The National Executive Officers are the Union's three most senior full-time officials - the General President, the Vice President and the General Secretary. Each officer is elected by the Union's conference for a six-year term. The Officers are permitted to stand for re-election but must retire from office when they reach the retirement age for all staff in the Union.

The primary responsibilities of the three Officers as follows:

General President and Vice President: general policy and conduct of industrial policy (the practice in recent years has been for the General President to focus primarily on general policy with the Vice President dealing with industrial policy); and

General Secretary: financial administration, recruitment, organisation, education, propaganda and general administration.

The Rules of the Union stipulate that all major decisions should be considered jointly by the three Officers before action is taken on them and should be referred to the National Executive Council if required by any one of them. Under a rule introduced at the centenary conference of the Union in 2009 each gender must be represented at national officer level from 2012.