NHS Dietetic Assistant Pay 2026/27

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

By the NHS Bands Pay editorial team

Dietetic assistant pay 2026/27: the Band 3 and Band 4 scales

England awarded Agenda for Change staff 3.3% from 1 April 2026, and that award is already in these figures. A dietetic assistant in England in 2026/27 earns £25,760 at Band 3 entry and £27,476 at the top of Band 3. At Band 4 the figures are £28,392 at entry and £31,157 at the top. The full range on this page, from Band 3 entry to Band 4 top, is £5,397 a year. Inside Band 3 the range is £1,716, and inside Band 4 it is £2,765. The step from the top of Band 3 to the entry of Band 4 is only £916 a year, which surprises people who expect a bigger jump for a senior assistant post. The jump matters less for the basic pay than for what the post carries: delegated clinical judgement, a small caseload and supervision of other support staff. An assistant who moves from Band 3 entry to Band 4 top gains £5,397 a year in basic pay, and that is the whole ladder in one number.

The 2026/27 England scales for a full-time 37.5-hour week. 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.

Progression within a band follows the usual Agenda for Change pattern: satisfactory appraisal and completion of required training move an assistant through the steps, but the timing follows the trust's incremental progression policy and is not a promise written into the pay scale. Band 3 has two steps, entry and top, and Band 4 has two steps, entry and top. The move from Band 3 to Band 4 is different in kind. It needs a post that carries the extra responsibility, and the post has to be vacant and applied for. That distinction explains why two assistants with similar experience can sit on different bands: one holds a senior assistant post, the other holds a standard assistant post, and Agenda for Change pays the post, not the person. For the wider band ladder, the Band 3 pay guide and the Band 4 pay guide set out what each band means across the NHS, and the assistant posts on this page follow that same ladder.

What dietetic assistants actually do

Dietetics is the science of food and nutrition applied to health and illness. The registered dietitian assesses a patient, works out what that patient needs to eat and drink, and writes the plan. The dietetic assistant carries much of that plan out, day by day, patient by patient. That division of labour is the whole job in one sentence, and it explains both the satisfaction and the limits of the role. The assistant sees the small wins first hand, a patient who finally manages a full supplement drink, a ward where food charts are complete for the first time in weeks, while the clinical decisions stay with the registered dietitian.

A typical week mixes ward work, clinic sessions, group work and kitchen liaison. On a hospital ward, an assistant weighs patients, records food and fluid intake, checks that the right meals reach the right beds, and prepares oral nutritional supplements. Weighing sounds simple until you try it with a patient who cannot stand, a bed scale that needs calibrating, and a ward round that needs the number now. Food charts are the same: a chart is only useful if it is complete, honest and legible, and the assistant is often the person who makes it so. In a clinic, an assistant may run a group session on healthy eating, prepare materials and equipment, take heights and weights, and keep the session running smoothly so the dietitian can focus on assessment and planning. Some assistants support patients who are fed through a tube, checking stock, preparing feeds under the dietitian's plan, and teaching families the routine they will need at home. The work is practical, patient facing and detail heavy, and it suits people who like to be on their feet and working directly with patients rather than at a desk.

Kitchen liaison is a larger part of the job than most applicants expect. A dietetic assistant talks to catering staff about therapeutic diets, texture modified meals, allergen information and portion sizes, and checks that what leaves the kitchen matches what the dietitian prescribed. On a ward for older adults, that might mean checking that soft diets are genuinely soft, not just labelled soft. In a renal service, it might mean checking potassium content with the kitchen team. In a diabetes clinic, it might mean running a group that teaches carbohydrate counting with real food packets, not abstract diagrams. Recording matters as much as doing: weights, intake charts, supplement compliance and handover notes are part of every session, and a good record is what lets the next clinician pick up where the last one left off. The registered role is covered in the dietitian salary guide, and a close support role in another therapy service is covered in the occupational therapy assistant pay guide.

Band 3 and Band 4: what actually changes

At Band 3, the post is built around following plans. A Band 3 assistant sets up clinics, weighs patients, records food and fluid charts, prepares supplements, runs group activities, and reports back at handover or in supervision. The assistant works under supervision, and the dietitian reviews the plan and the progress regularly. The work is real clinical work with real patients, and the assistant carries responsibility for doing it safely and well, but the decisions about nutritional goals, treatment direction and discharge sit with the dietitian.

At Band 4, the post adds delegated judgement. A Band 4 assistant plans a session within agreed goals, adapts advice during the session when a patient struggles or progresses faster than expected, manages a small delegated caseload, and trains and supervises Band 2 and Band 3 assistants. The assistant may carry out assessments that the dietitian has delegated and will review, and may be the main contact for a patient between dietitian reviews. The supervision is still there, but it is lighter and less direct: the dietitian sets the goals and checks the outcomes, and the assistant decides much of the detail in between. That breadth is the reason for the higher band, and it is also why Band 4 posts are fewer: a service needs many Band 3 assistants and only a smaller number of senior assistants.

