Consultant Radiographer Pay 2026/27: Band 8a-8b

Last updated: 3 November 2026 · Figures verified against the NHS Employers 2026/27 pay circular.

By the NHS Bands Pay editorial team

Consultant radiographer pay 2026/27: the Band 8a to 8b scales

England awarded Agenda for Change staff 3.3% from 1 April 2026, and that award is already in these figures. A consultant radiographer in England in 2026/27 earns £57,528 at Band 8a entry, £60,417 at the intermediate step and £64,750 at the top of Band 8a, and £66,582 at Band 8b entry, £70,896 at the intermediate step and £77,368 at the top of Band 8b, for a full-time 37.5-hour week. The gap between the top of Band 8a (£64,750) and the entry of Band 8b (£66,582) is £1,832 a year. That gap is small for a promotion, and that is the pattern at the top of Agenda for Change: each band step is a change in responsibility, not a large pay jump on day one. The full range on this page, from Band 8a entry to the top of Band 8b, is £19,840 a year.

Each band has three steps: entry, intermediate and top. Hourly rates are annual pay divided by 52.2 weeks and then by 37.5 hours, rounded to the nearest penny, and enhancement rates on this page are calculated from that rounded hourly rate. Monthly pay is annual pay divided by 12. Weekly pay is annual pay divided by 52.2. For comparison with last year, Band 8a ran from £55,690 to £62,682 in 2025/26 and Band 8b from £64,455 to £74,896, so the 2026/27 award added £1,838 a year at Band 8a entry and £2,127 at Band 8b entry.

Progression within a band follows the trust's incremental progression policy, subject to a satisfactory appraisal and completion of statutory and mandatory training. Moving from one band to the next is not a time-served step: it needs a post that carries the higher responsibility, and the post has to be vacant and applied for. A radiographer who has done consultant-level work for years but sits in a Band 7 post is still paid at Band 7, because Agenda for Change pays the post, not the person. That rule bites hardest at this end of the ladder, where consultant posts are few and each one is created for a specific service need.

What a consultant radiographer actually does

Radiographer covers two distinct registered professions, and the consultant grade exists in both. Diagnostic radiographers work in X-ray, CT, MRI, ultrasound and other imaging. Therapeutic radiographers deliver radiotherapy for cancer treatment. The pay story is the same for both: Band 5 on qualification, Band 6 for senior roles, Band 7 for advanced practice, and Band 8a and Band 8b for consultant radiographers. The work at consultant level differs by specialty, but the grade means the same thing in each: clinical leadership of a service, not a bigger caseload of the same work.

In diagnostic imaging, a consultant radiographer typically leads a reporting practice or a whole imaging service. That can mean leading plain-film reporting, CT head reporting, breast imaging or emergency imaging, and being the clinician other clinicians rely on when a report decides the next step in a patient's care. Reporting is the clearest route into the grade, because it is work a consultant radiologist used to do alone, and a reporting radiographer who cuts a backlog measurably changes a service. In therapeutic radiography, a consultant radiographer typically leads a radiotherapy service or a specialist treatment pathway, shaping treatment practice, leading the team that plans and delivers treatment, and carrying the clinical argument for a change in technique or protocol. In both branches, the consultant post also carries teaching and research duties that a Band 7 advanced practitioner supports but does not own.

The difference between an advanced practitioner and a consultant radiographer is scope, not seniority alone. An advanced practitioner at Band 7 reports, or delivers advanced treatment, to a high standard within a service. A consultant radiographer at Band 8a or 8b leads that practice across an organisation: setting the reporting standard, leading the service, teaching the next generation of reporting radiographers, and producing research or service evaluation that other services can use. The consultant post also carries an explicit research and education portfolio, which the advanced post may support but does not carry as its defining duty. That distinction matters when reading job adverts. A post called consultant radiographer at Band 7 is not a consultant grade post in the Agenda for Change sense used on this page, and an advanced post with consultant-level duties is still paid at Band 7 until a consultant post is created.

For the full radiography ladder, from qualification to consultant, see the radiographer salary guide. For the same ladder in hourly terms, see the radiographer hourly pay guide, and for what these salaries mean each month after tax, National Insurance and pension, see the radiographer take-home pay guide. The neighbouring band guides are the Band 8a pay guide and the Band 8b pay guide.

