From my experience, it could be a mix of all three, as well as administration tasks, rather than spending your entire day on the phone. This varies a lot depending on the compliance directorate, tax regime and the type of cases you might deal with. Generally, as a Compliance Caseworker, you would be responsible for progressing compliance work and interacting with customers is part of that.

You will have responsibility for cases or tasks assigned to you and you will need to review these, either by checking correspondence from customers and replying to them, or by checking returns, claims or figures trying to identify discrepancies or information that needs clarifying. You might need to write to customers and/or agents requesting this information, then spend time analysing it and deciding what the best course of action is. You will end up managing a varied caseload, all cases/tasks assigned to you will have their own deadlines, risks and outstanding actions. 

Just to emphasise, the biggest variable will be which HMRC compliance business area the vacancy sits in. An AO role dealing with straightforward, high-volume cases can have considerably more telephone activity than one involving longer pieces of casework. If you're concerned about the amount of telephone work you might have to do as a Compliance Caseworker, I would confidently say that it's not comparable to an usual call-centre role. On the other hand, Compliance Caseworkers should be comfortable taking part in challenging conversations, discussing tax risks, requesting evidence and making fair decisions that impact our customers. 

21 Hydref 2026 08:54