GP Registrar Salary 2026/27

Last updated: 25 October 2026 · Figures verified against the NHS Employers 2026/27 pay circular.

By the NHS Bands Pay editorial team

What is a GP registrar?

A GP registrar is a doctor in GP specialty training, working through the GPST stages towards becoming a qualified GP. The stages are numbered GPST1, GPST2 and GPST3. Each stage carries a training post, a supervisor, and a programme of placements, and the doctor moves from one stage to the next as training progresses. The title is sometimes shortened to GP trainee, and older documents may still say GP registrar for the same role. The pay described on this page follows the stage, not the job title used in a particular advert.

GP training mixes two kinds of placement. Part of the programme happens in hospital posts, in specialties that build the broad clinical base general practice needs. Part of it happens in GP practices, where the doctor works as part of a practice team under a GP trainer. That mix is the reason GP registrar pay has a wrinkle that hospital training pay does not. The basic salary stays the same across both kinds of placement. The supplement does not. It is paid in practice placements and not in hospital placements, which means two registrars at the same GPST stage can take home different amounts in the same month if one is in a practice and the other is in a hospital post. Anyone comparing GP registrar pay with a friend's payslip needs to ask which placement each person was in.

The programme is a training programme first and a job second, in the sense that the posts are designed around learning. A GPST1 doctor is not expected to carry the same clinical load as a GPST3 doctor, and the pay reflects that: the step from GPST2 to GPST3 is worth £11,970 a year in basic salary, a rise of 21.6%. That is the largest single step in the GP registrar scale, and it marks the move into the final stage, where the doctor carries more responsibility in practice and is closer to qualification. It is also the stage where the gap to qualified GP pay starts to close, as the later section on life after training shows.

One point of language helps avoid a common mix-up. A GP registrar is not a salaried GP, and is not a GP partner. Salaried GPs are qualified GPs employed by a practice or provider. Partners co-own a practice. Registrars are still in training, on the resident doctor nodal scale, with a training number and a programme. The three groups are paid under different arrangements, and figures from one group should never be quoted as if they belonged to another.

GP registrar pay 2026/27: the basic salary table

The table below gives the England basic salaries for 2026/27, effective from 1 April 2026. Monthly figures are basic divided by 12. Hourly figures use the 2016-contract basis: basic divided by 40 hours a week divided by 52.143 weeks. The chart plots the basic salary column. All figures are gross, before tax, National Insurance, pension contributions and student loan repayments.

GPST1 and GPST2 share a basic salary. That surprises people who expect every year of training to bring a pay rise, and it is worth understanding before you start. The nodal scale groups GPST1 and GPST2 at the same point, nodal points 3a and 3b, both at £55,355. The rise comes at GPST3, when the registrar moves to nodal point 4a at £67,325. In practical terms, a registrar sees no basic-salary rise between the first and second GPST years, then a substantial rise in the final year. Budgeting for training should allow for that flat first step, rather than assuming a steady annual climb.

Worked example one: a full-time GPST1 registrar on £55,355 has a gross monthly basic of £4,612.92. That is basic divided by 12, before any deductions and before any premium or extra-hours pay. It is the figure to use when checking a payslip basic line, and it is the same in a hospital placement and in a practice placement. If a payslip basic looks different, the first things to check are the contracted hours, the GPST stage recorded on the contract, and whether the payment period covers a full month.

Worked example two: a full-time GPST3 registrar on £67,325 has a gross monthly basic of £5,610.42, which is £997.50 a month more than the GPST1 and GPST2 basic. Over a year, the difference is £11,970. That step is the pay reward for reaching the final training stage. It is also a useful anchor for the post-training comparison later on this page: GPST3 basic sits £11,374 below the bottom of the qualified salaried GP range, so the final training year is close to, but still below, qualified GP pay.

How the 2026/27 figures changed from 2025/26

The 2026/27 award for doctors in England was 3.5% from the Doctors and Dentists Review Body, announced on 25 March 2026 and effective from 1 April 2026. On top of that award, the June 2026 nodal-point reform split the old nodal points 3, 4 and 5 into sub-points. GP registrar pay reflects both changes, which is why the two GPST steps did not rise by the same percentage.

GPST3 rose by exactly the 3.5% award: £65,048 plus 3.5% is £67,325, allowing for rounding to the nearest pound. GPST1 and GPST2 rose by £2,699, which is 5.1%, because the nodal reform changed the value of the point itself as well as applying the award. The distinction matters for anyone trying to forecast the next award. A future 3.5% award would not automatically reproduce a 5.1% rise at GPST1 and GPST2, because the extra part of this year's rise came from a one-off restructuring of the points, not from the percentage award alone.

