NHS Apprenticeship Pay 2026/27

Last updated: 11 November 2026 · Figures verified against the Agenda for Change pay scales and statutory wage rates for 2026/27.

By the NHS Bands Pay editorial team

The statutory apprentice rate: £8.00 an hour in 2026/27

The law sets a minimum hourly rate for apprentices, and it is the lowest rate on this page. From 1 April 2026 the statutory apprentice rate is £8.00 an hour, up from £7.55 in 2025/26, a rise of 45p, or about 6.0%. It is one of four statutory wage floors that apply from the same date, and the table below sets them out together so the apprentice rate can be seen in context.

The apprentice rate has a narrow scope, and the scope is where most of the confusion sits. It applies only to apprentices who are under 19, or who are 19 or over and still in the first year of their apprenticeship. Once neither is true, the apprentice is entitled to the normal rate for their age. A 19-year-old apprentice in the second year of training is entitled to the 18 to 20 rate of £10.85 an hour, not the apprentice rate. A 21-year-old apprentice past the first year is entitled to the National Living Wage of £12.71 an hour. The apprentice rate is therefore a first-year and under-19 rate, not a rate that follows an apprentice through a whole programme. Anyone who has been told they will be on the apprentice rate for four years should check that, because the law says otherwise after the first year.

The Real Living Wage is a separate, voluntary rate set by the Living Wage Foundation, and it is higher than every statutory rate. For 2026/27 it is £14.10 an hour outside London and £15.45 an hour in London, announced on 15 October 2026 and to be implemented by 1 May 2027. The previous rates were £13.45 and £14.80. Employers choose whether to pay it, and it is not a legal minimum. It appears here because it is the rate behind the Welsh living-wage floor, and because a Band 2 apprentice in the first year of a four-year programme earns less than it. The statutory rates are the legal floor. The Real Living Wage is the voluntary benchmark above them.

How NHS apprentice pay works: Annex 21

Annex 21 is the part of the Agenda for Change Terms and Conditions titled Arrangements for pay and banding of trainees. It answers one question: what do you pay someone who is training for a qualified NHS role while employed by the NHS? The answer is not a separate trainee pay scale. It is a percentage of the band maximum for the band the trainee will qualify into, and the percentage rises as completion gets closer. Apprenticeship training posts in the NHS are commonly paid under this framework, and it is the arrangement NHS adverts quote for apprenticeship posts. The percentages are the same in Scotland and Wales, but the band maxima differ, so never apply England tops to devolved-nation examples.

A two-year programme therefore runs at 70% in the first year and 75% in the second. A three-year programme runs at 65%, then 70%, then 75%. A four-year programme runs at 60%, 65%, 70% and 75%. The percentage applies to the top point of the band, not the entry point, which is the detail that makes the figures larger than most people expect. A Band 5 trainee is paid a percentage of £39,043, the Band 5 top, not of £32,073, the Band 5 entry point. The same rule applies at every band, and the table below turns every percentage into pounds for every band, for England in 2026/27, with the chart underneath plotting the final-year figure.

Two warnings belong with that table. First, the Handbook does not publish a separate apprentice salary table, and some employers use local pay policies for apprentices instead. The table above is the national framework, and it is the arrangement NHS adverts quote, but it is not a promise that every apprenticeship post in the country pays exactly these figures. The advert wording decides. If a vacancy says Annex 21 applies, the percentages on this page are your pay. If it says apprenticeship, read the apprenticeship arrangements in the advert, and ask the trust what framework the post sits under before you accept. Second, never take a single flat apprentice salary per band from any source without checking which percentage and which year it refers to. A Band 5 apprentice earns four different salaries depending on the programme length, and a figure quoted without its percentage is meaningless.

The scope of Annex 21 also needs stating plainly. It covers trainees who do all their training as NHS employees. It is not the Scientist Training Programme, whose trainees are salaried at Band 6 for the three years of the programme, and it is not an apprenticeship levy route, which has its own pay arrangements. Our Annex 21 trainee pay guide sets out the full mechanism, including what happens on qualifying, and our Scientist Training Programme salary guide covers the salaried Band 6 route that Annex 21 does not touch.

Worked examples: what an apprentice actually earns

The percentages become real when they are worked through a whole programme. The examples below use the figures verified in the NHS pay data file, and every monthly figure is the annual figure divided by 12.

Example 1: Band 5, two-year programme. Year one is 70% of the £39,043 Band 5 maximum, which is £27,330 a year, or £2,277.50 a month. Year two is 75%, which is £29,282 a year, or £2,440.17 a month. On qualifying the trainee moves to the Band 5 entry point of £32,073.

