At HMRC we have a vital purpose. We help people pay their tax and provide financial support to families and individuals. We make sure money is available to fund the UK’s public services such as hospitals and schools, answering around 50 million calls and handling 15 million items of customer correspondence every year.

We’re striving to be the best customer service organisation in the UK, and we need enthusiastic people to help us achieve this. 

Our services support customers on behalf of the entire department, dealing with a broad range of different and complex customer enquiries.

This is a great chance to start your career with HMRC and we offer real opportunities to progress and develop your career with us or the wider Civil Service if you choose. 

See what it’s like to work at HMRC: find out more about us or ask our colleagues a question. Questions relating to an individual application must be emailed as detailed later in this advert.

Job description

Our Customer Service Advisors are the voice of HMRC, using their brilliant communications skills to give our customers the best possible experience.

Your primary role will be handling contact from customers effectively and efficiently in Personal Tax predominantly supporting Self Assessment customers

You'll be the first point of contact for our customers, providing a first-rate service by telephone, email or webchat.

Your duties will include:

• speaking to customers on the phone, helping them with their questions or issues
• taking payments by phone, letter and our online services
• creating customer records and keeping them up to date
• using webchat and email to support our customers online

Please note this is a fixed term contract ending in April 2025, however there may be an opportunity to extend the fixed term or make the role permanent.

We work Monday to Saturday to make sure we can help customers when they need us.

You will work a maximum of one late shift per week (ending at 8pm) and a maximum of 6 Saturdays each year.

The majority of roles within customer services allow you to work from home two days a week if you choose, this includes Saturday and 8pm shifts.

Please note that this role is unsuitable for contractual home workers due  to the nature and requirements of the role.

You can find out more about what it’s like being a Customer Service Advisor at HMRC on the Civil Service Careers website.

Watch these videos to find out more about Customer Service roles at HMRC:

Our Professions – Customer Service Advisor at HMRC

Our Professions – Customer Services Group at HMRC

Our Customer Service Advisor role - all you need to know

We’ll be hosting a virtual question and answer session where you can find out more about the application process, and what it's like to work as a Customer Service Advisor at HMRC.

This will take place on Tuesday 21st November 2023 at 11:00am so visit Portsmouth Recruitment Call - 21 November (office.com) to book your place.

Annualised Hours

Here at HMRC we are exploring how we can provide some flexibility to working contracts whilst continuing to best serve our customers. We are introducing Annualised Hours contracts to ensure we have sufficient people in our business peaks. These contracts offer the opportunity to work longer hours during business peaks and reduced those hours at other times.

Because this is new for us at HMRC we will be monitoring the success of these working patterns against our customer service performance. If we need to make any changes you will be fully consulted and alternative contracts will be available.

Person specification

What are we looking for?

No experience is necessary as you will be fully trained, but we would like you to be comfortable talking on the phone and writing up notes as this is mainly a phone-based role.

We are looking for individuals with the drive and passion to make a difference to people’s lives, and need people:

• with great communication skills, both verbal and written in English language (and Welsh where required)
• dedicated to providing a brilliant customer service
• with a can-do attitude and a real passion for supporting people
• with the personal resilience to work in a demanding and rewarding environment
• able to provide information both quickly and clearly
• comfortable handling different types of conversations
• with an ability to do basic maths calculations