NJC pay award 2025-26 — archived rates and award

Superseded. For the award in force now, and to work out what you are owed, use the current NJC backpay calculator — the 3.3% award for 2026-27.

What was agreed

3.2% on every spinal column point, applied from 1 April 2025 and backdated for employers that implemented later. In cash that was £757 a year at SCP 2, rising to £1,690 at SCP 43.

The 2025-26 spine as published

SCP	2024-25 annual	2025-26 annual	2025-26 hourly	Increase
2	£23,656	£24,413	£12.65	£757
3	£24,027	£24,796	£12.85	£769
4	£24,404	£25,185	£13.05	£781
5	£24,790	£25,583	£13.26	£793
6	£25,183	£25,989	£13.47	£806
7	£25,584	£26,403	£13.69	£819
8	£25,992	£26,824	£13.90	£832
9	£26,409	£27,254	£14.13	£845
10	£26,835	£27,694	£14.35	£859
11	£27,269	£28,142	£14.59	£873
12	£27,711	£28,598	£14.82	£887
13	£28,163	£29,064	£15.06	£901
14	£28,624	£29,540	£15.31	£916
15	£29,093	£30,024	£15.56	£931
16	£29,572	£30,518	£15.82	£946
17	£30,060	£31,022	£16.08	£962
18	£30,559	£31,537	£16.35	£978
19	£31,067	£32,061	£16.62	£994
20	£31,586	£32,597	£16.90	£1,011
21	£32,115	£33,143	£17.18	£1,028
22	£32,654	£33,699	£17.47	£1,045
23	£33,366	£34,434	£17.85	£1,068
24	£34,314	£35,412	£18.35	£1,098
25	£35,235	£36,363	£18.85	£1,128
26	£36,124	£37,280	£19.32	£1,156
27	£37,035	£38,220	£19.81	£1,185
28	£37,938	£39,152	£20.29	£1,214
29	£38,626	£39,862	£20.66	£1,236
30	£39,513	£40,777	£21.14	£1,264
31	£40,476	£41,771	£21.65	£1,295
32	£41,511	£42,839	£22.20	£1,328
33	£42,708	£44,075	£22.85	£1,367
34	£43,693	£45,091	£23.37	£1,398
35	£44,711	£46,142	£23.92	£1,431
36	£45,718	£47,181	£24.46	£1,463
37	£46,731	£48,226	£25.00	£1,495
38	£47,754	£49,282	£25.54	£1,528
39	£48,710	£50,269	£26.06	£1,559
40	£49,764	£51,356	£26.62	£1,592
41	£50,788	£52,413	£27.17	£1,625
42	£51,802	£53,460	£27.71	£1,658
43	£52,805	£54,495	£28.25	£1,690

The point that no longer exists

SCP 2 was on this spine at £24,413 a year, £12.65 an hour, and was deleted from 1 April 2026. If you were on it you were assimilated to another point, and which one is your employer’s record rather than something a national table can tell you. It matters for a backpay query: the arrears are worked out from the point you were actually on.

A note on which circular this is

The 2025/26 agreement was issued twice. The first issue, dated 23 July 2025, contained hourly-rate rounding errors and was withdrawn; the figures above come from the 24 July 2025 reissue, which is the version that governs. Copies of the withdrawn issue are still circulating on third-party sites, usually without any note that they were superseded.

The annual salaries are identical between the two — it was the hourly column that was wrong. So a figure taken from the withdrawn issue is not necessarily wrong, but an hourly rate from it may be, and there is no way to tell from the document itself which one you are holding. That is the reason this site pins every source by its file hash, and the reason it transcribes hourly rates rather than dividing the annual figure: the same error is easy to reintroduce.

If you are still owed money from this year

It happens — a late implementation, a leaver whose arrears were never chased, a point that was assimilated wrongly. The rates above are what the year’s figures actually were, and they do not change because the year ended.

Your employer’s payroll is the place to start, and your union branch if that goes nowhere. There are time limits on formal pay claims and they are shorter than most people expect, so it is worth asking sooner rather than later — but what those limits are in your case is a question for your union or a solicitor, not for this site.

Why this page still exists

Backpay questions do not stop when a year ends: a late implementation, a payroll query, or a former employee asking what they were owed all need the rates as they were. Keeping the record at its own address means the current calculator never has to carry a year in its URL. See the methodology and the source register.

The 2025-26 pay award