Example 2: Band 6, three-year programme. Year one is 65% of the £48,117 Band 6 maximum, which is £31,276 a year, or £2,606.33 a month. Year two is 70%, which is £33,682 a year, or £2,806.83 a month. Year three is 75%, which is £36,088 a year, or £3,007.33 a month. On qualifying the trainee moves to the Band 6 entry point of £39,959.

Example 3: Band 4, one-year programme. A single year of training is paid at 75% of the £31,157 Band 4 maximum, which is £23,368 a year, or £1,947.33 a month. On qualifying the trainee moves to the Band 4 entry point of £28,392.

Example 4: Band 5, four-year programme. This is the nursing degree apprenticeship shape, and the table below shows the whole run, with the hourly rate at each step on a 37.5-hour week.

The four-year run shows the shape of the deal. The apprentice starts £8,647 a year below the qualified entry point and closes the gap by about £2,000 a year as the percentage rises. The final training year pays £29,282, and qualifying adds £2,791 a year, or £232.58 a month, taking the apprentice to £32,073. The training years are paid at a discount to the qualified rate, and qualifying ends the discount. That is the whole bargain, and it is worth seeing in pounds before deciding between the apprentice route and the full-time student route, which pays no salary at all during training. Our student nurse finance guide sets out the university funding picture for comparison.

The floor: Annex 21 against the statutory minimums

Annex 21 has a floor, and the floor is what makes the lowest figures in the table safe to quote. A trainee must receive at least the National Minimum Wage or the National Living Wage, whichever applies to their age. Where the percentage falls below that floor, payroll adds a supplement to bring the pay up to it. The supplement counts as pay, not as a separate allowance, so it is pensionable and taxable in the normal way. If your payslip shows a supplement line, that is the floor top-up.

The hourly rates below show where the floor bites. They are the annual figures divided by 37.5 hours and 52.2 weeks, the same basis the site uses for every hourly rate on this site. Bands 7 and above are not shown because every figure at those bands is above the £12.71 National Living Wage, so the floor never bites there.

Read against the three statutory floors, the table tells a clear story. Only one combination in the whole Annex 21 table falls below the £8.00 apprentice rate: a Band 2 apprentice in the first year of a four-year programme, on £15,163 a year, which is £7.75 an hour. Ten of the 44 band-and-year combinations fall below the £10.85 rate for 18 to 20 year olds: every Band 2 and Band 3 figure, and the Band 4 figures at 60% and 65%. Thirteen combinations fall below the £12.71 National Living Wage: every Band 2, Band 3 and Band 4 figure, plus the Band 5 figure at 60%. At Band 6 and above, no figure falls below any of the three floors.

NHS guidance sets a stronger floor than the statute. Guidance applying Annex 21 states that a trainee's starting pay must be no less than the main adult rate of the National Minimum Wage, which is a stronger floor than the statutory apprentice rate. In hourly terms that floor is £12.71, which is £24,879.83 a year on a 37.5-hour week. Any Annex 21 figure below that line is topped up to it under the guidance. The practical result is that no NHS apprentice should start below £12.71 an hour, whatever the percentage table says on its own. If your first payslip shows an hourly rate below that, ask payroll about the floor supplement before anything else.

Apprentice pay against the minimum wage

The comparison that matters most to a prospective apprentice is the simplest one: how does the NHS framework compare with the legal minimum for an apprentice? The answer depends on the band and the year, but the gap is large almost everywhere. A Band 5 apprentice in the final year earns £14.96 an hour, which is £6.96 an hour above the £8.00 apprentice rate, and £2.25 an hour above the National Living Wage. A Band 2 apprentice in the final year earns £9.68 an hour, which is £1.68 above the apprentice rate but £3.03 below the National Living Wage, so the floor top-up matters most at the bottom of the table. A Band 6 apprentice in the final year earns £18.44 an hour, which is more than double the apprentice rate.

The other comparison is with the full-time student route. A student nurse on a full-time degree receives no salary during training and relies on the student loan and the Learning Support Fund. An apprentice earns a salary from day one, joins the pension scheme, and accrues annual leave, and the training is paid for. The trade is time: the apprentice route takes four years for a nursing degree, against three years full time, and the apprentice works a full employed week alongside study. Our nursing degree apprenticeship pay guide sets out the four-year financial comparison in full, and our trainee nursing associate pay guide covers the two-year route into a registered support role at Band 4.