The four pillars in practice

Expert clinical practice is the first pillar, and it is the one that justifies the grade. A consultant radiographer holds the most complex work in their specialty: the reporting caseload where the finding changes management, the radiotherapy pathway where the plan is hardest to get right, the service where demand outstrips capacity and the clinical judgement has to be sound under pressure. The consultant radiographer reports or treats those cases, advises the medical team, and takes responsibility for the clinical decision in a way a Band 7 advanced practitioner supports but does not own. Clinics and reporting lists are the visible part of the job. The larger part is the standard behind them: the protocol, the audit of outcomes and the training of the team that sits behind every report or treatment.

Professional leadership is the second pillar. A consultant radiographer leads imaging practice across a service, not just a team. That includes setting the standard for how radiographers in the specialty work, mentoring Band 7 advanced practitioners and Band 6 seniors, representing radiography in service governance, and carrying the radiography argument when a service is redesigned. Leadership at this level is often exercised without line management of everyone affected: a consultant radiographer influences radiologists, oncologists and other clinicians, and that influence rests on clinical credibility rather than position in a management hierarchy.

Education and training is the third pillar. Consultant radiographers teach, supervise and assess: newly qualified radiographers, trainee reporting radiographers, Band 7 advanced practitioners working toward consultant practice, and medical and nursing colleagues who need imaging teaching for their specialty. The teaching is tied to practice, not generic. A consultant radiographer in breast imaging teaches the breast team about the imaging that team actually uses, and supervises the radiographers who will run that service next. Research is the fourth pillar. Consultant posts carry an expectation of research or service evaluation that changes practice beyond one department: published work, national guidance contributions, or evaluation that a trust or a region adopts. A post with no research output over several years is not meeting the consultant standard, however good the clinical work.

None of the four pillars is optional, and that is why consultant posts are scarce. A radiographer can be an outstanding reporter and still not meet the consultant standard without the leadership, education and research record, and a radiographer with a strong research record but no service leadership is in the same position. The portfolio takes years to build, which is why most appointees come from Band 7 advanced practitioner posts where they have already built a reporting practice and started to publish and teach. The portfolio is also why the grade survives scrutiny: it is a clinical leadership post with a public record, not a seniority title.

Unsocial hours, on-call and the end of paid overtime

Section 2 of Agenda for Change pays enhancements for hours actually worked in the unsocial windows: weekdays 8pm to 6am, all Saturday, and Sundays and bank holidays. At Bands 4 to 9 the percentages are the same: time plus 30% for Saturdays and weekday nights and time plus 60% for Sundays and bank holidays. A Saturday hour at Band 8a entry is worth £38.21 against a plain hourly rate of £29.39, and a Sunday hour at the top of Band 8b is worth £63.23. A single Saturday shift of 7.5 hours at Band 8b entry is worth £331.58 at the enhanced rate, against £255.08 at plain time, a difference of £76.50 for that one shift.

Overtime follows the band, and at Bands 8 and 9 the rule is different from every band below. Hours above 37.5 a week are not paid at time and a half, and bank holiday working is not paid at double time. Extra hours are compensated with time off in lieu, subject to local agreements. Staff may elect time off in lieu instead of pay at lower bands, but at Bands 8 and 9 it is the only option. That changes how a consultant radiographer should value a post. A post with a heavy on-call or weekend commitment that is paid only in time off is worth less in cash than the same basic salary in a weekday post, and a post that regularly demands evenings and weekends without a workable time-off arrangement will erode the headline salary in practice. The full rules are on the unsocial hours and overtime guide.

On-call working deserves a paragraph of its own, because diagnostic imaging runs round the clock and on-call is a major part of diagnostic pay. Availability payments for being on call are set locally, by rota frequency and service, and they vary enough between trusts that no single figure on this page would be honest. Hours actually worked when called in follow the national rule in the table above: plain time plus the enhancement for the window worked. A three-hour Sunday call-in at Band 8b entry is worth £163.26. Therapeutic radiographers, working standard weekday hours, earn few enhancements, and that predictable pattern is the trade-off for lower unsocial-hours pay. When comparing posts, ask for the local on-call policy in writing: the availability payment, the call-in rate basis and how time off in lieu is handled for hours above 37.5 a week.

