A&E Nurse Take-Home Pay 2026/27: What Emergency Nurses Keep Each Month

Last updated: 10 November 2026 · Figures verified against the NHS Employers 2026/27 pay circular.

By the NHS Bands Pay editorial team

An A&E nurse salary is quoted gross, but nobody budgets gross. The number that matters at the end of the month is what lands in the bank after pension, tax, National Insurance and, for many A&E nurses who qualified recently, a student loan. This page works that number out step by step for every Band 5 and Band 6 step in England in 2026/27, so an A&E nurse can find their own step, read across, and see the monthly figure that follows from the published pay scales. The generic nurse take-home pay guide covers the same bands for ward nurses, but it cannot model what makes emergency pay different: the rota. A&E nurses work nights, Saturdays, Sundays and bank holidays as a matter of routine, and the enhancements on those hours are a large share of the monthly total.

A&E nursing is not a separate Nursing and Midwifery Council field. Nurses qualify as adult or children's nurses and then build emergency competence in post, through triage training, resuscitation courses and, for the practitioner route, postgraduate minor injury and illness study. Newly qualified nurses sit at Band 5, senior staff nurses, charge nurses and emergency nurse practitioners at Band 6, and senior charge nurses and advanced clinical practitioners at Band 7. Most of the department sits on the two bands this page covers, which is why the table below runs from Band 5 entry to Band 6 top and no further: Band 7 sisters and advanced clinical practitioners are covered in the advanced nurse practitioner take-home pay guide.

Every figure on this page follows the same method. Pension comes off gross pay first, and tax is calculated on what remains. That order matters, because it means pension contributions also reduce the tax bill. National Insurance is calculated on full gross pay, not on pay after pension. Student loan deductions are shown in a separate column, because they apply only to borrowers. The method is the same one used in the nurse take-home pay guide, the midwife take-home pay guide and the paramedic take-home pay guide, and the Band 5 entry row cross-checks against the site take-home calculator: the homepage calculator, run for a Band 5 entrant on the same inputs, gives the same £2,040.21 a month net, to the penny.

Monthly take-home by band step: the full table

Read the table by band and step. Gross salary is the full-time 2026/27 Agenda for Change figure for England. Pension, income tax and National Insurance are monthly amounts. Take-home is what remains after those three deductions, before any student loan. The final column shows take-home after a Plan 2 student loan, the most common plan for recently qualified A&E nurses.

Two steps deserve a second look. The move from the top of Band 5 to the bottom of Band 6 is worth only £916 a year gross, because the bands overlap, and take-home rises by only £48.98 a month. The step matters more than that gap suggests, because a higher band also changes the value of every enhanced hour that follows, and in emergency care, where nights and weekends are a large share of the rota, that second effect is large: a Sunday hour rises from £26.21 at Band 5 entry to £32.66 at Band 6 entry and £39.33 at Band 6 top. The other step worth noting is the entry point. A newly qualified A&E nurse starts at £2,040.21 a month, and the full journey from Band 5 entry to Band 6 top is worth £825.75 a month in take-home, or £16,044 a year gross. In hourly terms, the journey runs from £16.38 to £24.58 an hour. Gross monthly pay runs from £2,672.75 at Band 5 entry to £4,009.75 at Band 6 top, before any deductions. For the hourly breakdown of the same bands, see the A&E nurse hourly pay guide, which breaks Band 5 and 6 down by the hour, including weekend and on-call rates. For the gross salary picture, including role descriptions and progression routes, see A&E nurse salary. The hourly rate calculator converts any of these salaries to an hourly figure for a different contracted hours pattern.