London weighting on apprentice pay

High Cost Area Supplement is calculated on the trainee salary in the same way as for qualified staff: 20% of basic pay in inner London, 15% in outer London and 5% in the fringe, each with a minimum and a maximum. The minimums matter more for apprentices than for qualified staff, because the percentages are applied to smaller salaries, so the minimum binds more often. The table below shows the supplement and the total for three apprentice salaries.

Two details deserve attention. First, the Band 5 apprentice in the final year gets £5,856.40 in inner London, which is above the £5,794 minimum, so the percentage does the work there, but in outer London the 15% figure of £4,392.30 falls below the £4,870 minimum, so the minimum binds and the total is £34,152.00. Second, the Band 2 apprentice on £15,163 gets the minimum in every zone: £5,794 inner, £4,870 outer and £1,346 fringe. At the bottom of the table the minimums, not the percentages, decide what London weighting is worth. Our London weighting guide sets out the full HCAS rates and the zone boundaries.

Pension on apprentice pay

Apprentices are NHS employees, so they join the NHS Pension Scheme from the start and their training years build pensionable service. Contributions are set by the official 2026/27 tiers on actual pay, never on the whole-time equivalent salary. That last point is the settled basis confirmed by NHSBSA employer guidance in November 2026, and it matters for any part-time apprentice: the tier follows what you are actually paid. The table below shows the monthly contribution for seven apprentice salaries, with the employer contribution alongside it.

Three rows in that table carry a lesson. A Band 5 apprentice in the first year on £23,426 pays 6.5%, which is £126.89 a month. In the final year on £29,282 the same apprentice pays 8.3%, which is £202.53 a month, because the pay has crossed the £28,855 tier boundary. A Band 6 apprentice in the first year of a four-year programme on £28,870 pays 8.3% as well, because £28,870 sits just £15 above that same boundary. The tier follows the pay, not the band, so two apprentices in the same band can sit in different tiers. Each year of service accrues 1/54th of that year's pensionable pay: a year at £29,282 builds £542.26 of annual pension, and a year at £36,088 builds £668.30. Our pension contributions guide sets out the tiers and the employer rate in full, and our NHS pension calculator will project the pension built over a whole career.

Annual leave accrues like any other member of staff. Agenda for Change gives 27 days of annual leave plus 8 bank holidays at up to 4 years of service, 29 days plus 8 at 5 years, and 33 days plus 8 at 10 years, and a standard NHS day is 7.5 hours. An apprentice who starts with no reckonable service is on the 27-day tier. Our NHS annual leave guide sets out the tiers in full.

The apprenticeship levy and your pay

The apprenticeship levy is the mechanism that funds apprenticeship training in England. It pays for the training and assessment, not your salary. Your pay comes from your trust under the Annex 21 framework, or under the local policy your trust uses, and the levy does not set your hourly rate. That split is the point of the levy: the training is funded centrally through the levy, and the employment is funded locally through the trust's pay budget. No levy rate is quoted on this page, because levy rates are set by government policy and change over time, and this guide only carries figures verified in the NHS pay data file. If you want the current levy position, your trust's apprenticeship team is the place to ask, not a pay guide.

What the levy does change is who pays for the training. An apprentice on a levy-funded programme does not pay tuition fees for the apprenticeship, and the trust does not pay the training provider out of its own training budget for the funded elements. That is why trusts can offer apprenticeships at scale, and why the route is free at the point of use for the apprentice. It does not change the pay: the salary is an employment cost, and it is set by the Annex 21 framework or the local policy, whichever the post sits under.

Apprenticeships by role

Apprenticeships exist across the NHS, not only in nursing, and the Annex 21 framework applies to any band. The roles below are the ones with their own guides on this site, and each one links to the detail.

Nursing degree apprenticeship. Four years, earn while you learn, into a Band 5 registered nurse role. The pay runs £23,426, £25,378, £27,330 and £29,282 across the four years in England in 2026/27. Our nursing degree apprenticeship pay guide sets out the full comparison with the student route.

Trainee nursing associate. Two years, a foundation degree apprenticeship into a registered support role at Band 4. Year one is 70% of the £31,157 Band 4 maximum, which is £21,810, and year two is 75%, which is £23,368. Our trainee nursing associate pay guide covers the route, including where it lands on qualifying.

Advanced clinical practitioner degree apprenticeship. The Advanced Clinical Practitioner degree apprenticeship, standard ST0564 at level 7, is an established route into advanced practice for experienced registered professionals. Our advanced clinical practitioner salary guide covers the qualified roles it leads to at Band 7 to Band 8a.

