NHS overtime pay 2026/27 — rates, and when it actually starts

When overtime actually starts

Section 3 sets one threshold for everybody, full time or part time:

Paragraph 3.1: "For the purposes of this section 3, overtime is those hours worked in excess of 37.5 per week."

It is the hours you work that week, not the hours in your contract. A part-timer who works extra hours is paid for them — but at plain time until the week’s total passes 37.5 hours. The handbook says so twice: once in paragraph 3.3, and again in the Annex 28 guidance, which answers the question directly.

What that is worth, on a real example

A band 3 nurse contracted for 22.5 hours a week works 30 hours one week — 7.5 extra hours. Their week never passes 37.5 hours, so none of it is overtime.

Reading	Rate	7.5 hours pay
Section 3, correctly — plain time	£13.17	£98.78
“Overtime above your contracted hours”	£19.76	£148.20

A difference of £49.42 on one week — and the higher figure is the one a reader is likelier to have been told. Hourly rates here are derived from the 37.5-hour week, because England publishes none; how, and why they are not published.

What the hourly rate is built from

Paragraph 3.2: "Overtime payments will be based on the hourly rate provided by basic pay plus any long-term recruitment and retention premia." Short-term premia and high cost area supplements are therefore excluded, as they are from unsocial hours under 2.8.

Paragraph 4.2 says the same thing from the other side about the high cost area supplement: it does not count as basic pay when the overtime rate is worked out. So two people on the same band and step, one of them in inner London, are paid the same for an hour of overtime — the supplement is added to salary, not to the rate overtime multiplies.

Unsocial hours are not added on top

They are the same hours seen from two sides, and the handbook divides them cleanly. Paragraph 2.7 pays the unsocial hours enhancement for work done during standard hours at unsocial times. Paragraph 2.9 then sends everything above standard hours to Section 3:

Any extra time worked in a week, above standard hours, will be treated as overtime and section 3: Overtime payments of this handbook will apply.

So an hour is one or the other. A night shift inside your standard hours attracts the unsocial hours percentage for your band; an hour past the weekly threshold attracts 1.5×, and not both.

Time off in lieu instead

You may ask to take time off in lieu rather than be paid. It is credited at plain time, not at 1.5× — an hour of overtime buys an hour off. And if operational reasons mean you cannot take it within 3 months, it must be paid at the overtime rate instead.

What an overtime hour is worth, band by band

At the entry step of each eligible band, on the 2026/27 England scale. Your own step will be higher if you are not at the bottom of your band.

Band	Entry salary	An hour	Overtime	Public holiday
Band 1	£25,272	£12.92	£19.38	£25.84
Band 2	£25,272	£12.92	£19.38	£25.84
Band 3	£25,760	£13.17	£19.76	£26.34
Band 4	£28,392	£14.52	£21.78	£29.04
Band 5	£32,073	£16.40	£24.60	£32.80
Band 6	£39,959	£20.44	£30.66	£40.88
Band 7	£49,387	£25.26	£37.89	£50.52

Scotland: the threshold is not settled

Scotland takes Section 3’s rules — 1.5×, 2× on general public holidays, bands 1 to 7, part-timers at plain time below the threshold. Section 3 is printed once, with no Scottish variant, where the handbook does print Section 33 separately for Scotland.

What it does not take is the number. Paragraph 3.1’s 37.5 is written for a 37.5-hour week, and NHS Scotland’s standard week became 36 hours on 1 April 2026. The circular that made that change, PCS(AFC)2025/1, does not use the word “overtime” anywhere in it.

So we do not publish a Scottish threshold. Picking 36 would derive it from the working week, which is the derivation this site does not do; repeating 37.5 would assert that the reduction left the threshold alone, which nothing says either. Ask your employer or your union which figure your payroll uses — and note that any site quoting one confidently has chosen it, not read it.

What this page does not cover

Additional hours for part-time staff below the threshold. They are paid, at plain time — that is paragraph 3.3, not an absence of entitlement.
Bands 8 and 9. Paragraph 3.6 excludes them from overtime payments entirely.
On-call and extended service cover. A separate arrangement under Annex 29, and it cannot be drawn alongside unsocial hours for the same hours.
What your employer agreed locally. Section 3 requires your line manager to have agreed the work as overtime before the rate applies (3.4).
Tax. Overtime is taxable and pensionable pay is a separate question — see the take-home calculator.