London weighting: the cap binds at every step

Radiographers in London trusts receive the High Cost Area Supplement on top of basic pay: 20% of basic in inner London (minimum £5,794, maximum £8,746), 15% in outer London (minimum £4,870, maximum £6,137) and 5% in the fringe zone (minimum £1,346, maximum £2,270). At Bands 8a and 8b the cap binds in every zone, so the supplement is the same at every step: £8,746 in inner London, £6,137 in outer London and £2,270 in the fringe zone. At Band 8a entry, 20% of basic would be £11,505.60, well above the £8,746 cap, and even 5% of basic at Band 8a entry, £2,876.40, is above the £2,270 fringe cap. That means a move from Band 8a to Band 8b in London adds basic pay at every step but adds nothing to the supplement: the London element is already at its maximum.

Read the table as total pay, basic plus supplement. A consultant radiographer at Band 8a entry in inner London earns £66,274 a year, and a consultant radiographer at the top of Band 8b in inner London earns £86,114. In the fringe zone the same two posts pay £59,798 and £79,638. For the full London weighting rules and the calculator, see the London weighting and HCAS guide and the HCAS calculator.

Pension: the 12.5% tier starts inside Band 8b

On the provisional 2026/27 England and Wales tiers, the whole of Band 8a and the entry step of Band 8b sit in the 10.7% tier, and the intermediate and top steps of Band 8b sit in the 12.5% tier. The boundary falls between Band 8b entry (£66,582) and Band 8b intermediate (£70,896), because the 12.5% tier starts at £67,669. The employer contributes 23.7% on top of basic pay in every case. The tier is set by whole-time-equivalent salary, so a part-time consultant radiographer is tiered on the full-time rate for the post, not on part-time earnings, and the monthly contribution below is the full-time figure.

The 2026/27 tiers are provisional, calculated from the published 2025/26 tiers, not yet published as final. A radiographer who crosses from the 10.7% tier to the 12.5% tier, which happens between Band 8b entry (£66,582) and Band 8b intermediate (£70,896), will see the monthly contribution jump by more than the pay rise alone suggests: from £593.69 to £738.50 a month. That is normal tier behaviour, not a payroll error. Pension contributions receive tax relief, so the net cost is lower than the gross figure in the table, and the size of that relief depends on the tax band. For the full tier table and the calculator, see the pension contributions guide and the pension calculator.

Part time, professional costs and the higher-rate tax line

Part-time working is possible at consultant level, because the work is service leadership rather than a rota post, though a part-time consultant post is usually created as a part-time post rather than a full-time post split after appointment. Pay and annual leave are pro rata to the contracted fraction. At 0.8 whole-time equivalent, Band 8a entry pays £46,022.40 a year. At 0.6 whole-time equivalent, the top of Band 8b pays £46,420.80 a year. Hours above contracted hours up to 37.5 a week are paid at plain time, with any unsocial-hours enhancement that applies, and time off in lieu applies above 37.5 hours, on the same basis as for full-time staff. Annual leave follows the Agenda for Change tiers: 27 days plus 8 bank holidays at up to 5 years of service, 29 plus 8 at 5 years and over, and 33 plus 8 at 10 years and over, pro rata for part-time staff.

Every salary on this page sits above the higher-rate income tax threshold, so earnings above £50,270 are taxed at 40% in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, subject to the personal allowance of £12,570. At these bands the personal allowance taper above £100,000 does not bite on basic pay alone, since even the top of Band 8b, £77,368, sits below it, and the inner London total of £86,114 stays below it too. Radiographers must also maintain Health and Care Professions Council registration, with an annual fee and revalidation requirements, and hold professional indemnity. Hospital employers typically cover indemnity for NHS work. Registration and indemnity costs fall on the registrant where the employer does not cover them, and they trim the effective hourly rate, so they belong in any total-reward comparison even though they do not change the pay scale. This page quotes no specific registration fee figure, because the data file does not hold a verified current fee.

Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland

Scotland awarded 3.75% from 1 April 2026 under its two-year deal, and moved to a 36-hour week from April 2026. The data file holds the Scotland Band 5 range, £34,494 to £42,977, but it does not hold Scotland Band 8a or Band 8b steps, so this page does not quote them. On the 36-hour week, the overtime threshold in Scotland is 36 hours rather than 37.5, which changes the overtime maths, though the time-off-in-lieu principle at Bands 8 and 9 still applies. Scotland also has its own nine-tier pension structure, at 5.7% to 12.7%, with thresholds that differ from the England and Wales tiers quoted above.