For comparison, the foundation years on the same scale are FY1 at £41,226 and FY2 at £47,610 in 2026/27. A doctor moving from FY2 into GPST1 therefore sees a basic rise of £7,745, from £47,610 to £55,355. That step, larger than the GPST1 to GPST3 step in percentage terms at the start of training, reflects entry into specialty training rather than a routine increment. Doctors weighing GP training against hospital specialty training should note that the starting basic is identical: hospital trainees at the matching stages earn the same £55,355 and £67,325. The choice between the two paths is a career choice, not a starting-pay choice.

Hourly rates and extra hours

Resident doctors on the 2016 contract work a basic week of 40 hours. The hourly rate is basic divided by 40 divided by 52.143, which spreads the annual salary across the weeks of the year rather than across 52 weeks exactly. Additional rostered hours beyond the basic week follow a clear pattern: hours in waking hours are paid at plain time, and hours between 9pm and 7am or on Sundays carry a 37% premium on the hourly rate.

Worked example: a GPST1 registrar covering one extra hour at 10pm is paid £36.36 for that hour, which is the £26.54 plain-time rate plus 37%. The same extra hour in daytime waking hours is paid at £26.54. A GPST3 registrar covering the same 10pm hour is paid £44.22, which is £32.28 plus 37%. Those premium hours are paid per hour worked, on top of basic salary. They do not change the basic salary, and they should not be annualised into a salary figure without knowing how many premium hours a rota actually contains.

Two cautions apply. First, the 37% premium is a doctors' contract figure. It is not the Agenda for Change unsocial-hours percentage, and it should not be swapped with the percentages that apply to nurses, porters or other Agenda for Change staff. Second, rotas vary. A registrar on a rota with few night or Sunday hours will see little premium pay, while a registrar on a rota heavy with nights will see more. Comparing total pay between two registrars at the same stage without comparing their rotas will mislead, in the same way that comparing practice and hospital placements without noting the premium will mislead.

Our junior doctor hourly pay guide works through the same hourly basis across the full resident scale, and our foundation doctor pay guide covers the FY1 and FY2 figures that sit below GPST1. Both use the same 40-hour, 52.143-week basis, so the hourly figures here line up directly with the figures there.

The GP Flexible Pay Premium: the part that changes with placement

Under the old arrangements, GP registrars received a 45% supplement. That supplement no longer exists. Under the 2016 contract it was replaced by the GP Flexible Pay Premium, a payment that follows the placement rather than the person. During a GP practice placement that forms part of a GP training programme, the premium is payable. During a hospital placement, it is not. That single rule explains most of the payslip confusion around GP registrar pay, because a registrar's total pay moves up and down as placements change, even though the basic salary does not move at all.

The premium is also pro rata. A part-time registrar receives it pro rata to the hours worked, and a registrar in a part-week placement receives it pro rata to the placement pattern. That matters for anyone planning a less-than-full-time training route: the premium scales with the fraction, just as basic salary does, so a half-time registrar does not receive a full-time premium on top of a half-time basic. The contract fraction, not the GPST stage alone, sets both parts of the pay.

This guide deliberately gives no cash figure for the premium in 2026/27. The reason is simple and worth stating plainly: no verified official value is available in the pay data this site works from, and a figure that circulates on a secondary GP training site is unverified against any official source. Publishing that figure, or building practice-placement totals from it, would dress up a guess as a fact. A registrar planning finances should therefore treat practice-placement pay as basic plus a premium to be confirmed, and should ask the training programme or employer for the current premium value in writing before budgeting on it. Hospital-placement pay, by contrast, can be budgeted from the basic and the hourly figures on this page with confidence, because no premium is involved.

That gap in the published record is frustrating, and this page does not hide it. It is better to know that a figure is missing than to plan around a wrong one. If an official premium value is published for 2026/27, this page should be updated to include it, with the source stated. Until then, any source quoting a precise 2026/27 premium should be asked for its official source, and any total that depends on it should be treated as an estimate.

Hospital placements and GP practice placements side by side

The table below summarises the pay picture in each kind of placement. It is qualitative where the premium is concerned, because the premium has no verified cash value on this page, and precise where the basic and hourly figures are concerned, because those come from the verified scale.

A registrar moving from a hospital post into a practice post should therefore expect total pay to rise, by the premium, even though the basic line on the payslip stays the same. A registrar moving the other way should expect total pay to fall by the same premium, again with no change to basic. Neither move is a pay cut or a pay rise in the sense of a changed salary. It is the placement rule doing its work. Registrars who track their pay across a training year should keep a note of placement start and end dates beside each payslip, or the pattern will look random when it is in fact entirely regular.

