Working Together at every grade, from AA to SCS
The biggest reason Working Together statements fail is pitching at the wrong level: an AO story in an SEO application. This guide shows what the behaviour looks like at each grade and how to check your example matches the level you are applying for.
Why the same behaviour changes by grade
Success Profiles describes Working Together at every level from AA to SCS. The behaviour — building relationships, collaborating, valuing different perspectives — stays constant, but the scope grows: from your immediate team, to other teams, to partner organisations, to whole systems. Assessors score you against the descriptor for the grade you applied for, nothing else.
This has a practical consequence. A beautifully written statement about being a helpful colleague will score poorly for an HEO role, because the HEO descriptor expects you to organise collaboration and handle disagreement. Likewise, a sweeping partnership story in an AO application can score worse than a simple, well-told team example, because it never shows the basics.
Grade-by-grade expectations
| Grade | What it looks like | Typical example scope |
|---|---|---|
| AA and AO | Supportive team member; shares information; treats everyone with respect | Fixing a handover, helping a new starter, smoothing a shared booking system |
| EO | Builds constructive relationships; handles friction calmly without escalating | Repairing a damaged colleague relationship, resolving a rota clash between teams |
| HEO | Organises collaboration; values different views; resolves disagreements | Chairing a joint committee, coordinating volunteers, running a cross-team project |
| SEO | Builds collaboration across teams and partners; designs how groups work together | Multi-agency events, office moves, standing forums with external partners |
| Grade 7 | Leads collaboration across organisational boundaries, usually without line authority | Cross-departmental working groups, partnerships with arm's-length bodies |
| Grade 6 | Builds or repairs senior-level collaboration that outlasts individuals | Uniting directorates, inter-agency frameworks and protocols |
| SCS | Builds trust between organisations; models collaborative culture for the system | Shared services across a department, partnerships between administrations |
Use the table as a sense-check, not a straitjacket. The descriptors on GOV.UK and in the job advert are the authority. As of July 2026 the framework document at https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/success-profiles remains the source.
How to tell if your example is big enough
Ask three questions. First, who did you have to work with? The further beyond your own team, the higher the level. Second, what authority did you have? At senior grades the expectation is influence without line authority; if you simply instructed your own staff, the evidence reads as management, not collaboration. Third, what survived? At SEO and above, assessors look for something that outlasted the task: a forum, an agreement, a changed relationship.
For example, organising a packing day with your own volunteers is solid HEO evidence. Persuading a food bank, a housing association and a supermarket to run it together — and leaving a monthly forum behind — is SEO evidence.
Pitching up or down: the two failure modes
Pitching down is the commoner failure: a capable SEO applicant tells a cosy story about their own team because it felt authentic. The fix is not to exaggerate; it is to choose a bigger example or reframe an existing one around its boundaries and stakeholders. Most people with a few years' experience have worked across teams; they just narrate it as 'helping out'.
Pitching up is rarer but real: an AO applicant describes 'building strategic partnerships' when they covered a colleague's shift. Assessors are not fooled, and the statement misses the actual descriptor. At junior grades, ordinary collaboration told specifically — what you did, who you did it with, what changed — is exactly what scores.
Tip
Underline every sentence in your draft that involves another person or team. If most of the action happens inside your own team, check the grade descriptor again before you submit.
What stays constant at every grade
Three things never change. Your actions must be yours ('I', not 'we'). Disagreement, where it existed, must be handled constructively, not hidden. And the result must be concrete: a number, a change, something that lasted. Get those right at the right scope and you are scoring against the descriptor rather than beside it.
Frequently asked questions
Always the grade of the job you applied for. If you are applying at HEO, the assessor scores against HEO descriptors, even if your example also shows EO behaviours. Choose the angle of the story that matches the target grade: for HEO, emphasise how you organised the collaboration and resolved disagreement.
Rarely on its own. Senior descriptors expect organisational scope and influence without authority. A small example can support a bigger one at interview, but your written statement needs the full scope: multiple groups, competing interests, durable outcomes. If you lack one, mine your experience for cross-boundary work you narrated too modestly.
The framework levels are consistent, but departments choose which behaviours to test and sometimes adapt descriptors for specific roles. Always read the job advert carefully, because it states the behaviours and any specific guidance. As of July 2026 the GOV.UK framework remains the common reference point.
It does not matter for Working Together. The behaviour is about relationships and collaboration, not line management, at every grade. Plenty of strong senior examples come from project leadership, partnership working and chairing groups of peers — situations where you had no authority over anyone in the room.
Next step
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