Wales awarded 3.3%, implemented 1 April 2026 and paid on time. The data file holds the Wales Band 2 spot rate, £26,300, set by the Real Living Wage floor of £13.45 an hour, and gives a Wales Band 5 example of £32,557 at entry, £35,114 at the intermediate step and £39,631 at the top. The data file does not hold Wales Band 8a or Band 8b steps, so this page does not quote them. The Real Living Wage floor applies to the lowest bands in Wales and does not bind at Bands 8a and 8b.

Northern Ireland is different: the 3.3% award was recommended but had not been implemented at the time the data file was last checked, so Northern Ireland consultant radiographer pay should not be budgeted on the England figures. The Scotland pay guide, the Wales pay guide and the Northern Ireland pay guide carry the nation positions in full.

How to reach consultant grade without chasing a title

The route to consultant radiographer is a portfolio built in an advanced practitioner post, not a course completed or a number of years served. A Band 7 advanced practitioner who wants a consultant post should build evidence across all four pillars deliberately. Expert practice means taking the hardest reporting or treatment work in the specialty and being the clinician the service relies on for it. Leadership means shaping the service, not just working inside it: redesigning a pathway, leading a reporting change across departments, carrying a service through a difficult period. Education means teaching and supervising others in a sustained way, not a single lecture. Research means evaluation or published work that other services can use. A portfolio with three strong pillars and one empty pillar is not a consultant portfolio, and a trust creating a consultant post will test all four.

The practical steps follow from that. Ask what consultant posts exist in the specialty and what service need each one was created for, because a consultant post is created for a service, not awarded to a person. Ask what the trust expects across the four pillars for its consultant posts, and build the missing pillar first, whether that is research supervision, a teaching commitment or a service leadership role. Keep a record that can be shown: audits led, reporting accuracy data, guidelines written, teaching delivered, papers published, services changed. When a consultant post is advertised, the application is judged on that record, and the interview will test the service vision for the post, not just past performance. A radiographer who waits for length of service to do the work will wait a long time, because Agenda for Change pays the post, and the post is won on the portfolio.

There is also an honest alternative to name. Not every senior radiographer needs or wants a consultant post. A senior radiographer at Band 7 who leads reporting in a service, a sonographer, or a radiographer who moves into a senior management post at Band 8a or 8b, can earn the same basic pay as a consultant radiographer without carrying the research and education portfolio. The consultant grade is the right choice for a radiographer whose work is clinical leadership with a research and education record. For a radiographer whose strength is operational leadership, a management post at the same band may be a better fit, and it pays the same scale. The band guides for the management ladder are the Band 8a pay guide and the Band 8b pay guide.

Frequently asked questions

What band is a consultant radiographer in the NHS?

In England in 2026/27, consultant radiographer posts sit at Band 8a and Band 8b on Agenda for Change. Band 8a pays £57,528 at entry, £60,417 at the intermediate step and £64,750 at the top. Band 8b pays £66,582 at entry, £70,896 at the intermediate step and £77,368 at the top. All figures are for a full-time 37.5-hour week in England. The live radiographer guide already states the range as 8a to 8b, £57,528 to £77,368, and this page gives the full step-by-step picture behind that range. Consultant radiographer is a clinical leadership grade, not a management grade, so it sits alongside management posts at the same bands rather than above them.

How much does a consultant radiographer earn a month?

In England in 2026/27, a full-time consultant radiographer at Band 8a earns £4,794.00 a month at entry, £5,034.75 a month at the intermediate step and £5,395.83 a month at the top, before tax, National Insurance and pension deductions. At Band 8b the monthly figures are £5,548.50 at entry, £5,908.00 at the intermediate step and £6,447.33 at the top. Those are gross figures for a full-time 37.5-hour week, before any unsocial-hours enhancement, on-call payment or London weighting. There is no contractual overtime pay at these bands, so the monthly figure does not rise with extra hours in the way it does at Bands 1 to 7.

What is the hourly rate for a consultant radiographer?

In England in 2026/27, the hourly rates are calculated as annual salary divided by 52.2 weeks and then by 37.5 hours. At Band 8a the rates are £29.39 at entry, £30.86 at the intermediate step and £33.08 at the top. At Band 8b the rates are £34.01 at entry, £36.22 at the intermediate step and £39.52 at the top. The hourly rate matters at these bands mainly for unsocial-hours enhancements, which are paid on hours actually worked in the unsocial windows, and for part-time pro rata calculations, not for overtime, because overtime at Bands 8 and 9 is compensated with time off in lieu rather than pay.

