UPSC ESE 2027 Notification: About 480 Engineering Posts, Prelims on 31 January

UPSC ESE 2027 (the Engineering Services Examination, often called IES, short for Indian Engineering Services) is open for applications until 6 PM on 6 October 2026. It fills about 480 officer posts in central engineering services. These include the Central Public Works Department (CPWD), the Railways, the Military Engineer Services (MES) and the Border Roads Organisation (BRO). The prelims is on 31 January 2027. You need an engineering degree (final-year students can apply), and you must be 21 to 30 years old on 1 January 2027.

Four ESE 2027 branches and the services behind them

You apply in one engineering category only, and you cannot change it later. Each category leads to a different set of services:

UPSC says the total is about 480, including 19 posts for persons with benchmark disabilities (PwBD), and that the number can change. It does not give a split by branch or by category (UR, OBC, SC, ST, EWS). Branch-wise figures on other websites do not match each other, and one set adds up to last year’s 474. None of them comes from UPSC.

Service allocation later depends on your rank, your service preferences and your medical fitness. You must give at least one preference, and a service you leave out of your list will never be given to you.

Services dropped and centres cut in the 2027 notice

• The Indian Enterprises Development Service and Corps of EME posts are gone. Electronics and Telecom candidates also lose the Defence Aeronautical Quality Assurance Service.
• The 2026 service list did not name the Indian Defence Service of Engineers or the Indian Naval Armament Service. Each now appears in three categories.
• Mechanical candidates can now also pick the Central Water, Central Electrical and Mechanical, and Central Power engineering services. Electronics and Telecom candidates gain Central Power too.
• Vacancies are about 480, against about 474 in the 2026 notice. PwBD posts fell from 26 to 19.
• Noida and Faridabad are no longer prelims centres. There are 48 centres now.
• You can object to the prelims answer key from the 3rd day after the exam until 6 PM on the 7th day.

Four things in the form are new as well. It takes a live photo, and you sign three times. You can edit your registration profile once. And your face is checked at the exam hall.

What an ESE officer is paid: Level 10, not Rs 15,600

The UPSC notice has no pay figures. They are in Appendix III of the ESE Rules, 2027. Almost every Group A service here starts at Pay Level 10, which is Rs 56,100 to Rs 1,77,500 on the 7th Pay Commission pay table. New officers, including Railway probationers, start at the first step of this scale, Rs 56,100.

Two exceptions:

• Junior Telecom Officer is a Group B post at Level 7 (Rs 44,900 to Rs 1,42,400).
• Survey of India Group A is still printed in the old 6th Pay Commission form: Pay Band 3, Rs 15,600 to Rs 39,100 plus Grade Pay Rs 5,400. That old line is why you see “Rs 15,600 to 39,100” on some salary pages. It is not the pay for ESE as a whole.

Our own sums for a new Level 10 officer look like this:

DA is the Dearness Allowance and HRA the House Rent Allowance. These are our own sums, not UPSC figures. DA is 60% under the Department of Expenditure order of 22 April 2026, and HRA and travel allowance rates come from its 7 July 2017 orders. Income tax and small scheme deductions are not taken off.

On the same basis, a Junior Telecom Officer at Level 7 gets about Rs 83,900 in Delhi and Rs 72,000 in a small town. Railway officers get DA through separate Railway orders, and Border Roads officers get extra allowances such as ration allowance. HRA depends on where you are posted, which you only learn after allocation.

UPSC ESE 2027 eligibility: the degree, the age and two certificate traps

Qualification. An engineering degree from a university set up by a central or state law, or from a deemed university, is the usual route. UPSC also accepts a few other routes. These include Sections A and B of the Institution of Engineers (India) exam, often called AMIE, and graduate membership of the Institution of Electronics and Telecommunication Engineers (IETE). The Aeronautical Society of India’s associate membership exam and some foreign degrees also count. For the Indian Naval Armament Service (electronics posts) and the Indian Radio Regulatory Service only, an M.Sc. with wireless communication, electronics, radio physics or radio engineering also counts.

Admission date matters for some of these routes. IETE and Aeronautical Society of India qualifications do not count if you took admission after 31 May 2013. For AMIE candidates admitted after that date, the notice says the government will decide.

Final-year students can apply too. If you reach the interview stage, you must upload proof of your degree within 10 days of the Mains result. Miss that window and you lose the interview.

Age. You must be 21 to 30 years old on 1 January 2027. That means you were born between 2 January 1997 and 1 January 2006. The upper limit goes up by:

• 5 years for SC and ST, and 3 years for OBC
• 10 years for PwBD (low vision, hearing, locomotor and some other disabilities)
• 5 years for ex-servicemen and short service commissioned officers with 5 years of service by 1 January 2027

PwBD relaxation adds to caste relaxation, so an SC or ST candidate with a benchmark disability gets 15 extra years. PwBD candidates should first check Annexure-I of the notice, which lists the disabilities each service accepts.

