NHS Pay Bands 2026/27 — Agenda for Change Pay Scales

Pay bands at a glance — salary and take-home pay

Full-time, including NHS Pension membership, before any London weighting or student loan. Take-home figures are calculated from the official scales — use the homepage calculator for your exact step, hours and circumstances.

Scotland take-home is worked out under Scottish income tax bands on the 36-hour week. Band 1 (£25,272 in England, £26,557 in Scotland) is closed to new entrants and is not shown.

England pay scales 2026/27 — every step

Source: NHS Employers, Agenda for Change pay scales 2026/27 (3.3% uplift, effective 1 April 2026).

Scotland pay scales 2026/27

Source: Scottish Government, NHS Scotland pay rates 2026/27 (PCS(AFC)2026/1). Full-time week in Scotland is 36 hours from 1 April 2026.

Table assumptions: full-time hours (37.5 a week in England, 36 in Scotland), NHS Pension member, no London weighting, no student loan, standard tax code 1257L.

How Agenda for Change bands work

Your band is set by your job, not by negotiation. Every NHS job covered by Agenda for Change is scored under the national Job Evaluation Scheme — knowledge, responsibility, effort and working conditions — and the score places the job in one of the bands. Most newly qualified nurses, midwives and allied health professionals start at Band 5; healthcare support workers are usually Bands 2–4; senior and specialist clinical roles sit at Bands 6–7; consultant-level and managerial roles at 8a and above.

Steps move you up inside a band. Bands 5–9 have entry, intermediate and top steps. You normally reach the intermediate step after 2 years and the top step after a further 2 years at Band 5 or a further 3 years at Bands 6–9, provided you meet the standards in your annual review. Bands 2–4 have entry and top steps only — the top step comes after 2 years at Bands 2 and 3 and after 3 years at Band 4.

London weighting sits on top. If your workplace is in London or the fringe, the High Cost Area Supplement adds 20% (inner), 15% (outer) or 5% (fringe) to basic pay, within set minimum and maximum amounts — and it counts towards your pension. Part-time staff are paid pro-rata: the same band and step, scaled by contracted hours.

The scales change every April. Each year's pay award rewrites these tables, which is why last year's figures on other websites are often quietly wrong. This page carries the 2026/27 scales and is re-checked against the official sources every year when the new award lands.

Pay by role

Most staff think in job titles, not band numbers. These guides follow one role up its whole ladder, with take-home at every stage:

Typical bandings — the band of any specific post is set by job evaluation under Agenda for Change, not by job title alone.

Take-home pay by band — full guides

What changed for 2026/27

England: a flat 3.3% consolidated uplift on every pay point from 1 April 2026. A further package of structural improvements to the pay spine is still being negotiated through the NHS Staff Council and, once agreed, would be backdated to 1 April 2026 — the scales below are the confirmed position today.

Scotland: 3.75% for 2026/27, on top of a 2025/26 settlement revised up to 4.4%. The standard full-time week also fell from 37 to 36 hours on 1 April 2026, which lifts Scottish hourly rates even where salaries look close. A continuing inflation guarantee could add a further consolidated payment in March 2027.

Wales: 3.3% on top of the Welsh 2025/26 scales, which leaves Welsh pay slightly above England at Bands 5 to 7 — the Welsh table is below.

Northern Ireland: the 3.3% award for 2026/27 is intended but has not been implemented (Department of Health NI, October 2026). The 2025/26 scales below remain the ones in force.

UK-wide: Statutory Sick Pay was reformed from April 2026 — £123.25 a week or 80% of average weekly earnings, whichever is lower, payable from the first full day of absence. The sick pay calculator works on the new rules.

Wales and Northern Ireland pay 2026/27

Wales — 2026/27 scales (AfC(W) 02/2026)

Welsh take-home is calculated by this site's engine using UK income tax and National Insurance and the NHSBSA pension tiers, which apply in Wales exactly as in England: full-time, pension member, no London weighting or student loan, standard tax code 1257L. The full Welsh scales for every band are published in Pay Circular AfC(W) 02/2026 (see Sources). Bands 1, 2 and the Band 3 entry point sit at the £26,300 Foundation Living Wage floor.

Northern Ireland — 2025/26 scales still in force

As of October 2026, Northern Ireland's 2026/27 award had not been implemented, so HSC staff remain on the 2025/26 scales (a 3.6% uplift applied from 1 April 2025). For Bands 5 to 7 those are identical to England's 2025/26 figures:

Source: HSC(AfC) 06/2025; implementation status per the Department of Health (NI) statement of October 2026. This position is date-stamped because it may change — we re-check it at every scheduled check.

2025/26 vs 2026/27 — what the awards did to Bands 5 to 7

Scottish 2025/26 figures are the revised rates after the inflation guarantee lifted that year's settlement to 4.4% — the base the 2026/27 scales were built on. Sources: NHS Employers pay scales 2025/26 and 2026/27; PCS(AFC)2026/1 Annex B (see Sources).

London weighting and pension tiers — the rates inside your pay

High Cost Area Supplement (HCAS), 2026/27

HCAS is pensionable and is added before your pension tier is set; part-time staff receive it pro-rata. Source: NHS Employers, Pay scales for 2026/27.

NHS pension contribution tiers — England and Wales (NHSBSA)

NHS pension contribution tiers — Scotland (SPPA)

One rate applies to all of your pensionable pay — the tiers are not sliced like income tax. The tier is set by your actual pay, not the full-time equivalent, which is why part-time staff often pay a lower rate. Scottish rates shown on the SPPA basis for pay assessed on 2026/27 earnings. Full workings are on the pension calculator page.

Pay progression — how long each step takes

Progression is subject to meeting the standards in your annual review. In Scotland the pattern matches for Bands 5 to 7, but Bands 8a to 9 have two points only, with the top point reached at the sixth yearly increment. Source: NHS Employers, Pay scales for 2026/27 ("Years until eligible for pay progression"); PCS(AFC)2026/1 Annex C.

Scotland's 36-hour week — and what it does to hourly pay

Since 1 April 2026 the standard full-time week in NHS Scotland is 36 hours, down from 37 — the Scottish circular's own hourly-rate column is headed "Based on a 36 Hour Week". Annual salaries did not fall when the hours did, so the same salary buys fewer hours and the hourly rate rises. At Band 5 point 1, Scotland pays £34,544 for a 36-hour week — £18.40 an hour — against England's £32,073 for 37.5 hours, £16.40 an hour. It also changes every part-time fraction: 30 hours is 0.80 of a full-time week in England but 0.83 in Scotland. The Scotland pay hub runs every band on the 36-hour week with Scottish tax and SPPA pension tiers.