Apprentice Compliance Officer

Job summary

Do you have an inquisitive mind?

Do you enjoy engaging with customers?

Do you want a job where you can work independently but also within a supportive team?

Would others say you have good judgment skills?

Are you looking for a route into an exciting counter fraud career, where you can make a real difference?

If the answer to these questions is ‘Yes’ click that apply button now and become our next Counter Fraud, Compliance and Debt apprentice.

Here you will have the opportunity to continually learn and work with a great team. The roles available are within our Compliance Teams and you will work towards completion of the Public Sector Compliance Investigator and Officer apprenticeship.

We are here to support you with your learning and self-development throughout the apprenticeship and beyond. You will grow your skills and experience through working with more experienced colleagues and through the support of other people in the same profession.

This is an exciting opportunity to earn as you learn and gain practical experience while you study towards achieving practitioner level membership of the Government Counter Fraud Profession. You’ll receive formal learning to develop crucial skills, knowledge and behaviours for your career and be part of a great team. If you wish to find out more about the Government Counter Fraud Profession, please click Government Counter Fraud Profession

Job description

The job may include a range of duties, with the following provided as examples:

• Conduct robust and challenging interviews by telephone and in person in accordance with all legal and policy requirements, pursuing all reasonable lines of enquiry. Ensuring declarations and changes have been reported at the right time and taking appropriate corrective action if errors are found.
• Ensure quality standards are maintained through adherence to all DWP policy and procedures, and CFCD operational instructions.
• Work collaboratively, effectively and flexibly within a team and contribute towards team expectations.
• Promote fraud awareness within DWP and to wider external business partners.
• Gather, verify, and assess all available information to submit to the appropriate Decision Maker to enable accurate benefit reassessment and overpayment calculation.
• Maintain accurate records and retain relevant evidence, redacting and annotating sensitive material when appropriate.
• Liaise with other departments/organisations within the framework of any existing partnership agreements.
• Prioritise workload in line with conflicting and changing priorities.

Person specification

Key criteria

As aCompliance Officer, upon completion of the required learning and practical experience, you will:

• Demonstrate effective, flexible leadership and communication skills with an ability to reach a diverse audience and be prepared to engage effectively with our partners.
• Have excellent organisational and planning capabilities.
• Demonstrate strong judgement and decision-making skills.
• Present information to internal and external audiences in a professional and credible manner.
• Be able to work effectively as an individual and as part of a team.
• Deal appropriately with challenging and vulnerable individuals through effective use of interview techniques and strong communication skills.
• Inspire others through positivity, drive and energy to achieve outcomes and deliver change.
• Be willing to travel between sites if required depending on business needs.
• Have the ability to work in a demanding and complex environment with changing priorities.

Learning requirements

The DWP is committed to investing in people and developing a professional workforce. It is a requirement for people working within DWP counter fraud to attain, and retain, membership of the Government Counter Fraud Profession (GCFP) at Practitioner level

During your apprenticeship you will be asked to produce a portfolio of work demonstrating your learning and use of different compliance tools and techniques which may include:

• Interview techniques and questions
• GDPR – what it is, why it’s important
• Legislation relevant to the role

The Public Sector Compliance Investigation and Officer Apprenticeship is expected to take up to 22 months to complete, however the full learning journey for this role will take up to 25 months. You will be given time out from your role to work on your apprenticeship. You must be committed to seeing through the apprenticeship and completing the qualification within the appropriate time period.

You will be supported by your line manager, skills coach, fellow apprentices, DWP Apprenticeship Team and the Government Counter Fraud Profession team within CFCD. You will have access to a variety of sources of encouragement to help you succeed. There is a lot to learn and do, so you need to be proactive, work hard and participate in the many opportunities you will be given to showcase your skills.

Please Note -

Successful appointments to this role will be subject to completion of the apprenticeship programme. Failure to achieve the required apprenticeship may result in redeployment into another DWP role (or DWP formal procedures being used which could result in termination of contract).

The apprenticeship for the Apprentice Compliance Officer role is designed to work towards achieving Category A Investigator practitioner level membership of the Government Counter Fraud Profession (GCFP). On achievement of the apprenticeship, you will be required to complete an annual self-assessment to evidence your knowledge, skills, and experience.