Practice placements also differ in working pattern from hospital rotas. Practice work is built around clinics, visits and administration rather than a ward rota, and the extra-hours pattern follows the placement rather than a single national rota template. That is another reason to read the placement details, not just the GPST stage, when judging a post. Two practice placements at the same stage can still differ in hours and pattern, even though the basic and the premium rule are the same.

Part-time training and pro rata pay

Part-time, or less-than-full-time, GP training is a normal route, and the pay maths follows the fraction. Basic salary is paid pro rata: a registrar working at a fraction of full time receives that fraction of the full-time basic. The premium follows the same rule for part-time and part-week placements. Extra-hours pay is then calculated on the hours actually worked beyond the contracted pattern, at the hourly rates on this page.

Worked example: a GPST1 registrar working half time has a full-time basic of £55,355, so the part-time basic is £27,677.50, which is half of £55,355. The monthly gross basic is therefore £2,306.46, which is £27,677.50 divided by 12. The plain-time hourly rate stays £26.54, because the hourly rate is a rate per hour, not a total. Only the number of hours paid changes. The same logic applies at any fraction: multiply the full-time basic by the fraction to get the part-time basic, then divide by 12 for the monthly figure.

One practical point catches part-time registrars out. A placement described as part-week may not be a neat fraction like a half or three quarters. It may be a set number of sessions or days that works out to an awkward percentage. Always confirm the exact contracted fraction in the contract, and check that the payslip basic matches that fraction of the full-time basic. A small error in the fraction produces a small error every month, and it is easier to correct in the first month than after a year of payslips.

After GP training: qualified GP pay

Once training is complete, the employed route most newly qualified GPs consider first is salaried GP work. The 2026/27 national salaried GP pay range is £78,699 to £118,759, after the 3.5% uplift from 1 April 2026. That range is a framework for negotiation, not a scale with steps. A newly qualified GP negotiates a salary within it, based on the post, the sessions, experience and local conditions. There is no automatic move from the bottom to the top with service, in the way that a training scale moves a registrar from one nodal point to the next.

The gap from GPST3 is instructive. GPST3 basic is £67,325. The bottom of the salaried range, £78,699, is £11,374 higher. That gap is the pay step that qualification represents, before any premium or extra-hours considerations, which do not apply in the same way to salaried work. A registrar in a practice placement receiving the premium will see a smaller effective gap in total pay terms than the basic-to-range comparison suggests, because the premium falls away on qualification while the salaried range takes over. That is another reason not to compare a practice-placement total directly with a salaried salary without noting which parts of each figure are permanent and which are placement-linked.

Our salaried versus partner GP pay guide explains the salaried range in detail, including how it differs from partnership, where income comes as a profit share rather than a salary. Readers who want the full doctor ladder in one place should also see our NHS doctor pay scales hub, which sets GP registrar pay beside foundation, specialty, SAS and consultant pay, and our trust grade doctor guide for the locally employed route that some doctors take between training stages.

How GP registrar pay sits beside hospital training pay

Because GP registrars sit on the resident doctor nodal scale, their pay can be placed exactly beside hospital training pay. The table below does that for the stages most readers compare. It uses England 2026/27 basics throughout, and it makes the key point visible at a glance: at the same nodal point, the basic is the same, whatever the specialty.

That shared scale also explains why GP registrar pay rose the way it did in 2026/27. The nodal reform and the 3.5% award applied to the whole resident scale, not to GP training alone. GPST1 and GPST2 moved with the hospital trainees at the same points, and GPST3 moved with the hospital trainees at its point. A future award will move the whole scale together in the same way, unless a future reform changes the points again. GP registrar pay should therefore be read as one part of the resident doctor scale, not as a standalone GP figure that moves on its own.

Checking your contract and payslip

Before accepting a GP training post, check five items in the offer and contract. First, the GPST stage and the basic salary figure, which should match the table on this page for a full-time post, or the correct fraction of it for a part-time post. Second, the placement type, hospital or practice, because that decides whether the Flexible Pay Premium is payable. Third, the contracted hours and the rota pattern, because those decide how much extra-hours and premium-hours pay is realistic. Fourth, the premium value itself, if the post is a practice placement, confirmed in writing, since this guide cannot supply a verified 2026/27 value. Fifth, the start and end dates of each placement, so that changes in total pay can be matched to placement changes rather than mistaken for errors.