A worked month: the Band 5 entry payslip

Take a newly qualified A&E nurse on Band 5 entry, £32,073 a year, full-time, no student loan, standard tax code. Gross monthly pay is £2,672.75. Pension at 8.3% takes £2,662.06 a year, which is £221.84 a month, leaving £29,410.94 of pay after pension for tax purposes. Take off the £12,570 personal allowance and taxable income is £16,840.94 a year, all of it inside the 20% basic-rate band, giving annual tax of £3,368.19, or £280.68 a month. National Insurance is 8% of the £19,503 between £12,570 and the salary, giving £1,560.24 a year, or £130.02 a month, with no 2% slice because pay sits below £50,270. What is left is £24,482.51 a year, which is £2,040.21 a month. With a Plan 2 student loan, a further 9% of the £2,688 above the £29,385 threshold comes off, which is £241.92 a year, or £20.16 a month, leaving £2,020.05.

That worked month doubles as a cross-check on the whole table, because the same method produces every row. An A&E nurse who gets a different payslip figure can start by looking for a different tax code, a student loan plan, or unsocial hours and overtime on top of basic pay, rather than doubting the arithmetic. Rounded to the pound, the two anchor figures are £2,040.21 a month at Band 5 entry and £2,865.96 at Band 6 top.

Pension: the deduction that also cuts the tax bill

Pension is the largest deduction for most A&E nurses, and it is also the one that does quiet work elsewhere. Because contributions come off before tax is calculated, every pound of pension contribution saves 20p of basic-rate tax at these income levels, and 40p once taxable income passes into the higher rate. The contribution tiers for 2026/27 are the official tiers, and the employer adds 23.7% on top of every member contribution. The full tier set is:

A&E nurses face one pension tier change on this ladder: the rate rises from 8.3% to 9.8% at Band 5 top, where the salary crosses the £35,155 boundary, and it stays at 9.8% through Band 6. That makes the first two Band 5 steps unusually clean to budget for: each step rise flows through to take-home at the same pension rate, with only tax and National Insurance taking their share. The pension also builds at 1/54 of pensionable pay each year under the 2015 CARE scheme, which is £593.94 a year of pension at Band 5 entry, £723.02 at Band 5 top, £739.98 at Band 6 entry and £891.06 at Band 6 top, before revaluation. Full pension tier tables by band are in the pension contributions by band guide, and the wider pension picture is in NHS pension contributions. Opting out of the pension would lift take-home in the short term, but it would also give up the employer 23.7% contribution and the pension itself, so this page treats pension membership as the normal case and does not present an opt-out figure as a recommendation.

Student loans: the fifth deduction

Student loan repayments are not tax and they are not pension, but they come off the same payslip, so they belong in any honest take-home figure. The table below shows Plan 2 only, because it is the plan most recently qualified A&E nurses carry. Plan 2 takes 9% of pay above £29,385 a year in 2026/27. Older plans and postgraduate loans use different thresholds, and an A&E nurse on one of those plans should run the threshold for their own plan rather than reading the Plan 2 column as their figure.

At Band 5 entry the loan costs £20.16 a month, a modest slice of a £2,040.21 take-home. By Band 6 top it costs £140.49 a month, because 9% of a much larger amount above the threshold is deducted. The loan does not change the tax or pension figures: it is calculated on gross pay above its own threshold and deducted after tax. An A&E nurse whose loan is paid off will see take-home jump by the full deduction, which is why the headline table and the loan column are shown side by side. The full student loan rules for NHS staff are in the student loan repayments guide.

Unsocial hours: what nights and weekends add to take-home

Basic pay is only the starting point for A&E nurses. Emergency departments never close, and A&E rotas reflect it: long days, nights, weekends and bank holidays as standard. Under Agenda for Change Section 2, Bands 4 to 9 get 30% on top of plain time for Saturday and weekday night hours, from 8pm to 6am, and 60% on top for Sunday and bank holiday hours. A Band 5 A&E nurse at entry earns £16.38 an hour plain time, so a Saturday or night hour is worth an extra £4.91 and a Sunday or bank holiday hour an extra £9.83. At the top of Band 5, those figures rise to £25.94 and £31.92 an hour. A Band 6 A&E nurse at the entry step earns £26.53 for a Saturday or night hour and £32.66 for a Sunday or bank holiday hour, and at the top of the band the figures are £31.95 and £39.33.

