The public sector now employs a record 5.8 million people, with 318 new jobs being created every day – the equivalent of one every four and a half minutes.

The growing number of taxpayer-funded jobs comes as Chancellor Rachel Reeves prepares to unveil a punishing budget to fund the public sector on Wednesday while shielding workers from the worst tax rises.

Former work and pensions secretary Sir Iain Duncan Smith said the government’s policies, including efforts to reach net zero, would further grow the public sector.

“It’s like a gravy train that won’t stop,” he said. “This budget is about funding it. Taxpayers will suffer because taxes will go up everywhere.

The number of public sector jobs is now the highest since records began in 1999, according to the analysis of the Taxpayers Alliance. The sector accounts for almost 18% of all jobs in the UK.

The growing number of taxpayer-funded jobs comes as chancellor Rachel Reeves prepares to unveil a punishing budget

In the past year alone, 116,000 new public sector jobs were created (stock image)

The public sector now employs a record 5.8 million people, with 318 new jobs being created every day (stock image)

In the past year alone, 116,000 new public sector jobs have been created – equivalent to 318 per day – while productivity has fallen by more than 7.7% over the past five years.

Elliot Keck, head of campaigns at the Taxpayers’ Alliance, said: “Taxpayers will see this budget for what it really is, which is a public sector, public sector, public sector budget.

“While the rest of the country prepares for a devastating wave of tax increases, bureaucrats are sitting pretty knowing they’re bringing home the bacon. Rachel Reeves should remind her fellow big spenders that only the private sector generates the revenue they rely on to fuel their mess.

Tory MP Neil O’Brien, a former health minister, said: “We’ve added a lot of extra staff to the public sector, but productivity has fallen.

“The only time we saw productivity growth in the public sector was during the tight spending controls between 2010 and 2019.

“There will be no point in Rachel Reeves borrowing loads of money, raising taxes and dumping it on unreformed public services.”