Name: NJC pay scales 2026/27
Creator: National Joint Council for Local Government Services

NJC pay spine, 2025-26 and 2026-27
SCP	2025-26 annual	2025-26 hourly	2026-27 annual	2026-27 hourly
2	£24,413.00	£12.65	deleted	deleted
3	£24,796.00	£12.85	£25,614.00	£13.28
4	£25,185.00	£13.05	£26,016.00	£13.48
5	£25,583.00	£13.26	£26,427.00	£13.70
6	£25,989.00	£13.47	£26,847.00	£13.92
7	£26,403.00	£13.69	£27,274.00	£14.14
8	£26,824.00	£13.90	£27,709.00	£14.36
9	£27,254.00	£14.13	£28,153.00	£14.59
10	£27,694.00	£14.35	£28,608.00	£14.83
11	£28,142.00	£14.59	£29,071.00	£15.07
12	£28,598.00	£14.82	£29,542.00	£15.31
13	£29,064.00	£15.06	£30,023.00	£15.56
14	£29,540.00	£15.31	£30,515.00	£15.82
15	£30,024.00	£15.56	£31,015.00	£16.08
16	£30,518.00	£15.82	£31,525.00	£16.34
17	£31,022.00	£16.08	£32,046.00	£16.61
18	£31,537.00	£16.35	£32,578.00	£16.89
19	£32,061.00	£16.62	£33,119.00	£17.17
20	£32,597.00	£16.90	£33,673.00	£17.45
21	£33,143.00	£17.18	£34,237.00	£17.75
22	£33,699.00	£17.47	£34,811.00	£18.04
23	£34,434.00	£17.85	£35,570.00	£18.44
24	£35,412.00	£18.35	£36,581.00	£18.96
25	£36,363.00	£18.85	£37,563.00	£19.47
26	£37,280.00	£19.32	£38,510.00	£19.96
27	£38,220.00	£19.81	£39,481.00	£20.46
28	£39,152.00	£20.29	£40,444.00	£20.96
29	£39,862.00	£20.66	£41,177.00	£21.34
30	£40,777.00	£21.14	£42,123.00	£21.83
31	£41,771.00	£21.65	£43,149.00	£22.37
32	£42,839.00	£22.20	£44,253.00	£22.94
33	£44,075.00	£22.85	£45,529.00	£23.60
34	£45,091.00	£23.37	£46,579.00	£24.14
35	£46,142.00	£23.92	£47,665.00	£24.71
36	£47,181.00	£24.46	£48,738.00	£25.26
37	£48,226.00	£25.00	£49,817.00	£25.82
38	£49,282.00	£25.54	£50,908.00	£26.39
39	£50,269.00	£26.06	£51,928.00	£26.92
40	£51,356.00	£26.62	£53,051.00	£27.50
41	£52,413.00	£27.17	£54,143.00	£28.06
42	£53,460.00	£27.71	£55,224.00	£28.62
43	£54,495.00	£28.25	£56,293.00	£29.18

What 3.3% is worth, point by point The same percentage applies to every spinal column point. In money it ranges from £818.00 a year at SCP 3 to £1,798.00 at SCP 43 — 2.2 times as much.

What the pay spine is

The National Joint Council for Local Government Services negotiates one national pay spine — the “Green Book” scales — for council staff in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. It is a single ladder of numbered spinal column points, and the annual negotiation moves the whole ladder rather than any individual’s position on it.

What the NJC does not do is decide what job sits on which point. That is local. A council designs its own grades — Grade 4, Scale 5, Band D, whatever it calls them — and maps each onto a run of spine points. The same job title can sit three points apart in two neighbouring authorities, and a grade that means one thing in Leeds means another in Kent.

This is why nothing on this site asks for your grade. Your spinal column point is national and means the same everywhere; your grade is local and does not. If you know only your grade, your contract or your payslip will give you the SCP.

What each point gained this year

The award was 3.3% on every point, so what it is worth in pounds climbs with the scale — from £818.00 at SCP 3 to £1,798.00 at SCP 43. Someone at the bottom of the spine gains 45% of what someone at the top gains, from the same percentage.

Where a pay claim asks for a flat cash sum rather than a percentage, this is the reason: a percentage widens the gap between the ends of the spine every year it is applied, and a flat amount narrows it.

What a step up the spine is worth

Moving up one point is worth £402.00 between SCP 3 and 4, and £1,276.00 between SCP 32 and 33 — more than 3 times as much. The spine is not a ruler with even markings, so “one point” means very different money depending on where you are standing.

Whether you move up points at all, and how fast, is set by your employer’s own grading and increment rules rather than nationally. That is the other half of what the NJC does not decide.

Hourly, part-time and term-time

A full-time NJC week is 37 hours — not the NHS’s 37.5, and not Scotland’s 36. Hourly rates run from £13.28 at SCP 3 to £29.18 at SCP 43. An hourly figure cannot be carried between the two sectors, and a salary comparison that ignores the week is comparing different amounts of work.

Some authorities use a 36 or 35-hour week locally. Where they do, the annual salary for a point is still the national figure, so the hourly rate goes up rather than the salary going down. If your contract says something other than 37, the hourly column here is not yours.

Term-time-only staff are paid a proportion of the annual figure, worked out from the weeks they are paid for including their leave entitlement. The proportion comes from your contract and varies between authorities, so no national table can give it to you — but the backpay calculator takes paid weeks as an input for exactly this reason.

Reading this table

The award was 3.3%, applied from 1 April 2026. That percentage is a label and a check — we use it to verify that each transcribed figure reconciles with the previous year, never to produce a figure.

SCP 2 was deleted from the spine for 2026-27. If you were on that point, check your circular or your employer for the point you were assimilated to — we do not guess it.

The spine is not evenly spaced. Between SCP 3 and SCP 22 each step is roughly £400 to £575; from SCP 24 upwards the steps are closer to £1,000. That is a feature of the spine itself, not of the award, and it is why moving up a point is worth much more in some parts of the scale than in others.

Hourly rates follow the NJC convention: annual ÷ 52.143 weeks ÷ 37 hours. Our import checks every published hourly figure against that formula and stops the build if one is more than a penny out — the 2025 circular had to be reissued for exactly this class of error.

To work out arrears and the month they land, use the backpay calculator.