The setting shapes the post as much as the band. A Band 3 assistant on an acute medical ward works a different week from a Band 3 assistant in a community weight management service, even though the pay scale is identical. One week is built around ward rounds, meal rounds and supplement compliance. The other is built around clinics, group programmes and travel between sites. The pay does not distinguish between them, and neither should a comparison of two posts: the band tells you the pay, the setting tells you the week. An assistant choosing between posts should ask about caseload size, lone working, travel time and supervision arrangements, because those factors decide the working life far more than a single pay step.

Shift patterns: mostly daytime, with evening and weekend exceptions

Most dietetics work is weekday daytime work: clinics, ward rounds, group programmes and kitchen checks planned weeks ahead. That pattern suits assistants who want predictable hours, and it is one reason the profession attracts people who value a stable week. The exceptions matter for pay, though. Evening clinics for working-age adults, weekend ward cover, and seven-day services can fall in the unsocial windows, and those hours are paid at the enhanced rates below. A post that includes regular weekend cover will pay more in practice than a weekday-only post at the same band, even though the basic pay is identical. Assistants weighing two posts should ask for the rota, not just the band, and should check whether evening or weekend working is rostered or occasional, because the answer decides how much of the enhancement pay is reliable and how much is occasional.

Unsocial hours are defined in Agenda for Change Section 2: weekday nights from 8pm to 6am, all of Saturday, and Sundays and bank holidays. Band 3 attracts time plus 35% for Saturdays and weekday nights and time plus 69% for Sundays and bank holidays. Bands 4 to 9 attract time plus 30% and time plus 60% on the same windows. The unsocial hours and overtime guide explains the full Section 2 and Section 3 rules, including the rule that overtime and unsocial-hours enhancement cannot both be claimed for the same hours.

Overtime, part-time pay and annual leave

At Bands 3 and 4, hours above 37.5 a week are paid at time and a half, and double time on bank holidays. An overtime hour at Band 3 entry is worth £19.74 and at the top of Band 3 £21.06. At Band 4 entry an overtime hour is worth £21.75 and at the top of Band 4 £23.88. On a bank holiday the double-time rates are £26.32 at Band 3 entry and £28.08 at the top of Band 3, and £29.00 at Band 4 entry and £31.84 at the top of Band 4. Part-time staff are paid at plain time, plus any unsocial-hours enhancement that applies, for hours above their contracted hours up to 37.5 a week, with overtime rates only above 37.5 hours. Staff may elect time off in lieu instead of overtime pay.

Part-time pay is pro rata on the full-time salary. At 0.8 whole-time equivalent, Band 3 entry pays £20,608.00 a year and the top of Band 4 pays £24,925.60 a year. At 0.6 whole-time equivalent, the top of Band 4 pays £18,694.20 a year. The part-time pay guide and the hourly rate calculator cover the same maths for any fraction and any band. Annual leave in England under Section 13 is 27 days plus 8 bank holidays at up to 4 years of service, 29 days plus 8 at 5 or more years, and 33 days plus 8 at 10 or more years, pro rata for part-time staff. Leave is a real part of the package at these bands, and assistants comparing a full-time post with a part-time post should compare the leave entitlement alongside the pay, not just the headline salary.

London weighting: what the supplement adds

High Cost Area Supplement is a percentage of basic pay, subject to a minimum and a maximum in each zone. At Band 3 and Band 4 the minimums do most of the work, because 20% of a £25,760 salary is £5,152, below the inner London minimum of £5,794, and 15% of the same salary is £3,864, below the outer minimum of £4,870. That is why the London totals below do not move in a straight percentage line: the minimum lifts the lower steps more than the percentage would. The full London weighting guide explains the zones and the caps in detail.

Two points catch people out. First, the supplement follows the base of the post, not the site visited on a given day, so a community assistant who visits homes across a zone boundary is paid on the base, not on the postcode of each visit. Second, the fringe zone is not London pay in the usual sense: it is a 5% supplement for the ring around London, and at Band 3 entry it adds only £1,346, the minimum, taking the salary to £27,106. Assistants weighing a London post against a post elsewhere should compare the total, including the supplement, against the cost of living in that area, not the basic pay alone.

Pension, mileage and uniform relief

On the provisional 2026/27 England and Wales pension tiers, Band 3 entry, Band 3 top and Band 4 entry sit in the 6.5% tier, and only the top of Band 4 crosses into the 8.3% tier. In monthly terms that is £139.53 on £25,760, £148.83 on £27,476, £153.79 on £28,392, and £215.50 on £31,157. The employer contributes 23.7% on top, which is £6,105.12 a year at Band 3 entry and £7,384.21 a year at the top of Band 4. The tiers are provisional, calculated from the published 2025/26 tiers, not yet published as final, and the tier is set by whole-time-equivalent salary, so a part-time assistant is tiered on the full-time rate for the post. The pension contributions guide sets out the full tier table.