Do consultant radiographers get overtime pay?

No. At Bands 8 and 9 there is no contractual overtime pay under Agenda for Change. Extra hours above 37.5 a week are compensated with time off in lieu, subject to local agreements. That is the key change at Band 8, and it catches out staff who move up from Band 7, where overtime is paid at time and a half, and double time on bank holidays. A consultant radiographer who works a long week does not see that week in the next payslip as extra pay. The hours are banked as time off instead. Unsocial-hours enhancements are different: they are still paid at Bands 8a and 8b for hours actually worked on Saturdays, on Sundays and bank holidays, and on weekday nights, at time plus 30% and time plus 60% respectively.

Do consultant radiographers get on-call pay?

On-call arrangements for consultant radiographers are set locally, so this page quotes no single national on-call rate: no national on-call rate for consultant radiographers exists in the pay data file, and a rate quoted from one trust would mislead readers in another. What is national is the treatment of hours actually worked when called in. Those hours are paid at the plain hourly rate plus the unsocial-hours enhancement for the window worked. A three-hour Sunday call-in at Band 8b entry, at £54.42 an hour, is worth £163.26. Availability payments for being on call, where a trust pays them, are a local agreement on top of that, and they vary by rota frequency and service. Compare the local on-call policy directly when choosing between posts, because on-call is a major part of diagnostic imaging pay and the policy differs more between trusts than basic pay does.

How much is London weighting for a consultant radiographer?

Consultant radiographers in London trusts receive the High Cost Area Supplement on top of basic pay: 20% of basic in inner London (minimum £5,794, maximum £8,746), 15% in outer London (minimum £4,870, maximum £6,137) and 5% in the fringe zone (minimum £1,346, maximum £2,270). At Bands 8a and 8b the cap binds in every zone, so every consultant radiographer post in London receives the maximum supplement: £8,746 in inner London, £6,137 in outer London and £2,270 in the fringe zone. At Band 8a entry, total pay in inner London is £66,274. At the top of Band 8b, total pay is £86,114 in inner London, £83,505 in outer London and £79,638 in the fringe zone. The supplement follows the base of the post, not the site visited on a given day.

How much pension does a consultant radiographer pay?

On the provisional 2026/27 England and Wales tiers, the whole of Band 8a and the entry step of Band 8b sit in the 10.7% tier, and the intermediate and top steps of Band 8b sit in the 12.5% tier. At Band 8a entry the contribution is £512.96 a month on £57,528, and at the top of Band 8a it is £577.35 a month on £64,750. At Band 8b entry it is £593.69 a month on £66,582, and at the intermediate step it crosses into the 12.5% tier, at £738.50 a month on £70,896. At the top of Band 8b it is £805.92 a month on £77,368. The employer contributes 23.7% on top of basic pay in every case, which is £13,634.14 a year at Band 8a entry and £18,336.22 a year at the top of Band 8b. The 2026/27 tiers are provisional, calculated from the published 2025/26 tiers, not yet published as final. The tier is set by whole-time-equivalent salary, so a part-time consultant radiographer is tiered on the full-time rate for the post, not on part-time earnings.

How do you become a consultant radiographer?

By winning a consultant radiographer post, not by serving time at Band 7 or Band 8a. Consultant radiographer posts are graded at Band 8a or Band 8b and are created by a trust for a defined service need, so the first step is a vacant post, applied for in the normal way. The post is judged on consultant-level practice across four pillars: expert clinical practice, professional leadership, education and training, and research. In practice that means a record of reporting or advanced practice at a level other clinicians rely on, leading a service or a reporting practice across an organisation, teaching and supervising other radiographers, and producing research or service evaluation that changes practice beyond one department. Most appointees come from advanced practitioner posts at Band 7, where they have already built a reporting practice and a teaching record, and the step to consultant level is the move from advanced practice in a service to clinical leadership of that service. Agenda for Change pays the post, not the person, so a radiographer doing consultant-level work in a Band 7 post is still paid at Band 7 until a consultant post is created and won.

Sources: NHS Employers Agenda for Change pay circular 2026/27; NHS Employers unsocial hours payments. Figures checked against the site pay data file for 2026/27.