Pay and wages
Public sector pay rose 6.3%. The NHS award was 3.3%.
The ONS put public sector regular pay growth at 6.3% in the year to July 2026, against 2.9% in the private sector — the gap is mostly timing.
6.3% Public sector regular pay growth
The Office for National Statistics put public sector regular pay growth at 6.3% in the year to July 2026, while the NHS pay award for 2026/27 was 3.3% — the gap is mostly timing, not extra money.
What the ONS actually published
On 15 September 2026 the Office for National Statistics (ONS) published average weekly earnings for May to July 2026. Average weekly pay was £756 including bonuses and £705 excluding them. The next release is 20 October 2026, so these are the figures being quoted at you until then.
Five numbers sit in that bulletin and they are routinely swapped for each other.
| Measure | Year to July 2026 | What it counts |
|---|---|---|
| Total pay | 3.9% | Wages plus bonuses |
| Regular pay | 3.5% | Wages only |
| Real regular pay | 0.6% | Wages only, after CPIH inflation |
| Public sector regular pay | 6.3% | Wages only |
| Private sector regular pay | 2.9% | Wages only |
Only the third row answers the question most people are actually asking, which is whether a wage bought more than it did last year. The answer is 0.6% more.
Why the public sector number is 6.3%
A 6.3% figure sitting next to a private sector 2.9% reads as though public sector staff got more than twice the rise. No Agenda for Change pay scale went up by 6.3%.
The ONS explains it in the bulletin itself: “the health and social work industry is being affected by some NHS staff pay rises being paid earlier in 2026 than in 2025, causing a base effect”. The 2026/27 Agenda for Change award was 3.3%. It was announced on 12 February 2026 and applied from 1 April 2026 in England and Wales — early enough to land in April pay. The 2025/26 award of 3.6% was announced on 22 May 2025 and only reached payslips in August, backdated to April. So the months being compared against are months before any award had been paid.
Part of the 6.3% is therefore measuring when money arrived, not how much it was. The gap narrows on its own once the comparison months line up again.
What to check against your own payslip
If you are on Agenda for Change in England, the number that happened to you is 3.3% from 1 April 2026, before tax, National Insurance and pension. Wales applied the same 3.3% from the same date, with one exception: the lowest pay points rose by between 3.8% and 5.9%, because the Welsh Government moved them to the Living Wage Foundation rate at the same time.
Our NHS pay rise page holds the old and new figures for every band and point, and the NHS pay calculator takes it through to take-home. Council staff on the NJC spine should start at the pay award.
The national average is one number for every employee in Great Britain. It describes almost nobody, and when it is quoted at you in a pay conversation, the useful reply is the figure for your own scale.
Where these figures come from
- Average weekly earnings in Great Britain: September 2026 — Office for National Statistics
- Westminster government announces Agenda for Change pay award in England — Royal College of Nursing
- NHS pay award 2025 to 2026: a fair deal for NHS staff — Department of Health and Social Care (GOV.UK)
- Written Statement: Responding to the 39th NHS Pay Review Body (12 February 2026) — Welsh Government
Every figure traces to a dated document — the line this section is named after. If one here is wrong, tell us and it gets fixed publicly. Work out your own figures.