On the payslip, the basic line is the easiest check: full-time GPST1 and GPST2 should show a monthly gross basic of £4,612.92, and full-time GPST3 should show £5,610.42, before deductions. If the basic line differs, the likely causes are a part-time fraction, a mid-month start, or a stage recorded incorrectly. Premium and extra-hours lines will vary with the rota and the placement, so they should be checked against the rota, not against another registrar's payslip. If a line cannot be explained from the contract and the rota, raise it with payroll in writing, with the contract and the rota attached, and keep the reply. Training pay errors are usually contract or fraction errors, and they are easier to fix with the documents in hand.

A final caution applies to every figure on this page. The basics are England 2026/27 figures from the medical pay circular, effective from 1 April 2026. Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have their own medical pay arrangements, and their GP registrar figures are not stated here. A registrar training outside England should not use the England basics as a substitute, and should check the figures for the relevant nation. Within England, always confirm the final figure with the employer, because the contract and the placement, not a guide, are what payroll pays from.

Frequently asked questions

How much does a GP registrar earn in 2026/27?

In England, a GP registrar in GPST1 or GPST2 earns a basic salary of £55,355 in 2026/27, and a GP registrar in GPST3 earns £67,325. Those figures are the basic salary before any supplement, before tax, National Insurance, pension and student loan deductions, and before any extra-hours premia. The basic salary is the same in a hospital placement and in a GP practice placement. What changes between placements is the supplement described below, not the basic.

Are GP registrars on Agenda for Change?

No. GP registrars are doctors, and doctors sit outside Agenda for Change. Their pay comes from the medical and dental pay arrangements, with the 2026/27 award set through the Doctors and Dentists Review Body process at 3.5% from 1 April 2026. That is why a GP registrar salary does not match any Agenda for Change band, and why Agenda for Change unsocial-hours percentages do not apply to GP registrars. The figures on this page are England figures from the 2026/27 medical pay circular.

What is the GP Flexible Pay Premium and when is it paid?

The GP Flexible Pay Premium, often shortened to FPP, replaced the old 45% GP supplement under the 2016 contract. It is payable only during GP practice placements that form part of a GP training programme. It is not payable during hospital placements. For part-time doctors, and for part-week placements, it is paid pro rata. The premium exists because GP practice work carries a different pattern of responsibility from hospital rota work, and it is tied to the placement, not to the doctor as a person.

Why does this page give no cash amount for the Flexible Pay Premium?

Because no verified official cash value for the 2026/27 premium is available in the pay data this site works from. A figure circulates on a secondary GP training site, but it is unverified against any official source, so this guide does not publish it and does not use it to build practice-placement totals. Any guide that quotes a precise premium amount for 2026/27 without an official source is guessing. The honest position is that practice-placement pay is basic plus a premium whose current value you should confirm with your training programme or employer before you budget on it.

What is the hourly rate for a GP registrar?

On the 2016-contract basis of basic divided by 40 hours a week divided by 52.143 weeks, the plain-time hourly rate is £26.54 for GPST1 and GPST2 (£55,355) and £32.28 for GPST3 (£67,325). Additional rostered hours in waking hours are paid at plain time, and hours between 9pm and 7am or on Sundays carry a 37% premium, which gives £36.36 an hour for GPST1 and GPST2 and £44.22 an hour for GPST3 for those premium hours. Those hourly figures describe the rate for the hour worked, not a new salary.

How does GP registrar pay compare with hospital specialty training pay?

It sits on the same nodal scale, so the comparison is exact at the matching stages. GPST1 and GPST2 at £55,355 match core and specialty training years 1 and 2, and GPST3 at £67,325 matches specialty training year 3. Foundation doctors sit below that: FY1 at £41,226 and FY2 at £47,610. The difference between GP training and hospital training is not the basic salary at the same stage. It is the placement pattern, the premium rules, and where the training leads.

What happens to pay after GP training?

Once qualified, the usual employed route is salaried GP work, where the 2026/27 national pay range is £78,699 to £118,759. That range is a framework within which individual salaries are negotiated, not a scale with automatic steps, so where a newly qualified GP lands in it depends on the post, the sessions, and the negotiation. Against GPST3 basic of £67,325, the bottom of the salaried range is £11,374 higher. Partnership and locum work follow different models again, with profit share or sessional rates instead of a salary, and this guide does not quote figures for those models.

Does part-time GP training pay pro rata?

Yes, in the usual way. Basic salary is paid pro rata to the hours worked, and the Flexible Pay Premium is paid pro rata for part-time and part-week placements. A doctor working half time in GPST1 or GPST2 would therefore have a basic of half of £55,355, which is £27,677.50, before any premium or extra-hours pay. Check the contract for the exact fraction, because a placement described as part-week may not be a clean half or three-quarter fraction, and the fraction drives every derived figure.