Customer Service Advisor Portsmouth (573R)

Job summary

Discover a career in your hands at HMRC. Whether you're seeking purpose, growth, or a workplace that gives you a true sense of belonging, hear from some of our employees as they share their story about what it’s really like to work at HMRC.

Visit our YouTube channel to watch the full series and come and discover your potential.

At HMRC we have a vital purpose. We help people pay the correct amount of 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.

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.

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

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

As a Customer Service Advisor at HMRC, you will be the first point of contact for our customers, providing essential advice and assistance, predominantly over the phone, or email and web chat.

Your can-do attitude and passion for helping people will be key, as we fully train you to navigate various conversations and provide clear, quick information.

We will invest in you by providing structured training, development opportunities, and a clear path for advancement.

You will be responsible for:

• Speaking to customers on the phone, helping them with their questions or issues.
• Helping customers to pay the correct amount of tax at the right time.
• Taking payments by phone and via our online services.
• Creating customer records and keeping them up to date.
• Using webchat and email to support our customers online

We work a variety of shifts between 7:45am and 8pm, 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.

HMRC is an office-based organisation, and colleagues are expected to spend 60% of their working time in the office. Our offices provide opportunity for interaction, collaboration which aids learning and development and a sense of community.

The majority of roles within customer services allow you to work from home two days a week if you choose, averaged over a calendar month (or a proportionate amount of time for colleagues who work less than full time), this includes Saturday and 8 pm shifts.

On the days you attend the office, you will be working in the Regional Centre location shown in the title heading of this advert that you are applying for.

As a flexible employer, we will consider part-time requests. Part-time is a minimum of 25 hours per week covering variety of shifts. All shift patterns, working days and hours will be discussed with your manager when you join us. Pay and annual leave will be pro-rata if we can agree your request).

During your induction training programme, which will last between 6 -12 weeks, you will be expected to work full time 37 hours per week, and your working pattern will be Monday – Friday between 9.00am and 5.00pm. All training will take place in your designated Regional Centre and further details will be confirmed once you start your employment with HMRC. Time off or annual leave is not normally allowed during the first 6 weeks of training.

You can find out more about what it is 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

If you would like to know more about the role, we will be hosting a Microsoft teams' event on 18/08/2026 at 12:00. To sign up for this please use the following link:

HMRC Customer Service Advisor Recruitment Event - Portsmouth 18/08/2026 12:00-13:00 – Fill in form

Person specification

No experience is necessary as you will be fully trained, but we would like you to be comfortable talking on the phone and discussing debt with our customers.

You will also need to be comfortable writing up notes, a