Guidance for applicants

How do I apply? 

View our current vacancies. You will need to apply directly through the application portal. We are unable to accept CVs or applications directly to our recruitment inbox.

If you have any further queries about a vacancy, please email the Recruitment Team HLRecruitment@Parliament.uk in the first instance.

Eligibility

To be able to work at the House of Lords you will need to undergo our security checks at offer stage. To start this process you must have the following:

• the right to live and work in the UK
• a minimum of three out of the past five years address history 

Find out more about security checks and vetting (pdf, 155KB). 

Sponsorship

Unfortunately, The House of Lords is unable to offer sponsorship for candidates.

Types of roles with the House of Lords

Find out more about our offices and the roles you will find in our offices. If you’re looking for information about our graduate programmes, Internships and other opportunities, please view our job vacancies. 

If you want to join a particular office but there are no vacancies available, you can sign up for notifications on our recruitment portal. 

Educational and qualifications requirements

Some of our specialist vacancies will require certain qualifications, however we also have plenty of vacancies that require experience over qualifications and vacancies that look for transferable skills. You do not have to have been educated at certain establishments to join and this will not give you an advantage in your application.

Applying for a vacancy after the deadline has passed

All of our external vacancies go out for a minimum of seven working days with most campaigns running for two to three weeks or sometimes longer. We are unfortunately not able to accept applications after the closing date and time. 

Where are the vacancies based? 

We work onsite on the UNESCO World Heritage site of the Parliamentary estate. Some of our vacancies are full-time onsite whilst others can offer hybrid working. This will be made clear in the job description or adverts for the vacancies. However, if you are unsure, you can contact the Recruitment Team at HLRecruitment@Parliament.uk. 

Information about vacancies

Contact details are provided at the bottom of the job descriptions, for more information in the first instance you can contact us at at HLRecruitment@Parliament.uk.

Work experience

There are many different routes and experiences on offer in the House of Lords. For more information please view our current vacancies. Unfortunately, we do not currently offer work experience for school-aged children.

House of Lords vacancies advertised on other platforms

We often advertise on multiple job boards, which should take you to the House of Lords portal to apply. On occasion there may be fake sites that will advertise vacancies. To make sure that you're considering a legitimate vacancy, view our current vacancies. Please remember that the House of Lords will never ask you to upload or share any bank details during your application stage. Please stop the application if you are asked for this. 

Reasonable adjustments

You can request reasonable adjustments at any time during the recruitment process, from application to offer. To discuss these please contact the Recruitment Team at HLRecruitment@Parliament.uk. 

Attending an interview

The information you need to attend the interview, such as the location and who will be on the panel, will be available on the recruitment portal. You will need to log in to the recruitment portal to view this information.

Applying for vacancies after you’ve been unsuccessful

You can apply for any role that you wish for as long as you meet our eligibility requirements. You do not have to wait for a period of time before applying again. 

Getting feedback after receiving a rejection email 

If you have been rejected at application stage, we are unfortunately not able to provide any further feedback due to the volume of applications received. If you are rejected after a screening or interview stage, then you will be given the option to ask for feedback. Find out more about our recruitment process. 

Waiting for feedback after an interview

Receiving feedback after an interview can take a few days or sometimes a week or so. This could be because there are still more interviews to conduct or because the panel have time put aside to discuss the outcome at a later date. It is absolutely fine to ask the panel during the interview when you’ll hear back by as they will have a more accurate idea of that.  

Being placed on the reserve list

Being on a reserve list means that we think you are appointable for the role, but that another candidate scored more highly and was offered the position. If this vacancy or a similar vacancy comes up in the future, we may contact reserve candidates for up to a 12-month period. We do not always use reserves as vacancy requirements may change after the initial recruitment so do also sign up to be notified on any roles on our recruitment portal. 

What happens if your application is successful

That's great news! We’ll be working as quickly as possible to get you started. There are a series of checks that the Recruitment team will talk you through in detail. They will advise you not to hand in your notice until these checks have been completed. This is normal practice. Please assist them with getting all documents over as quickly as possible as this will help make the process quicker. Unfortunately, we can’t advise on timelines on how long onboarding takes or your start date until the checks have been completed. Security checks can be completed in a couple of weeks, but sometimes take longer.