Almost every United Nations vacancy lists a grade, such as P-3, G-5 or D-1. The grade is shorthand for three things at once: how senior the role is, whether it is recruited internationally or locally, and roughly where it sits on the pay scale. Once you can read a grade, you can target the roles that actually match your background and stop applying to posts that are two levels off.
This guide explains the main grade categories used across the UN common system. Individual agencies vary in the detail, but the structure below holds almost everywhere.
The Professional category (P-1 to P-5)
Professional posts are recruited internationally, which means they are open to candidates worldwide and staff can be posted to different duty stations and countries. They usually require an advanced university degree, or a first degree with additional years of relevant experience.
- P-1 and P-2: entry-level professional roles. P-2 is the typical starting grade for someone with a master’s degree and a couple of years of experience.
- P-3: mid-level. Several years of relevant professional experience are expected.
- P-4: senior specialist or manager, often leading a team or a substantial area of work.
- P-5: principal or chief level, leading a unit or a major programme.
Director level (D-1 and D-2) and above
D-1 and D-2 are senior management roles, leading divisions, large country offices or major programmes. Above the director level sit the most senior appointments, Assistant Secretary-General (ASG) and Under-Secretary-General (USG), which are leadership positions rather than competitively advertised jobs in the usual sense.
General Service and related local categories (G)
General Service staff, graded roughly G-1 to G-7, are recruited locally at a specific duty station to provide administrative, technical and support services: programme assistants, finance and HR assistants, IT support, and similar roles. They normally require knowledge of the local language and relevant experience rather than an advanced degree, and they are not rotated internationally.
National Professional Officers (NO)
National Professional Officer posts, graded NO-A to NO-D, are professional roles recruited nationally within a country office. They carry professional-level responsibilities but draw on national expertise and local knowledge, and are filled by nationals of the country where the office is located.
Field Service and mission posts (FS)
Field Service grades are used for staff in peace operations and field missions, covering technical, logistics and support functions in often difficult environments. Missions also advertise international Professional and National posts using the categories above.
How grade relates to pay
Each grade has a series of steps, and salaries follow the published UN common system salary scales maintained by the International Civil Service Commission. International Professional salaries are adjusted for the cost of living at each duty station through a mechanism called post adjustment, so the same grade can pay differently in different cities. Exact figures change over time, so always check the current scales rather than relying on a number you saw once.
Reading a grade on a vacancy
When you see "P-3" on a listing, read it as an internationally recruited, mid-level professional role. "G-5" is a locally recruited general service role. "NO-B" is a nationally recruited professional post. Match the grade to your own experience: applying one grade above your level is reasonable if you meet the criteria, but applying several grades off is usually a wasted application.
Common misconceptions about UN grades
A grade is not a measure of how senior you are in your current organization. It is tied to a specific post and the responsibilities written into that post's classification. A person who manages forty staff at a national NGO may still be a strong fit for a mid-level Professional post, and a person with a narrow but deep technical record may match a higher one. The job description and the level of decision-making it carries determine the grade, not your headcount or your prior title.
Two other myths cause the most wasted effort. The first is that you can negotiate your way into a higher grade during recruitment: the grade is fixed before the vacancy is posted and is essentially never adjusted for an individual candidate. The second is that more years automatically equal a higher grade. Beyond the stated minimum, additional years help only if they are clearly relevant to the post. Ten years in an unrelated field rarely outweigh a tightly matched profile.
- A higher grade number on a Professional post (P-3 versus P-2) means more responsibility and autonomy, not just more pay.
- Meeting the minimum years of experience makes you eligible, not competitive; most shortlisted candidates exceed the minimum.
- The grade shown on the vacancy is the grade of the post. Always read it as the ceiling and the floor for that specific role.
Targeting the grade that genuinely fits you
Apply to the grade your evidence supports, not the highest one you can argue for. Screeners compare your concrete duties against the post's stated requirements, so a clean match at one level beats a stretched claim at the level above. If you find yourself writing that you were involved in or exposed to something rather than that you led or delivered it, that is usually a sign the post sits a grade above your current reach.
A practical method: read the responsibilities section of a vacancy, not just the requirements, and check whether you could honestly write three or four specific results against each main duty. If you can do that for most duties, the grade fits. If you can only do it for a minority, look one grade down and you will often be far more competitive.
Moving between categories is not a promotion
Categories such as General Service, National Professional Officer, and the international Professional track are separate structures, not rungs on a single ladder. Moving from a local category to an international Professional post is a fresh, open competition, not an internal step up. You apply as an external candidate would, you compete against a global field, and your years in a local category do not automatically convert into Professional-level credit. They count only to the extent they match the new post's requirements.
The practical consequences are real and worth planning for. International posts usually carry mobility expectations and may require working outside your home country, while National Professional Officer posts are tied to the country and filled by its nationals. Pay structures differ by category and duty station rather than transferring across with you. Treat a category change as a deliberate career move with its own preparation, not as a reward that follows automatically from time served.
- Local-to-international moves are competed openly; prior local service does not guarantee shortlisting.
- National Professional Officer roles are normally reserved for nationals of the country and stay within that country.
- Confirm mobility, nationality, and pay conditions for the specific post on the official vacancy before assuming anything carries over.