The commuter life might be a drag, but what if your office was based in Buckingham Palace? Might that sweeten the deal?
Britain’s Royal Household is currently recruiting for a senior correspondence officer who will begin a two-year contract in March 2026. The role includes writing letters on behalf of the nation’s Royal family, paying £32,000 ($43,000) a year for the job.
Being a letter-writer sounds like an unusual role, but the posting explains: “Thousands of letters are addressed to The Monarch and Royal Family every year. Working as part of the Correspondence team, your challenge will be to ensure that each one receives a timely and well-composed response.”
Working members of the Royal Family—those which are most likely to receive correspondence from the public include King Charles, Queen Consort Camilla, The Prince of Wales (Prince William) and the Princess of Wales (born Catherine or “Kate” Middleton). Senior Royals also include the Princess Royal (Princess Anne), the Duke of Edinburgh (Prince Edward, the youngest child of Queen Elizabeth and her husband, Prince Philip), and his wife, the Duchess of Edinburgh (formerly known as Sophie Wessex).
When approached for comment, Buckingham Palace did not confirm which members of the Royal Family the candidate would be working with.
The posting details that the role will have a “specific portfolio” which forms part of a wider team responding to letters sent in by the public regarding social, community, and national matters. The correspondence team will then “draft bespoke responses that answer varying and often unique queries.”
A key responsibility of the role also entails “remain[ing] focused whilst processing a large number of letters, ensuring that the right response is delivered at exactly the right time.”
The job also comes with some unusual perks. A complimentary lunch is offered on-site “to keep you fuelled throughout the day,” the posting adds. The Mountbatten-Windsor family appears to have embraced the benefits of hybrid work. The post says: “Flexible and hybrid working varies across different roles, and we’ll discuss the options available to you that will suit both your job requirements and individual preferences.”
As well as more common benefits like parental leave and volunteering days, the successful applicant will also receive complimentary admission to any location owned by the Royal Household, as well as discounts at shops under the Royal Household umbrella.
The extras might provide some much-needed discretionary income in one of the world’s most expensive cities. The role’s modest salary of £32,000 a year is above London’s living wage—a salary high enough to maintain a normal standard of living—which the UK’s Living Wage Foundation estimates is £28,860 ($38,751) a year. However, the salary does come in behind the median gross annual earnings for full-time employees in the UK which, according to latest figures from the Office for National Statistics, sits at £39,039 ($52,419) a year.
In a world where AI is expected to unlock a new era of efficiency, it seems the Royal Family would rather stick with human responses instead of outsourcing to an artificial counterpart. Increasingly, such roles may become harder to find. A report from Microsoft researchers studying the occupational implications of generative AI in July revealed that among the roles most likely to be disrupted were translators, writers, editors, and data scientists chief among them.
The report added: “LLMs can contribute to broader parts of the information life cycle—including creation, interpretation, and communication, in more flexible ways than earlier technologies.”