Put those rates against a realistic heavy month and the effect becomes concrete. Take a Band 5 entrant who works 72 night hours and 36 Sunday hours in a month, on top of a normal rota. The night hours add 72 times £4.91, which is £353.52, and the Sunday hours add 36 times £9.83, which is £353.88, for a total uplift of £707.40 in gross pay. Annualised, pensionable pay rises to £40,561.80, still inside the 9.8% pension tier, and monthly take-home rises to £2,462.00, a gain of £421.79 after pension (£331.26), tax (£400.28) and National Insurance (£186.61). The gain is roughly three fifths of the gross uplift, because every extra pound is itself pensionable, taxable and subject to National Insurance. With a Plan 2 student loan the same month takes home £2,378.18.

A single shift shows the same effect at smaller scale. A 12 hour Sunday shift at Band 5 entry pays £314.52 at the enhanced rate, against £196.56 at the plain rate, a difference of £117.96 for one shift. A 12 hour Sunday shift at Band 6 entry pays £391.92, against £244.92 plain. At the top of Band 6, a 7.5 hour Saturday session pays £239.63 and a 7.5 hour Sunday session pays £294.98. Because emergency departments run around the clock, that difference is not an occasional bonus for A&E nurses: it is a regular part of the month. Two A&E nurses on the same band can take home very different amounts in the same month, and the rota is usually the reason. One caveat matters for the enhancement itself: it applies to the hour worked, not to the whole shift. A shift that starts in the evening and runs past 8pm earns plain time before 8pm and the enhanced rate after it, unless local arrangements say otherwise. The full unsocial hours rules are in the unsocial hours and overtime guide.

The enhancement income above has a price, and A&E nurses pay it in nights. Permanent night rotations, rapid day-night switches and the cumulative sleep disruption of 24/7 emergency work are among the main reasons nurses leave the specialty. The pay premium is real, as the worked example shows, but anyone choosing A&E for the money should price the lifestyle honestly: the nurses who thrive long-term in emergency care are usually those who would choose the work regardless of the enhancements. Urgent treatment centres and same-day emergency care units offer a pressure valve: A&E nurses at Band 5 to 6 work there with high patient turnover and more predictable hours than the main department rota, on the same pay scale.

Overtime: time and a half for Bands 5 and 6

Overtime works on top of the same base. Bands 1 to 7 pay time and a half for overtime, and double time on bank and public holidays, with overtime starting above 37.5 hours a week. A Band 5 A&E nurse at the entry step therefore earns £24.57 an overtime hour and £32.76 on a bank holiday, while a Band 6 A&E nurse at the top earns £36.87 and £49.16. Four overtime hours at Band 6 top pay £147.48. Sisters and advanced clinical practitioners on Band 7 and above are different: Bands 8 to 9 get no contractual overtime pay, only time off in lieu, so the take-home effect of extra hours at those grades is nil in the month worked. Overtime and an unsocial hours enhancement cannot both be claimed for the same hour. Part-time A&E nurses should note the threshold rule: hours above contracted hours up to 37.5 are paid at plain time, plus any unsocial enhancement that applies, and overtime rates only start beyond 37.5. On-call arrangements for A&E nurses vary by trust, with some trusts paying an on-call availability payment and others rostering on-call as part of the post, so check the contract rather than assuming a national on-call rate, because no single national on-call figure applies to emergency nursing.