What is not an apprenticeship. The Scientist Training Programme is a three-year route into clinical science, and its trainees are salaried at Band 6 for the whole programme. It is not an apprenticeship and it does not use Annex 21. Our Scientist Training Programme salary guide sets out that route. If a vacancy describes a programme as an apprenticeship, check whether it is levy-funded and which pay framework applies, because the same training can be advertised under different arrangements by different trusts.

Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland

The Annex 21 percentage schedule is the same in Scotland and Wales, but the band maxima differ, so the pounds differ. The table below works the Band 5 figures through for each nation, using the verified scales in the NHS pay data file.

Scotland runs a 36-hour week from April 2026, so the Scottish hourly rates use 36 hours, not 37.5. A Band 5 apprentice in Scotland in the final year earns £32,279 a year, which is £17.18 an hour on the 36-hour week, against £14.96 an hour for the same apprentice in England. The Scottish Band 5 scale is £34,544 to £43,039 in 2026/27, and those are the corrected figures verified against the Scottish pay circular in November 2026. For reference, the qualified Scotland Band 5 hourly range on the 36-hour week is £18.38 to £22.90. Wales pays on a 37.5-hour week, and the Welsh Band 5 scale is £32,557 to £39,631 in 2026/27, so a Welsh apprentice in the final year earns £29,723, which is £15.18 an hour, slightly above the English figure of £29,282. There is no High Cost Area Supplement in Wales or Scotland.

Northern Ireland is different again. The 3.3% award for 2026/27 has been recommended but not yet implemented there, and no Northern Ireland Department of Health pay circular for 2026/27 has been published, so no 2026/27 Northern Ireland apprentice figures are quoted on this page. Staff in Northern Ireland remain on the 2025/26 scale, and any 2026/27 figure would be illustrative only. Our Northern Ireland pay guide sets out the position, and our pay scales by country guide compares the four nations side by side.

What happens when you qualify

On completion you move off the trainee percentages and onto the qualified scale, entering either the first pay point of the band or the next point above your training salary. A Band 5 apprentice who finishes on £29,282 moves to the Band 5 entry point of £32,073, a rise of £2,791 a year, or £232.58 a month. A Band 6 trainee who finishes on £36,088 moves to the Band 6 entry point of £39,959, a rise of £3,871 a year. A Band 4 trainee who finishes on £23,368 moves to the Band 4 entry point of £28,392, a rise of £5,024 a year. The jump is largest where the training band is low and the percentage discount is deep, and smallest where the final training year already sits close to the entry point.

Qualifying also changes the rest of the package. Unsocial hours enhancements, overtime and on-call payments are calculated on the qualified salary from the date of qualifying, and the pension tier is re-set on the new actual pay. Annual leave continues on the same tier, because the service built during training counts towards it. If your trust runs a preceptorship year for newly qualified staff, that is a support programme, not a pay band: the pay is the Band 5 entry point from the day you qualify, and the preceptorship does not hold it back. Our Band 5 pay guide and our Band 6 pay guide set out where most apprentices land on qualifying.

How to check your own apprentice pay

• Read the advert wording. If it says Annex 21 applies, the percentages on this page are your pay. If it says apprenticeship, ask the trust which pay framework the post sits under before you accept.
• Match the percentage to your programme length. A four-year programme runs 60%, 65%, 70% and 75%. A two-year programme runs 70% then 75%. A figure quoted without its percentage is meaningless.
• Check the band maximum, not the entry point. The percentage applies to the top point of the band. A Band 5 percentage is a percentage of £39,043, not of £32,073.
• Check the floor. No NHS apprentice should start below £12.71 an hour under the NHS guidance floor. If your first payslip shows less, ask payroll about the floor supplement.
• Check the supplement line. If your payslip shows a supplement, that is the floor top-up. It counts as pay, so it is pensionable and taxable in the normal way.
• Check the tier. Your pension contribution tier follows your actual pay, not the whole-time equivalent salary. A Band 5 apprentice on £23,426 pays 6.5%, and the same apprentice on £29,282 pays 8.3%.
• Ask about local policy. Some employers use local pay policies for apprentices instead of the national framework. The trust's apprenticeship team can confirm which one your post sits under.

Frequently asked questions

How much do NHS apprentices get paid?

There is no single national apprentice salary. NHS apprenticeship posts are commonly paid under Annex 21 of the Agenda for Change Terms and Conditions, which pays a percentage of the maximum of the band for the qualified role: 75% in the final year of training, 70% with one to two years left, 65% with two to three years left, and 60% with more than three years left. A Band 5 apprentice on a four-year programme earns £23,426 in the first year and £29,282 in the final year in England in 2026/27. Some employers use local pay policies instead, so the advert wording decides.

