Here’s what it’s really like to work for the Royal Family

Watching the royal family walk past a crowd seems pretty straightforward, but every public event requires meetings, lists of resources, more meetings, planning sessions, and, of course, running the actual event, says Simon Morgan, a royalty protection officer from 2006 to 2013 and founder of Trojan Consultancy. It might look seamless on the day, but that’s only because “lots and lots of work has gone into that,” he says. “It’s not a case of we turn up and hope for the best.”

As you’d probably expect, working for the royal family involves a good deal of formality. For instance, you can only shake a hand if they put their hand out first, and you should never sit down unless invited to, says etiquette expert Grant Harrold, who was then-Prince Charles and Camilla Parker Bowles’ butler from 2007 to 2011. “These are rules you learn as a butler. They’re quintessentially British,” he says.

Learn about the 18 etiquette rules the royal family needs to follow.

When you’re dealing with people who expected to be treated like, well, royalty, you might expect some prima donnas who snub their staff. But Morgan says that was never the case for him. “They’re all very easy to speak to; they’re all very respectful of what your role is,” he says. “Certainly no one was aloof, or nobody treated you badly.” Harrold had the same good experience; he says they always acted gracious for his help and never forgot to say “please” and “thank you.”

If someone is supposed to be working closely with the royal family, they aren’t going to settle on the first decent person to apply. Harrold says he had to go to about six interviews over six months, and it wasn’t until the final one that he met Charles and Camilla.

You won’t believe these 13 bizarre royal jobs that actually exist.

By the time a person is vetted and hired, the royal family already has a level of trust for the staff member. But hard skills, like first aid and firearms for a protection officer, lose their meaning if you don’t have the soft skills for building rapport, says Morgan. “If you don’t have those personal skills – if you’re a blunt individual – that will be a problem,” he says. “If you can’t see you have to build relationships to move toward common goals, that will be a problem.”

Like any role where you’re living on the grounds with a family, on-duty hours aren’t always regular. A busy day might start at 7.30am and keep you occupied until 11pm, or you might have much shorter hours on a more lax day, says Harrold, who says he always had “very, very good hours” when working with the royal family, compared to the six-day weeks butlers with other families might need.

For Morgan, the most stressful part of his job was when the royal family was walking around greeting crowds. As much planning as he and the team might have put into the event, crowds can be unpredictable, so he’d need to be constantly scanning for potential threats. “They’re a family of the people,” he says. “Access and face time with members of the public is important to them, and you have to manage that and manage the risks associated with that.”

Here are 14 unlikely royal friendships that will surprise you.

Royal household staff members aren’t invisible to their palace-dwelling bosses. “If you bumped into them, they’d have a conversation with you,” says Harrold. “It wasn’t like, ‘You’re staff; I’m not going to speak with you.’” He said that if he was ever having issues with his family or personal life, Prince Charles would even call him on the phone to make sure he was OK.

You can’t just deem working for the royals your “dream job” and expect to get a position you’re not particularly qualified for. Royalty protection officers, for instance, need to have spent 10 to 15 years in the police force before being considered for a position with the royal family. Harrold, meanwhile, had written the Queen about job openings and got a solid “no” until he’d built up his resume. He worked his way up from under-butler at one estate to butler for the 14th and 15th Dukes of Bedford, then finally put in a successful job application for the Duke and Duchess of Cornwall.

Even though Harrold hasn’t worked with the royal family for many years, he still gets invitations to garden parties and events at Buckingham Palace – and he’s not the only staff member who’s built up a lasting relationship. He’s met former staff who worked for Queen Elizabeth II’s mother or are in their 80s and 90s who are still getting those invitations. “The royal family really do reward loyalty with loyalty and don’t just cut off contact with people,” he says. “When they build up relationships, the relationships stay.”

Don’t miss these 12 things you never knew about the Queen’s guard.