NHS pay rise 2026/27

Band 5 entry is shown because it is the most common starting point on the scale. Every nation’s full table is on its own page.

Northern Ireland has not had a 2026/27 rise

Staff there are still on the 2025/26 rates. No Agenda for Change pay circular has been issued for 2026/27, so there is no percentage to report — and any table that gives you one for Northern Ireland is showing you England’s. What Northern Ireland staff are actually being paid, and how far behind that leaves them, is set out in full on its own page.

What the rise is worth after tax

The percentage is gross, and nobody is paid gross. A rise is taxed at your marginal rate rather than your average one, so what reaches your bank is always a smaller share than the headline suggests — between 50.5% and 66.8% of it across the bands, on the England scale for somebody in the pension scheme.

Entry step of each band, England, in the pension scheme. Work it out for your own figures.

What the award has been

Only the years this site holds a verified circular for. Where a nation shows one year, that is the limit of what is held rather than the limit of what happened.

• England — 2026/27: 3.3%
• Scotland — 2026/27: 3.75% · 2025/26: 4.4%
• Wales — 2026/27: 3.3% · 2025/26: 3.6%
• Northern Ireland — 2025/26: 3.6% · 2024/25: 5.5%

Scotland’s 2025/26 figure is the revised one. It was agreed at 4.25% and lifted to 4.4% when the deal’s inflation guarantee triggered, with arrears paid in March 2026.

Why the percentage is not the whole answer

Wales’s lowest pay points did not get the 3.3%. They were lifted to £26,300 instead — the Living Wage Foundation rate of £13.45 an hour, paid in advance of the award — £13.45 × 37.5 hours × 365/7 weeks is £26,300 a year. The percentage was not applied on top, so anyone working it out from last year’s figure will get those points wrong.

Scotland changed the working week, not just the money. A full-time week there is now 36 hours against 37.5 in the rest of the UK. Annual salary rose by 3.75%; the hourly rate rose by more, because the same salary is spread over fewer hours. Anything paid by the hour — unsocial hours, overtime, bank shifts — moved with it.

A rise applying from 1 April does not mean it lands in April’s payslip. Payroll cut-offs move it, often by a month or more, and the difference then arrives as arrears. Where a nation is late, the arrears cover every month back to the effective date.

Where these figures come from

Each nation’s own circular, transcribed and checked twice, never copied from another nation and never worked out by applying a percentage. Where a published figure does not follow the percentage its own circular declares, we publish what the circular says and note the difference. See the methodology and the source register.