Further information on the Public Sector Compliance Investigation and Officer Apprenticeship can be found here Public sector compliance investigator and officer / Skills England

Eligibility Criteria:

To be eligible for this appointment and the apprenticeship funding, there are a number of eligibility criteria set out by the Education and Skills Funding Agency (ESFA). Full details can be found at Apprenticeship funding rules - GOV.UK. Candidates should ensure that they can meet these before applying. Some key points are listed below:

• Have the right to live and work in the UK valid for the full 25-month duration of the apprenticeship and associated learning journey.
• Must have lived in the UK and/or EEA for 3 years prior to apprenticeship start date or hold some form of exemption see ESFA funding rules Annex A
• Not be in full-time education or be already undertaking another apprenticeship by the apprenticeship start date. If you are 16 or 17 you are required to stay in full time education or training until you are 18 – commencing this apprenticeship will allow you to meet this requirement.
• You must not hold an existing qualification at the same or higher level in a similar subject to the apprenticeship. A qualification in a non-related subject would be acceptable.
• You must not already have significant previous work experience covering the knowledge, skills and behaviours demonstrated in the apprenticeship standard Public sector compliance Investigator and officer / Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education. If you have already worked in a similar field such as fraud, compliance or debt management, you should consider applying for other vacancies that do not require you to complete the apprenticeship, as too much relevant experience will make you ineligible and we would need to withdraw the offer in these circumstances.

• Apprentices aged 16 to 18 at the start of their apprenticeship that do not already hold a relevant English and Maths qualification will still be required to complete the appropriate functional skills qualifications to pass their apprenticeship.
• Adult learners over the age of 19 who still wish to work towards a Level 2 Functional Skills qualification voluntarily can draw upon Government funding to do so, either during their apprenticeship, or through a separate standalone qualification at another time.

Please list your qualifications in the qualification section.

Failure to meet any of the eligibility criteria may result in you being withdrawn.

Webinar event

We will be holding a webinar event to let you know more about these roles. This will take place on 11/03/2026 between 12pm and 1pm.

Registration Link – Candidate Awareness Session - 450645 EO Compliance Apprenticeship – Gloucester, 11 March 2026, 12:00-13:00

Please follow the link to register for the session. Those who attend may be contacted following the event for evaluation purposes to improve our service.

Government Counter Fraud Profession (GCFP)

The DWP is committed to investing in people and ensuring their teams are a professional workforce. It is a requirement of counter fraud post holders within DWP to attain, and retain, membership of the Government Counter Fraud Profession (GCFP) at Practitioner level. This means if you are successful in applying for this role you will need to undertake an annual self-assessment to evidence your knowledge, skills, and experience within your role to attain and retain practitioner level membership. We provide post holders with a learning routeway to support them in achieving as well as any workplace adjustments they may require. Failure to attain membership of the GCFP at practitioner level may result in DWP seeking an alternative role for you.

In applying you will have indicated that you have read and fully understood the professional requirements for this Counter Fraud Officer role.

Behaviours

We'll assess you against these behaviours during the selection process:

• Making Effective Decisions
• Communicating and Influencing

Benefits

Alongside your salary of £32,137, Department for Work and Pensions contributes £9,310 towards you being a member of the Civil Service Defined Benefit Pension scheme. Find out what benefits a Civil Service Pension provides.

DWP have a broad benefits package built around your work-life balance which includes:

• Working patterns to support work/life balance such as job sharing, term-time working, flexi-time and compressed hours.
• Generous annual leave – at least 23 days on entry, increasing up to 30 days over time (pro–rata for part time employees), plus 9 days public and privilege leave.
• Support for financial wellbeing, including interest-free season ticket loans for travel, a cycle to work scheme and an employee discount scheme.
• Health and wellbeing support including our Employee Assistance Programme for specialist advice and counselling and the opportunity to join HASSRA a first-class programme of competitions, activities and benefits for its members (subscription payable monthly).
• Family friendly policies including enhanced maternity and shared parental leave pay after 1 year’s continuous service.
• Funded learning and development to support progress in your role and career. This includes industry recognised qualifications and accreditations, coaching, mentoring and talent development programmes.
• An inclusive and diverse environment with opportunities to join professional and interpersonal networks including Women’s Network, National Race Network, National Disability Network (THRIVE) and many more.