What is the apprentice minimum wage in 2026?

The statutory apprentice rate is £8.00 an hour from 1 April 2026, up from £7.55 in 2025/26. It only applies to apprentices who are under 19, or who are 19 or over and still in their first year of the apprenticeship. Once neither is true, the apprentice is entitled to the normal rate for their age: the 18 to 20 rate of £10.85 an hour while they are 19 or 20, and the National Living Wage of £12.71 an hour from age 21.

What is Annex 21 NHS pay?

Annex 21 is the part of the Agenda for Change Terms and Conditions that sets pay for trainees who do all their training as NHS employees. A trainee is paid a percentage of the maximum of the band they will qualify into: 75% when up to 12 months remain before completion, 70% when more than one but less than two years remain, 65% when more than two but less than three years remain, and 60% when more than three years remain. The percentage applies to the top point of the band, not the entry point. NHS apprenticeship posts are commonly paid under this framework, which is why the same percentages appear in NHS apprenticeship adverts.

Does NHS apprentice pay beat the minimum wage?

Almost always, and by a wide margin at the higher bands. Only one combination in the whole Annex 21 table falls below the £8.00 apprentice rate: a Band 2 apprentice in the first year of a four-year programme, on £15,163 a year, which is £7.75 an hour. Ten of the 44 band-and-year combinations fall below the £10.85 rate for 18 to 20 year olds, and 13 fall below the £12.71 National Living Wage. Where the percentage falls below the floor that applies, payroll tops the pay up to that floor. NHS guidance also sets a stronger floor for trainees: starting pay must be no less than the main adult rate of the National Minimum Wage.

How much does a nursing degree apprentice earn?

A nursing degree apprentice trains into a Band 5 registered nurse role over four years, so the Annex 21 framework gives £23,426 in year one (60% of the £39,043 Band 5 maximum), £25,378 in year two (65%), £27,330 in year three (70%) and £29,282 in the final year (75%). Monthly that is £1,952.17, £2,114.83, £2,277.50 and £2,440.17. On qualifying the apprentice moves to the Band 5 entry point of £32,073, a rise of £2,791 a year over the final training year. Our nursing degree apprenticeship pay guide sets out the full four-year comparison with the student route.

Do NHS apprentices get London weighting?

Yes, if the post is in London. High Cost Area Supplement is calculated on the trainee salary in the same way as for qualified staff: 20% of basic pay in inner London, 15% in outer London and 5% in the fringe, each with a minimum and a maximum. A Band 5 apprentice in the final training year on £29,282 gets £5,856.40 in inner London, taking the total to £35,138.40, and £4,870 in outer London, where the minimum binds, taking the total to £34,152.00. A Band 2 apprentice on £15,163 gets the minimum in every zone: £5,794 inner, £4,870 outer and £1,346 fringe.

Do NHS apprentices pay into the pension?

Yes. Apprentices are NHS employees, so they join the NHS Pension Scheme from the start and their training years build pensionable service. Contributions are set by the official 2026/27 tiers on actual pay: a Band 5 apprentice in the final year on £29,282 pays 8.3%, which is £202.53 a month, while a Band 5 apprentice in the first year on £23,426 pays 6.5%, which is £126.89 a month. The employer pays 23.7% on top. Each year of service accrues 1/54th of that year's pensionable pay: a year at £29,282 builds £542.26 of annual pension.

What happens to my pay when I qualify?

On completion you move off the trainee percentages and onto the qualified scale, entering either the first pay point of the band or the next point above your training salary. A Band 5 apprentice who finishes on £29,282 moves to the Band 5 entry point of £32,073, a rise of £2,791 a year, or £232.58 a month. A Band 6 trainee who finishes on £36,088 moves to the Band 6 entry point of £39,959. The jump is part of the value of the route: the training years are paid at a discount to the qualified rate, and qualifying ends the discount.

Sources and independence

Source: Low Pay Commission, The National Minimum Wage in 2026 (GOV.UK).

Source: NHS Business Services Authority knowledge base, Apprenticeship process (Annex 21 table as applied to apprentices).

Source: GOV.UK, National Minimum Wage and National Living Wage rates.

This is an independent guide and is not affiliated with the NHS. Apprentice pay is set by the Annex 21 framework or by local employer policy, and trusts implement it through local arrangements, so confirm the framework and the percentage for your own post with the trust before relying on the figures here. Always check your ESR record for your actual entitlement.