The Civil Services Academy was established in 1948 for the training of fresh entrants to the Pakistan Administrative Service (PAS) and was called the Pakistan Administrative Service Academy. Since then, it has undergone many changes in organizational structure and location. With the adoption of the Civil Service of Pakistan (CSP) Resolution, the Academy was renamed the Civil Service Academy and was shifted from a building on the Race Course Road (the present Circuit House) to the old Residency Estate on the Shahrah-e-Quaid-i-Azam. In addition to CSP probationers, it started imparting training to Pakistan Foreign Service (PFS) probationers in 1963. In 1972, after the creation of Bangladesh and the consequent loss of the Police Academy, the training of new entrants to the Police Service of Pakistan (PSP) was also entrusted to the Academy. Probationers belonging to the Information Service of Pakistan (ISP) started coming to the Academy in the same year.

A separate academy, known as the finance services academy (fsa) was set up by the government during mid 1950S for the training of probationers belonging to various finance services. This was located at walton, which was then a sparsely populated rural suburb of lahore. Probationers belonging to pakistan audit & accounts service (pa&as), pakistan railways accounts service (pras), pakistan military accounts service (pmas), pakistan taxation service (pts) and pakistan customs and excise service (pc&es) were trained at this academy.

Probationers of the central secretariat service (css) were imparted training at the secretariat training institute, islamabad, while those belonging to other services and posts received only on-the-job training.

After the administrative reforms of 1973, it was decided to organize a common training programmed (ctp) for all fresh entrants to various central superior services (renamed as occupational groups). The civil service academy and the finance services academy were merged for this purpose. The merged institution was renamed the academy for administrative training (aat). This name was changed to civil services academy by the then president of pakistan during his visit to the academy on 1ST november 1981.the academy was later granted the status of an autonomous body with its own board of governors and was merged, along with the four nipas and the pasc, into the national school of public policy (nspp) till 2016 through an ordinance unanimously passed by the cabinet. At present, the academy is a subordinate office / attached department of the establishment division.presently, the academy has one campus at walton, where the common training programmed (ctp) is exclusively conducted for combined training of probationers from all over the country. The other campus (known as the pas campus), which is located at the shahrah-e-quaid-i-azam, specifically stands for the specialized training programme (stp) of the probationers belonging to the pakistan administrative service (pas). The academy is headed by a director general with offices at both the campuses.the administration of the academy is under the general control of director (admin & finance) whose office is located at walton. All administrative matters of the probationers are also handled by the administration wing.all features and facets of the common training programme, including the academic components, are looked after by the ctp wing headed by a director (ctp) at walton campus, who is assisted by chief instructors, additional directors, deputy directors and other aides.