The 40% tax edge: where higher-rate tax starts on this ladder

No Band 5 or Band 6 A&E nurse pays 40% tax on basic pay alone. A Band 6 nurse at the top has taxable income of £30,831.53 a year after pension and the personal allowance, all of it inside the 20% basic-rate band, with £6,868.47 of basic-rate headroom to spare. The 40% rate first bites on this ladder in London. A Band 6 nurse at the top with inner London weighting has total pay of £56,863, pension of £6,084.34 a year at 10.7%, and taxable income of £38,208.66, so £508.66 a year crosses into the 40% higher rate, costing £203.46 a year in extra tax. Unsocial hours and overtime push more pay into the 40% band in the months they are worked, because they are added to taxable income on top of basic pay, which is why a heavy rota month at Band 6 top can show a higher tax rate on the payslip without any payroll error. The pension contribution softens the crossing, because it comes off before tax is calculated: every extra pound of pension contribution at these steps saves 40p of tax rather than 20p once the threshold is crossed.

London weighting: take-home with HCAS

High Cost Area Supplement is pensionable, so it lifts both gross pay and, where it crosses a tier boundary, the pension rate. Inner London pays 20% of basic pay with a minimum of £5,794 and a maximum of £8,746, outer London pays 15% with a minimum of £4,870 and a maximum of £6,137, and the fringe zone pays 5% with a minimum of £1,346 and a maximum of £2,270. The caps bind at these bands: 20% of a Band 5 entry salary is £6,414.60, inside the inner range, but 20% of a Band 6 top salary is £9,623.40, above the inner maximum, so the inner supplement is the flat £8,746 at Band 6 top, and the outer supplement is likewise capped at £6,137.

At Band 6 top the caps bind in every zone. Inner London 20% of £48,117 would be £9,623.40, but the £8,746 maximum caps it, giving total pay of £56,863. Outer London is likewise capped at £6,137, giving £54,254, and fringe at £2,270, giving £50,387. The inner and outer London totals also cross a pension tier boundary: totals of £56,863 and £54,254 sit above £52,778, so the pension rate rises to 10.7% and the monthly pension deductions are £507.03 and £483.77, against £392.96 with no supplement. The fringe total of £50,387 stays inside the 9.8% tier. Even so, the inner London Band 6 top A&E nurse takes home £3,323.95 a month, against £2,865.96 with no supplement. At Band 5 entry the outer London supplement is the £4,870 minimum, because 15% of £32,073 is only £4,810.95, giving total pay of £36,943. The full London weighting rules are in the London weighting HCAS guide, and the HCAS calculator works out the supplement for any band and zone.

Part-time A&E nurse take-home pay

Part-time emergency nursing is common, in urgent treatment centres, same-day emergency care and the main department alike, and part-time take-home does not scale in a straight line from full-time take-home. Tax and National Insurance fall, because both are calculated on actual pay. Pension follows the same rule: the contribution tier is set by the pay actually earned, not by the full-time salary for the post. A Band 5 A&E nurse on 0.6 WTE pays 6.5%, because the tier is set by the £19,243.80 that lands in the bank, and a Band 6 A&E nurse on 0.6 WTE pays 8.3%. That is the NHSBSA rule, and it is why the part-time pension figures below are lower than a reader who worked the tier from the full-time salary would expect.

Two practical points follow. First, a part-time A&E nurse whose actual pay falls below the Plan 2 threshold of £29,385 pays no Plan 2 deduction at all, which is the case at Band 5 entry on both 0.8 and 0.6 WTE here. Second, hours worked above contracted hours up to 37.5 a week are paid at plain time, not overtime rates, so a part-time A&E nurse picking up extra shifts should check whether those hours are plain time or overtime before budgeting on them. The part-time pay guide and the part-time pay calculator cover the pro-rata maths in full.

Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland

The rates on this page are for England. Scotland agreed a 3.75% award from 1 April 2026 and moved to a 36 hour week, with its own pay scale and its own income tax bands. A Band 5 A&E nurse in Scotland earns £34,544 at entry, £36,911 at the intermediate step and £43,039 at the top, which is £18.38, £19.64 and £22.90 an hour on the 36 hour week. A Band 6 A&E nurse in Scotland earns £43,231 at entry, £45,135 at the intermediate step and £52,679 at the top, which is £23.00, £24.02 and £28.03 an hour. Scotland also has a nine-tier pension structure from 5.7% to 12.7%, with the employer adding 22.5%. The table below applies the Scottish tax bands and pension tiers to those salaries, using the same method as the England table: pension first, tax on the remainder, National Insurance on gross pay.

