026, closing date 12 noon, 28 September 2026; it also intended to recruit Temporary Clerical Officers for the wider Department, whose duties it does not list); publicjobs Vacancy ID 9106 booklet (in Irish) and Vacancy ID 10507 booklet (read 16 November 2026); Vacancy ID 1998 booklet (read 25 October 2026).

publicjobs’ Civil Service Career Path page describes the spread of the work this way: Clerical Officers “work in all departments and agencies of the Government” and “can support teams working in business areas such as customer service, finance, HR, marketing, IT, recruitment, policy, communications, and administration, amongst many other areas.” As an illustration (our example, not a publicjobs one): one Clerical Officer may spend the day at a public counter, another on routine accounts work, another supporting an HR or policy team.

In that 2020 count, Clerical Officers were the largest grade: 11,914 full-time equivalents, about 33% of the 36,499 total (our arithmetic), and 70% of them were women. That grade count is the paper’s 1 January 2020 picture of the Civil Service workforce, with Temporary Clerical Officers excluded, not a list of today’s Clerical Officer vacancies. Separately, the same paper found that the Revenue Commissioners took the largest share of new joiners across all grades between 2015 and 2019 (16%), and, in its separate analysis of Temporary Clerical Officers, that their use rose steadily from 2009, with summer peaks.

The Temporary Clerical Officer 2027 booklet says TCOs report to an Executive Officer or a Higher Executive Officer, and the duties lists put general clerical work “under the supervision of a designated manager”. Its grade diagram places Temporary Clerical Officer and Clerical Officer below Executive Officer; the Irish-language booklet for vacancy 9106 calls the Clerical Officer grade the entry-level grade in the Civil Service (our translation).

Sources: Clerical Officer Nationwide 2026 and Temporary Clerical Officer 2027 booklets; the point 1 rate is from DPER Circular 22/2026, set out in our Clerical Officer salary guide with the whole scale. The Clerical Officer (fluency in Irish) booklet says successful candidates may have to work full-time in the office during the initial training period, after which arrangements for blended working will be available, depending on the business needs of the Department or Office (our translation). Our suggestion: check the booklet for your competition for its working arrangements.

The Clerical Officer Capability Framework, which publicjobs uses to assess candidates, groups the skills for the grade into three dimensions. Read alongside the duties list, it explains what a good day’s work looks like at this level:

The CO 2026 booklet says candidates should demonstrate the skills and capabilities under these three dimensions. Both the CO 2026 and TCO 2027 booklets list, among the essential requirements, relevant knowledge and skills to undertake the duties, including the ability to: take direction and follow instructions; organise and prioritise work effectively; work well with the public and colleagues; make good judgements and decisions considering the available information and following the relevant procedures or protocol; communicate in a clear, helpful and appropriate manner verbally, digitally and in writing; take ownership and responsibility over work and become self-sufficient in their area of responsibility; and be flexible, agile and resilient in the face of challenges or changing demands, maintaining a “can-do” attitude and seeking support as necessary. Both also ask for previous relevant work experience, preferably in a customer service office environment. On ICT, the CO 2026 booklet asks for an appropriate level and experience of relevant ICT skills, e.g. proficiency in MS Office applications (Word, Excel), email and internet; the TCO 2027 booklet asks for appropriate experience of the same, plus excellent oral and written communication skills in English.

In the TCO 2027 competition, the application form includes the Assessment Questionnaire, the first stage, and the booklet’s timeline then moves through interview, panel, pre-employment checks and assignment (dates it says may change). In the Clerical Officer 2026 questionnaire, Part B asked candidates to imagine themselves in the role of Clerical Officer and rate possible ways of dealing with fictitious work scenarios. Our suggestion: reviewing the duties above may help you picture those scenarios. Our Assessment Questionnaire guide explains both parts, and our publicjobs interview questions guide covers the interview. Our own Clerical Officer practice test (a paid ProSyllabus product; we wrote the scenarios and they are not publicjobs material) lets you rate scenarios in that style; the box below starts its free questions.

ProSyllabus is an independent study site. It is not part of publicjobs, the Public Appointments Service or any Government department.