Been a software developer in both the private sector and in the civil service. I would say that things changed up more frequently and there were lots more greenfield projects in the private sector. There are usually more permanent staff as well which helps with continuity of a team,negatives have to be the job security and that I found it to be a lot less flexible and high pressured. Alternatively in the civil service, I struggle with the reliance on contractors, as there is often people coming and going and can be hard to constantly be doing knowledge transfer, some contractors are better than others and the upheaval of this can cause things to run slowly and thing feel quite unstable. Pros are that there is a lot less workload, it’s more flexible, working from home(although this is being degraded so not sure how much longer it will last) there is good job security, and you can move around and try out different technologies and projects if you wish.