“No two days are the same”

Helen Mullan lives in Ballygowan, Co Down in Northern Ireland. She’s a business representative for the Customer Strategy and Tax Design directorate on HMRC’s enterprise tax management platform

“When I tell people I’m a civil servant – in particular for HMRC – I get lots of jokes about being lazy, having nothing to do and can I do anything about their VAT returns. I never go into specifics about my actual role because I am fairly sure it would leave people baffled, but hopefully my career to date shows the Civil Service can be an incredibly rewarding place to work.

“I joined the Civil Service in 2002 as a frontline manager for contactcentre advisers dealing with the introduction of tax credits, and also worked in HR for four years. After nearly 14 years, I gained my G7 promotion to a senior project manager working on delivering IT projects across the entirety of HMRC. This was followed by a brief secondment to the Northern Ireland Office as a senior policy adviser on EU Exit. I then came back to HMRC and moved across into my current role in January.

“There’s the opportunity to move into different professions, and the plethora of jobs available mean that you can continue to grow and learn from each role.

“No two days are the same and the people I work with are fantastic.”