Things you need to know

Artificial intelligence

Artificial intelligence can be a useful tool to support your application, however, all examples and statements provided must be truthful, factually accurate and taken directly from your own experience. Where plagiarism has been identified (presenting the ideas and experiences of others, or generated by artificial intelligence, as your own) applications may be withdrawn and internal candidates may be subject to disciplinary action. Please see our candidate guidance (opens in a new window) for more information on appropriate and inappropriate use.

Selection process details

This vacancy is using Success Profiles (opens in a new window), and will assess your Behaviours, Strengths, Ability and Experience.

The deadline for your full application (tests and written application) is 11.55pm on 17 March 2026**

Stage 1 – Short Stage Application Form

Please complete the first stage short application form, which includes your personal details, eligibility to apply and any reasonable adjustments required.

Stage 2 – Test

After you submit the first stage of your application, you will be invited to take a Civil Service Numerical Test. If you successfully pass this, you will be invited to take the Civil Service Verbal Test. If you successfully pass both tests, you will be invited to complete the final stages of your application. Please complete the online tests as soon as possible (within 24 - 48 hours is recommended), the closing date for the test and written application is 11.55pm on 17 March 2026. If you fail to complete the test and written applicationbefore the deadline, your application will be withdrawn. Guidance will be available when you are invited to take the test. The tests are administered online and accessed via the Civil Service Jobs website.

Online tests - There will be maintenance for online tests on Sunday 8 March 2026. This means you will be unable to access the online tests between 4pm and 7pm. Your progress will be saved, and you will be able to continue once the tests are available again.

Impact for candidates - Where a test is not available due to maintenance, candidates will see a message advising them to try again later. Candidates who are interrupted in the middle of a test will be able to pick up from the same point when the test becomes available again.
**IMPORTANT: After the test deadline, we will look at all applicant scores to decide what the job’s pass mark will be. We will consider the impact on protected groups and the number of invitations to the next stage. We may decide to raise the pass mark for the job - if so, you will be informed, and you will be told if you have passed or failed at the raised standard. Meeting the minimum test requirements for a job level is no guarantee of an invite to continue the selection process.

Stage 3 – Written Application and Sift

As part of the application process, you will be asked to complete a personal statement detailing the relevant skills and experience you can bring to the role. In no more than 500 words, please carefully consider the questions below.

You should address these when constructing your personal statement. You do not need to answer each individually as one example of evidence may cover all of the questions. You should also consider both the job description and person specification details above when providing your evidence.

• Describe a time when you have led a robust and challenging conversation (Lead question)
• Provide an example of when you have demonstrated your passion and commitment for learning

Your personal statement needs to set out evidence of how your experience meets the requirements set out above. Your layout is entirely your preference; you may choose narrative, bullets, etc. One narrative example may cover the requirements needed. You don’t have to explain the whole process, just what you have done and the skills and experience you have used. Further details around what this will entail are listed on the application form.

If you do not have work-based examples then please give examples from school/college, clubs, volunteering or other activities you have been involved in.

Should a large number of applications be received, an initial sift may be conducted using the lead question/statement. If so, we will sift on:

• Describe a time when you have led a robust and challenging conversation (Lead question/statement)

Candidates who pass the initial sift may be progressed to a full sift or progressed straight to an interview.

CV

You will also be asked to complete a CV with details of your job history, full qualification details, previous skills and experience.

In the previous skills/experience section you should detail your employment and/or education history relevant to this vacancy (we recommend a maximum of 500 words).

The CV will also cover your work history (we recommend you include up to the last 3 roles of employment history, plus any others that you feel are relevant) and qualifications.

Your CV will not be formally assessed so please put the main evidence of your skills into your personal statement. Your CV will be used to add context to your personal statement.