Wales applied the 3.3% award with a Real Living Wage floor of £13.45 an hour. The Wales Band 5 steps are in the verified data: £32,557, £35,114 and £39,631, which is £16.63, £17.94 and £20.25 an hour on the standard 37.5 hour week. The Wales Band 5 take-home figures are:

The Wales Band 6 steps are not in the verified data file, so this page quotes no Wales Band 6 take-home figure rather than estimating one from the England scale. Northern Ireland had the 3.3% award recommended but not implemented at the last check, so the table below uses the 2025/26 scale that is actually in payment now, with the Health and Social Care pension tiers. On that scale, Band 5 hourly rates are £15.86, £17.11 and £19.31, and Band 6 rates are £19.76, £20.85 and £23.80. Do not budget on the 3.3% in Northern Ireland until it is confirmed.

For the devolved picture, see the Scotland pay guide, the Wales pay guide and the Northern Ireland pay guide.

What the figures leave out

These are basic-pay figures for full-time contracts unless a section says otherwise, and real A&E nurse income is usually higher and messier. Locum and agency emergency nursing pays the highest hourly rates with no benefits, but there is no national rate card and rates vary widely by region, urgency and setting, so this page quotes no locum figure. The Agenda for Change rate is still the right benchmark, because it is the pension-building foundation: every agency hour worked outside substantive employment is an hour that does not build NHS pension in the same way, and the substantive post also carries annual leave, sick pay and the other Agenda for Change terms that agency work does not. Mileage for community emergency nurses is an expense reimbursement, not pay, and is covered in the mileage rates guide rather than counted in take-home here. Any local recruitment premia are also left out, because they are local payments, not basic pay. A payslip that differs from this page by a small amount usually differs because of a different tax code, a student loan plan, or unsocial hours and overtime on top of basic pay. Monthly components are rounded to the penny, so adding rounded monthly components can differ from the monthly take-home by 1p.

A&E nurses on maternity leave, sick leave or a career break should not read these monthly figures as leave pay: maternity pay, sick pay and the career break guide each follow different rules. Annual leave entitlement itself does not change take-home in a normal month, but the annual leave guide sets out the 27, 29 and 33 day tiers plus bank holidays by length of service.

Frequently asked questions

How much does an A&E nurse take home each month in 2026/27?

In England in 2026/27, a full-time A&E nurse on Band 5 takes home £2,040.21 a month at the entry step (£32,073 a year), £2,177.41 at the intermediate step (£34,592) and £2,380.80 at the top of the band (£39,043), after income tax, National Insurance and NHS pension contributions and before any student loan. A Band 6 A&E nurse, typically a senior staff nurse, charge nurse or emergency nurse practitioner, takes home £2,429.78 at entry (£39,959), £2,547.99 at the intermediate step (£42,170) and £2,865.96 at the top (£48,117). A Plan 2 student loan takes a further £20.16 a month at Band 5 entry and £140.49 at Band 6 top. Those are basic-pay figures: nights, weekends and bank holidays add a large amount in emergency care, and the worked example in the unsocial hours section shows how much.

How is A&E nurse take-home pay calculated?

Pension contributions come off first, which reduces taxable income. Income tax is then calculated on what is left, using the 2026/27 personal allowance of £12,570, the 20% basic rate on taxable income up to £37,700 and the 40% higher rate above that. National Insurance is charged on full gross pay, at 8% between £12,570 and £50,270 and 2% above. Student loans are shown separately, because not every A&E nurse still carries one. All figures on this page use a standard tax code and basic pay only, with unsocial hours, overtime and London weighting covered as additions.

What pension contribution comes off an A&E nurse's pay?

