Figures for the last three months of 2025 show that the number of staff employed by all departments, boards and offices, including Manx Care, rose by 0.7% during the quarter, from 7,837.87 full-time equivalent to 7,890.04.
Manx Care accounted for the largest increase, up 27.5 FTE, with a focus on substantive frontline staff recruitment to minimise its reliance on agency workers.
The increase across core departments was 0.5%, with the workforce increasing from 4,403.48 to 4,425.56 FTE.
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The biggest increases were at the Department of Education, Sport and Culture, up 15.64 FTE during the quarter, and the Department of Infrastructure, up 7.94.
During the last three months of 2025, there were changes to 412 positions across DESC, where staff had either increased or decreased their hours, left a role, or started a new role.
The net effect was an increase of 11.57 FTE across schools, University College Isle of Man and the Education Advice and Support Division.
Meanwhile, the small increase in staffing numbers of DoI is the result of approved recruitment from previous quarters and a number of resignations and retirements - but there have been no newly created positions during the quarter.
The Cabinet Office saw an increase of 2.96 FTE during the quarter, with five vacancies filled and two new positions created within the Office of Human Resources and Public Health also seeing its actual staff number grow in line with a restructure agreed early last year.
There was a 3.08 FTE increase at the Department for Enterprise, with ‘normal churn and recruitment cycles’ resulting in a headcount returning to a level broadly similar to that in June 2025.
All the other departments showed decreases.
The government said the changes across core departments reflected normal recruitment and turnover, alongside ‘targeted workforce adjustments aligned to organisational priorities’.
There was a continued focus on ‘value for money, service resilience, and long-term sustainability’, it added.
The latest update on the size of the public service workforce is one of three quarterly reports for October to December 2025 that have been published this week by the Manx government.
A report on the Efficiencies and Change Programme confirms that government has failed to meet its target of making £10m of efficiency savings. Some £14.6m in potential financial benefits have been identified to date, but only £2.5m in efficiencies and savings are forecast to be realised by the end of the financial year.
The target had been to deliver at least £50m of cashable savings over five years, starting with £10m savings in 2025-26.
The third report is an update on the Island Plan which shows that more than half of the milestones set for 2025-26 have been completed. These include the development of a new long-term Sports Strategy and completion of a two-year air quality monitoring trial.