NHS physiotherapist salary

Find your job title, read off the band

What fixes the band is the profile a post is matched to, never the wording of the advert. A job evaluation panel does the matching, and the score in the last column is what drops the profile into one band rather than the next. If your title is not here, the post was evaluated locally against the same factors — the profile list is the common cases, not the whole world.

Basic salary only. Nothing here includes unsocial hours, the London supplement or overtime, and none of it is take-home — those are further down.

There is no band 4 in physiotherapy

The ladder runs band 3, then jumps straight to band 5. Band 4 exists on the pay scale — it pays £28,392 to £31,157 — but no published physiotherapy profile reaches it. You are a support worker at band 3 or a physiotherapist at band 5, and the national profiles describe nothing in between.

That is unusual rather than normal. Of the six job families whose profiles this site holds, physiotherapy is the only one with a hole inside its own range — ambulance service, midwifery, nursing, occupational therapy and radiography run from bottom to top without skipping a band.

The practical effect is the step. The top of band 3 is £27,476 and the first step of band 5 is £32,073 — a jump of £4,597, crossed in one move rather than climbed. What crosses it is qualifying, not progressing.

Band 7 is four different jobs at one salary

More physiotherapy profiles sit at band 7 than at any other band, and they are not variations on one role:

• Physiotherapist Advanced — Assesses & treats own specialist caseload of patients/clients
• Physiotherapy Specialist (Respiratory Problems) — Takes lead role in physiotherapy assessment and treatment of acutely ill patients, mainly those with respiratory problems
• Specialist Physiotherapist (Community) — Assesses, plans and develops specialist physiotherapist treatment programmes for patients/ clients with a wide variety of complex physical needs in a community setting.
• Physiotherapy Team Manager — Provides physiotherapy assessment and treatment for specific group(s)

All four are band 7, so all four pay £49,387 to £56,515. Running a team and holding a specialist respiratory caseload are the same money here. That is job evaluation working as designed — it scores the demands of the post, not its prestige — but it surprises people who expect management to pay more. What band 7 pays step by step.

The top of the ladder has no page of its own

Band 8b is reached only by Physiotherapy Consultant, which is published against bands 8a and 8b together. A band earns a page here when a profile is specific to it alone, and this one is not — so this is where it is described. It pays £57,528 to £77,368 across the two bands, and it sits on the full pay scale.

The other nations pay physiotherapists differently

Job evaluation is UK-wide — the profiles above are used by every nation — but the money is not. Each nation sets its own Agenda for Change rates. Scotland has also shortened its full-time week to 36 hours against 37.5 here, which moves the hourly rate without moving the salary, so the two columns cannot be read side by side. Northern Ireland has issued no 2026/27 award, so a physiotherapist there is still on last year’s figures. The band-by-band rates are on each nation’s own page: Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

Questions people ask

What is a band 5 physiotherapist’s salary?

£32,073 to £39,043 in England 2026/27. Band 5 is the band of the profile published simply as Physiotherapist, so it is where a qualified physiotherapist starts. Within the band you move up its steps over time, without changing job: every band 5 step and when you reach it.

What does a band 6 physiotherapist earn?

£39,959 to £48,117 in England. Two profiles are band 6: Physiotherapy Specialist and Physiotherapy Specialist (Experienced Rotational). The first band 6 step is £7,886 more than the first band 5 step, and moving between them is a new post, evaluated against a new profile.

What is a physiotherapist’s pay rate, or wage, in the UK?

In the NHS it is set by band, and each nation publishes its own rates: England’s are on this page, and the other three are linked above. They are yearly salaries. Only the pay circulars for Scotland print an hourly rate as well; for England, Wales and Northern Ireland an hourly wage is worked out from the salary and the working week, and each band page shows one, marked as derived — for a newly qualified physiotherapist, band 5. Private practice is outside Agenda for Change and sets its own pay, which no national table covers.

What the table leaves out

The rota. Respiratory physiotherapy is an emergency service in most acute trusts, so two posts on the same band can be paid differently once the rota is counted: one enhancement for worked nights and weekends, and a separate arrangement for being available but not called in. The second of those has no national rate in England at all — the handbook has left on-call to local agreement since 2011, so the trust sets it and we hold no figure to show you. What each nation pays for unsocial hours, and when extra hours count as overtime instead.

London, and the deductions. Work in one of the London zones and a supplement goes on top of the salary. It is a percentage with a floor and a ceiling, so it is not a fixed share of the band — what it comes to at each one. Every figure on this page is gross — the take-home calculator handles income tax, National Insurance and the pension tier for all four nations.

Where the titles come from. Every job title on this page is quoted from National profiles for physiotherapy — NHS Staff Council Job Evaluation Group national job profiles, NHS Staff Council Job Evaluation Group (published by NHS Employers). The other allied health professions each have their own profile document. This site also holds the profiles for ambulance service, midwifery, nursing, occupational therapy and radiography. For a family this site does not hold, naming a band would be a guess. See the methodology and the source register.