Grades of civil servants and public sector employees

The salary scales are intended to ensure predictable and transparent remuneration in the public sector. At the same time, however, the tariff alone is not the entire salary. In addition to it, an employee may receive a personal allowance, a management allowance, an allowance for working at night, on weekends, on public holidays, in difficult working environments or other statutory salary components. The text is based on the original article by the user.

Who the salary grades actually apply to

In common parlance, almost anyone who works for the state, county, municipality, school, hospital or other public institution is often referred to as a “public employee.” Legally, however, the situation is more precise. A public servant is primarily a person in a civil service relationship under the Civil Service Act. But alongside this, there is a broad group of public service and administrative employees who work under an employment contract under the Labour Code and are also remunerated according to salary scales.

This latter group includes, for example, many employees of schools, hospitals, social services, cultural institutions or authorities, unless they are in a service relationship. The text therefore uses the term ‘civil servant grades’ in a broad, practical sense, but it is good to know that the legal regimes are not identical for all these professions.

What determines grade classification

The most common misconception is the idea that grade is determined solely by educational qualifications. In reality, it is the type and difficulty of the work actually performed that is decisive. The employer must take the most demanding work required of the employee and place it in the appropriate grade according to the job catalogue. Education is important, but it does not automatically guarantee a particular grade.

In practice, this is essential for administrative, social or professional positions, for example. Two employees with the same degree may not be classified in the same way if they perform differently complex work. Conversely, a higher grade is not just a “pay for school” but must be commensurate with what the employee actually does.

What determines your pay grade

In addition to the grade, there is a step which is based on the length of creditable experience. It is the combination of grade and step that determines the tariff salary. In other words, two people in the same grade can have different rates simply because they have different lengths of creditable experience.

Creditable experience does not automatically include everything a person has ever done. The employer assesses the relevance of previous experience to the work currently being done. This is where disputes often arise in practice, because the employee expects the entire previous career to be counted, but the employer only recognises part of it.

What has changed in 2026

For 2026, the salary scales have been adjusted again. For civil servants, the new tables were established by Government Decree No 16/2026 and for public service and administration employees, the change was already made by Government Decree No 471/2025 with effect from 1 January 2026. This means that the older tables referring only to the 2025 increase are no longer sufficient for May 2026.

For example, the tariff for civil servants in service starts at CZK 20,440 in 2026 at grade 6 and step 1 and reaches CZK 75,870 at grade 16 and step 12. For public service and administrative staff on the basic scale, the tariff starts at CZK 14 760 at grade 1 and step 1 and at CZK 42 000 at grade 16 and step 1. However, specific professions may also fall under special scales, such as teachers or doctors.

Why it is not enough to look at just one table

In the public sector, there is no one-size-fits-all table. The Regulation on salaries of employees in the public services and administration operates with several scales. One applies to ordinary employees, another to some health workers, for example, and another to teaching or academic staff. Therefore, it is not enough to say ‘I am in grade 12’ and look at the first table one finds on the Internet.

In practice, it is therefore always necessary to find out three things: under which legal regime the employee works, which grade he is correctly classified in and which scale his tariff is calculated on. Without this, any comparison of salaries tends to be quite misleading.

Supplements: the tariff is not the whole salary

The basic tariff is only the starting part of the salary. Other components may be paid alongside it. Typically, these include a management allowance, a personal allowance, a special allowance, an allowance for night work, Saturday and Sunday work, public holidays, overtime or working in a difficult working environment. It is the personal and management allowance that can make a very significant difference in practice between two employees on the same tariff.

For example, the management allowance is set as a percentage of the salary of the highest step in the grade concerned. A personal allowance may be granted by the employer to an employee who has a long record of very good performance or who performs a greater range of tasks than others. For top professionals in higher grades, the personal allowance may be particularly significant.

Typical problem in practice: wrong class

In practice, the biggest problem is not the existence of the salary tables themselves, but the wrong classification of the employee. The typical case is that an employee has been performing more professional and responsible work than his grade for a long time, but remains lower on the paper. The employer then argues for the job title or the original job description when the actual content of the work performed should be the deciding factor.

This is why the dispute is not just about “what school I have”, but more importantly about what the employee actually does, what he or she is responsible for, how much independent decision-making and how complex the tasks are. For many positions, the correct classification tends to be a matter of detailed legal judgment rather than a quick look at a spreadsheet.

Summary

Public sector grades and steps continue to work in 2026, but they need to be read correctly. It is not only education that determines the grade, but also the difficulty of the work performed according to the job catalogue. The grade is then determined by the credited experience. In addition, for 2026, the salary tables have been changed again, so the older articles and summaries may already be misleading. Most importantly, the tariff is not the whole salary – supplements and personal assessments often play a significant role.