If high application volumes are received, the benchmark for candidates to proceed to the next stage may be raised. In line with our commitment to the Disability Confident Scheme (DCS), we aim to advance all DCS candidates who meet the minimum standard. However, we may only progress those candidates who best meet the required standards.

In the event we don’t receive a high number of applications we may not undertake a sift and progress all candidate to interview. For these reasons, the timeline is subject to change depending on the approach we take.

**Please note the closing date for your full application (tests and written application) is 23:55 on 17/03/2026**

The sift is scheduled to be held from 23/03/2026 to 04/04/2026. These dates may be subject to change.

Stage 4 – Apprenticeship Eligibility and Skills Check

Candidates who reach the required pass mark at sift will progress to ‘Interview 1’ and their details will be passed to our external apprenticeship provider Central Training.

Central training will contact each candidate and undertake a check of the following.

• Qualifications
• Eligibility
• Skills Scan

The Eligibility and Skills check is scheduled to be held from 13/04/2026 to 01/05/2026. These dates may be subject to change.

Please ensure you engage with Central Training to enable this check to take place as failure to do so may result in us being unable to progress your application.

Stage 5 - Interview

If you pass the written application sift with the required score and you are eligible for an apprenticeship with DWP following the provider check, you will be invited to a blended interview. You will receive an electronic notification to your Civil Service Jobs account.

The interviews will be conducted face to face. Where possible the interviews will take place at the locations listed in the Candidate Pack (slide 2), however candidates may be expected to travel to an alternative location as required.

If you require any reasonable adjustments to attend a face-to-face interview, please ensure you state those on your application form when asked to do so.

Interviews are scheduled to take place from 18/05/2026, please note that these dates are only indicative at this stage and could be subject to change. Interviews will be scheduled Monday to Friday, between 09:00 to 17:00.

Communications will be electronic and/or by SMS/telephone therefore it is important that you check your Civil Service Jobs account regularly, as well as your spam/junk email folder. Telephone calls may show as a withheld number, it is important that you answer so that your interview can be confirmed. If you wish to opt out of SMS messages, please email this address, including the vacancy reference and your candidate ID CFCD.RECRUITMENTINBOX@DWP.GOV.UK. As part of our commitment to improving the candidate experience, you may be contacted during the recruitment process to provide feedback.

Preparing for the Interview

The interview will take approximately 40 minutes and will consist of behaviour and strength-based questions.

A blended interview aims to be more of a conversation offering a more inclusive approach. The behaviour and strength-based questioning explores what you, the candidate, can and have done, but also your potential.

Behaviours

You will be assessed against the Civil Service Behaviours listed at level 2

An example of a behavioural question would be “Tell me about a time when you have had to deal with a difficult customer.” / “How did you lead by example to inspire and motivate your teams?”.

It may help to use one or more examples of a piece of work you have completed or a situation you have been in and use the WHO or STAR model above to explain:

• WHO - What it was? How you approached the work/situation? What the Outcomes were, what did you achieve? or
• STAR - What was the ituation? What were the Tasks? What Action did you take? What were the Results of your actions

Strengths

It is difficult to prepare for strength type questions. However, you can think through your answers, focus on your achievements and aspects you enjoy and decide how these can be applied in the organisation and role. While strengths questions are shorter and we do not expect a full STAR response, the panel is interested in your first reaction to the question and information or reasoning to support this.

If you do not have work-based examples then please give examples from school/college, clubs, volunteering or other activities you have been involved in.

If you withdraw your application at any stage, it will not be progressed further.

Stage 6 – Offer

Once all interviews have been completed, you will be notified of the outcome by email. Offers will be made in strict merit order to the highest scoring candidate first.

The successful candidates will be notified of a start date following successful pre-employment checks, which is likely to be during July/August 2026.

Important information

Candidate pack

It is important that you take time to read the candidate pack which can be found at the bottom of this job advert. This provides further information about the role and working in DWP.

You should only apply for suitable posts where you can travel to and from your home office location daily within a reasonable time. Please be aware that this role can only be worked in the UK and not overseas. Relocation costs will not be reimbursed.