Under the official 2026/27 tiers, a Band 5 A&E nurse pays 8.3% of pensionable pay at the entry and intermediate steps, which is £221.84 and £239.26 a month, but 9.8% at the top of Band 5, £318.85 a month, because its £39,043 salary crosses the £35,155 tier boundary. Band 6 pays 9.8% at every step, from £326.33 a month at entry to £392.96 at the top, because the whole band sits inside the 9.8% tier that runs to £52,778. The employer adds 23.7% on top in each case. The full tier set is in the pension contributions by band guide. For part-time A&E nurses, the tier follows the pay they actually receive, not the full-time salary for the post.

How much do nights and weekends add to A&E nurse take-home pay?

A lot, and more than in almost any other nursing specialty, because emergency departments never close. A Band 5 A&E nurse at entry earns £16.38 an hour plain time, so a Saturday or night hour is worth an extra £4.91 and a Sunday or bank holiday hour an extra £9.83. In the worked example on this page, a Band 5 entrant who works 72 night hours and 36 Sunday hours in a month earns an extra £707.40 gross, and monthly take-home rises to £2,462.00, a gain of £421.79 after pension, tax and National Insurance. A single 12 hour Sunday shift at the entry step is worth £314.52 at the enhanced rate, against £196.56 at the plain rate.

How much does a student loan take from A&E nurse pay?

A Plan 2 loan takes 9% of pay above the 2026/27 threshold of £29,385 a year. That is £20.16 a month at Band 5 entry, £72.44 at Band 5 top and £140.49 at Band 6 top. Plan 1, Plan 4, Plan 5 and postgraduate loans use different thresholds, so the Plan 2 column is a guide for the most common case among recently qualified A&E nurses, not a figure for every borrower. The full student loan rules for NHS staff are in the student loan repayments guide.

What does an A&E nurse take home in London?

With High Cost Area Supplement, a Band 5 A&E nurse at entry takes home £2,351.10 a month in inner London, £2,268.52 in outer London and £2,127.56 in the fringe zone, against £2,040.21 with no supplement. A Band 6 A&E nurse at the top takes home £3,323.95 a month in inner London, £3,181.45 in outer London and £2,987.91 in the fringe zone. London weighting is pensionable, so it also lifts the pension contribution, and at Band 6 top the inner and outer London totals cross into the 10.7% pension tier.

What does a part-time A&E nurse take home?

A Band 5 A&E nurse at entry on 0.8 WTE (30 hours) takes home £1,721.62 a month on actual pay of £25,658.40, and £1,364.54 on 0.6 WTE (22.5 hours, £19,243.80). A Band 6 A&E nurse at the top on 0.8 WTE takes home £2,351.42 a month (£38,493.60 actual pay) and £1,865.76 on 0.6 WTE (£28,870.20). One point catches people out: the pension tier follows the part-time pay itself, not the full-time salary for the post. A Band 5 A&E nurse on 0.6 WTE pays 6.5%, because the tier is set by the £19,243.80 actually earned, and a Band 6 A&E nurse on 0.6 WTE pays 8.3%, set by the £28,870.20 actually earned. A part-time A&E nurse whose actual pay falls below the Plan 2 threshold of £29,385 pays no Plan 2 deduction at all, which is the case at Band 5 entry on both 0.8 and 0.6 WTE here.

Do triage, resus or ENP skills change A&E nurse take-home pay?

Not directly. Agenda for Change pays the band for the post, not a supplement for each skill inside it, so a Band 5 nurse staffing resus earns the same take-home as a Band 5 nurse staffing minors. Skills change the band you can apply for: triage competence and resus experience are what move a nurse into a Band 6 senior or charge nurse post, and postgraduate minor injury and illness study plus non-medical prescribing open the Band 6 emergency nurse practitioner route, with senior ENP and advanced clinical practitioner roles at Band 7 (£49,387 to £56,515 a year). The skill pays when it carries you into the higher-banded post.