Some departments’ own staff can apply up to age 35 for their department’s services. They may still list other departments’ services in their preferences. The notice names CPWD, BRO, MES, the Railway Board, Survey of India and a few others. Staff must be permanent, or temporary with 3 years of regular service.

UPSC takes your date of birth from your 10th certificate or an equal certificate, such as your 12th. Affidavits and municipal birth certificates are not accepted.

Certificate dates. An OBC (non-creamy layer) certificate must be based on income for 2023-24 to 2025-26. An EWS certificate must be based on income for 2025-26. Both must be issued between 1 April 2026 and 6 October 2026. A certificate from before 1 April 2026 will not be accepted. Reservation applies only if your caste is on the central government list, and you cannot change your category after applying.

Who pays the Rs 200 ESE fee, and who applies free

Women, SC, ST and PwBD candidates apply free. All other men, including OBC and EWS men, pay Rs 200. Pay online by net banking, card or UPI before the form closes. Cash payment at SBI branches, allowed in 2026, is no longer an option. The fee is not refunded.

Prelims, Mains and a 200-mark interview: the ESE 2027 stages

Your final rank adds up all three stages, out of 1,300. In the prelims, a wrong answer costs one-third of that question’s marks, and a blank costs nothing. You must reach the minimum marks in both prelims papers to go on to the Mains. About 6 to 7 candidates per vacancy reach the Mains. The interview has no minimum pass mark.

Other exam rules in the notice:

• All papers are in English only, and Mains answers must be written in English.
• Calculators are not allowed in the prelims. A simple, non-programmable calculator is allowed in the Mains.
• Up to 5% of the marks can be cut for handwriting UPSC cannot read.
• A prelims pass counts only for that year’s Mains.
• Entry to the exam hall closes 30 minutes before each paper.

Medical and height rules to check before you apply

Recommended candidates go through a medical test. The Rules suggest getting yourself checked by a government doctor of civil surgeon rank before applying. Things that can rule you out:

• An intra-ocular lens or implanted contact lens disqualifies you from every service.
• Short sight (myopia) above 6 dioptres or long sight (hypermetropia) above 4 dioptres makes you unfit for the technical services. LASIK is accepted only under set conditions, including at least a year since surgery.
• Some services need a height of at least 152 cm for men and 150 cm for women. These include CPWD, the Defence Service of Engineers, Border Roads and the Railways. ST candidates and some hill communities, such as Gorkhas and Garhwalis, get a lower limit.

Most services also carry a liability to serve at least 4 years in a defence service or a defence-linked post. Railway and Border Roads probationers who quit training for their own reasons must repay their pay and training costs under a bond.

One category, one centre, no edits: sending the ESE 2027 form

1. Register on upsconline.nic.in and get your Universal Registration Number (URN). Keep your 10th certificate beside you, because your name, parents’ names and date of birth must match it exactly. Keep a photo ID ready too: you enter its details in the form and carry the same ID to the exam.
2. Fill the Common Application Form. It takes a live photo, and you upload a photo and a signature (signed three times, in black ink) as JPG files of 20 KB to 300 KB.
3. Open the ESE module, pick your one engineering category and your prelims centre, and pay the fee. Every centre except Chennai, Dispur, Kolkata and Nagpur has a seat limit and fills in the order people apply. Apply early to get the centre you want, because you cannot change it later.
4. Check everything and submit before 6 PM on 6 October. There is no correction window, and you cannot withdraw the form.

Your one-time profile edit only changes forms you send after the edit, not a form already submitted. The e-admit card comes out on the last working day of the week before the prelims. UPSC contacts candidates by email, so check that its mail does not land in spam. The helpline numbers are 011-24041001 and 011-40303444, and the email is upscsoap@nic.in (10 AM to 5:30 PM on working days).

Lawyers can also apply to UPSC for 140 Assistant Public Prosecutor posts in Delhi until 6 PM on 2 October. For engineers, more central openings are on our UPSC jobs page and the list of jobs for graduates. Final-year students, note one last date for later: after the Mains result you get only 10 days to upload proof of your degree.

✍️ Published byLokesh Rathore

Lokesh Rathore is a content writer with over 4 years of experience covering Government Jobs, Sarkari Result, Admit Card and Sarkari Yojana. He turns complex official notifications into clear, accurate and easy-to-follow updates for job seekers across India - with every post cross-checked against official government sources.

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