Hybrid working​

This role may be suitable for hybrid working, which is where an employee works part of the week in their DWP office and part of the week from home. This is a voluntary, non-contractual arrangement and your office will be your contractual place of work. If a hybrid working arrangement is suitable for the role and for you, you will normally be required to spend a minimum of 60% of your contracted working hours from your DWP office. If you have a disability, caring responsibilities, or other circumstances that may affect your ability to meet the minimum office attendance requirement, please discuss this with us using the contact details in this advert.

Hybrid working will not commence until any training and consolidation period has been successfully completed.

Working pattern​

Part-time, part-year, term-time compressed hours and job-sharing working patterns within working hours will be considered but must meet business needs. We will do our best to let people with existing part time contracts retain their contracted hours provided they are in line with current business needs. Please note that successful candidates with agreed alternative working patterns will be required to work full time for specific periods to complete all training and consolidation. Currently initial training can last for up to 10 weeks.

​​Hours of work ​

The full-time working week in DWP is 37 hours. You may be required to work at any time between the hours of: ​

• 7:45am and 8.00pm on any day between Monday to Friday, and​
• 8:45am to 5.00pm on Saturday.​

Managers will agree working patterns with successful applicants within these business hours and review these as appropriate. You will be given advance notice of your personal schedule.

Learning and Development

DWP takes development seriously. Our aim is for our colleagues in these roles to be appropriately skilled and qualified, as determined by the business. To support this aim you are required to complete an apprenticeship, which will support you in further developing your professional knowledge and skills for this role and your future career development. The qualification can be undertaken in work time. You agree to take this job on the basis that you may be required to undertake a work-based qualification; your failure to participate fully in the professional programme, once appointed, may be a breach of your employment contract.

If DWP decides that it is no longer a requirement for you to undertake and attain a work-based qualification, it will release you from this obligation. Any decision to release you from this obligation will not be a breach of contract by DWP.

Important

If you hold a level 3 qualification (2 A levels or equivalent) then please bring your certificates with you to the interview if you have them.

Further Information

Diversity and Inclusion

At the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) we value diversity and inclusion and actively encourage and welcome applications from everyone, including those that are underrepresented in our workforce.

Find out more about working for DWP on the DWP Careers Hub.

Reserve List

A reserve list may be held for a period of 3 months from which further appointments can be made.

If you are placed on a reserve list but we cannot immediately offer you a post, please note:

• If you are later offered the role you applied for, in a location you have expressed a preference for, and you decline the offer or are unable to take up post within a reasonable timeframe you will be withdrawn from the campaign and removed from the reserve list, other than in exceptional circumstances (e.g. a contractual part time working pattern cannot be accommodated in the initial role offered or in the case of serious ill health).
• If we make an offer of an alternative role or location to that which you originally applied for, and you decline that offer, you will be able to remain on the reserve list.

Disability Confident Scheme

If high application volumes are received, the benchmark for candidates to proceed to the next stage may be raised. In line with our commitment to the Disability Confident Scheme (DCS), we aim to advance all candidates applying under the DCS who meet the minimum standard. However, we may only progress those candidates who best meet the required standards.

Reasonable Adjustments

We consider visible and non-visible disabilities, neurodiversity or learning differences, chronic medical conditions, or mental ill health. Examples include dyslexia, epilepsy, autism, chronic fatigue, or schizophrenia.

If you need a change to be made so that you can make your application, you should contact the Government Recruitment Service via DWPRecruitment.grs@cabinetoffice.gov.uk as soon as possible before the closing date to discuss your needs.

Complete the “Reasonable Adjustments” section in the “Additional requirements” page of your application form to tell us what changes or help you might need further on in the recruitment process. For instance, you may need wheelchair access at interview, or if you’re deaf, a Language Service Professional.

If you are experiencing accessibility problems with any attachments on this advert, please contact the email address in the 'Contact point for applicants' section.

Disclosure and Barring Service and Internal Fraud Database Checks

To process applications without delay, we will be sending a Criminal Record Check to Disclosure and Barring Service on your behalf.

However, we recognise in exceptional circumstances some candidates will want to send their completed forms direct. If you will be do