Community dietetic assistants who travel between clinics and home visits may claim business mileage under Section 17: 59p a mile for car journeys up to 4,500 miles a year, then 36p a mile above that threshold, for journeys on or after 1 July 2026. A community assistant driving 4,000 business miles in a year claims £2,360. At 5,000 miles the claim is £2,835, and at 6,000 miles it is £3,195. Home to normal workplace travel is not claimable. The mileage rates guide works through the same rates with more examples. For uniforms, therapy support staff fall in the £125 flat-rate expenses group, worth £25 a year in tax relief at the basic rate and £50 at the higher rate, claimable without receipts where the employer gives no laundry service or allowance, and backdatable up to four previous tax years. Over four years that is £100 at the basic rate and £200 at the higher rate.

Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland

Scotland awarded 3.75% from 1 April 2026 under a two-year deal and moved to a 36-hour week from April 2026, which changes the overtime threshold and the hourly maths. Scotland has its own pay scale, and this page does not quote Scotland Band 3 or Band 4 steps, because those steps are not in the verified data file. The data file gives a Scotland Band 5 example of £34,494 to £42,977, which shows the scale sits above England at that band, but it does not support a Band 3 or Band 4 table, so none is offered here. Wales awarded 3.3% from 1 April 2026, paid on time, with a Real Living Wage floor of £13.45 an hour applied to the Band 2 spot salary of £26,300. The data file gives a Wales Band 5 example of £32,557, £35,114 and £39,631, but again it does not give the Wales Band 3 or Band 4 steps, so this page does not quote them. Northern Ireland is different again: 3.3% was recommended but, as of late August 2026, not yet implemented, so no Northern Ireland figure is presented as paid. Assistants in the devolved nations should check the trust advert and the nation pay circular for the post, not the England table on this page.

Progression: from assistant to registered dietitian

The honest route from dietetic assistant to registered dietitian runs through a degree and registration with the Health and Care Professions Council. Assistant experience helps an application, and it helps enormously in the first year of training, because the assistant already knows wards, clinics, food charts and patient conversations. It does not, on its own, move anyone up a band. Agenda for Change pays the post, and a Band 4 assistant who qualifies as a dietitian typically enters at Band 5, which pays £32,073 at entry in England in 2026/27. That is £916 a year above the top of Band 4, a modest first step with a much longer ladder above it: Band 6 for senior and specialist dietitians, and Band 7 for highly specialist or team-lead roles. Some trusts support staff through degree apprenticeships, which let an assistant train while staying employed, but places are limited and competitive, and applicants should ask the trust about funding and release time before assuming a place exists. The dietitian hourly pay guide shows what the registered ladder looks like in hourly terms, and the physiotherapy assistant pay guide shows how a parallel support role handles the same assistant to registered step.

Frequently asked questions

What band is a dietetic assistant in the NHS?

In England in 2026/27, dietetic assistants sit mainly at Band 3 and Band 4 on Agenda for Change. Band 3 pays £25,760 at entry and £27,476 at the top. Band 4 pays £28,392 at entry and £31,157 at the top. Those are full-time figures for a 37.5-hour week. A dietetic assistant who works under close supervision, following care plans set by a registered dietitian, usually sits at Band 3. An assistant who carries more responsibility, runs clinics or ward rounds on their own within agreed plans, holds a delegated caseload or supervises other support staff usually sits at Band 4. The exact band is set by the job evaluation for each post, so check the advert rather than assuming the band from the job title.

How much does a dietetic assistant earn a month?

In England in 2026/27, a full-time dietetic assistant at Band 3 earns £2,146.67 a month at entry and £2,289.67 a month at the top, before tax, National Insurance and pension deductions. At Band 4 the monthly figures are £2,366.00 at entry and £2,596.42 at the top. Those are gross figures for a full-time 37.5-hour week, before any unsocial-hours enhancement, overtime or London weighting. A part-time assistant is paid pro rata: at 0.8 whole-time equivalent, Band 3 entry pays £20,608.00 a year, and at 0.6 whole-time equivalent, the top of Band 4 pays £18,694.20 a year.

What is the difference between Band 3 and Band 4 for dietetic assistants?

The difference is responsibility, not just experience. At Band 3, the assistant works to plans written by a registered dietitian: weighing patients, recording food and fluid charts, preparing oral nutritional supplements, running a group session on healthy eating, and reporting back on progress. At Band 4, the assistant takes on delegated clinical judgement: planning a session within agreed goals, adapting advice in the session when a patient struggles, managing a small delegated caseload, training and supervising Band 2 and Band 3 assistants, and carrying out assessments that the dietitian has delegated and will review. The pay gap reflects that step: Band 4 entry (£28,392) sits £916 above the top of Band 3 (£27,476), and the top of Band 4 (£31,157) sits £3,681 above the top of Band 3.

Do dietetic assistants work evenings and weekends?

Most of the work is weekday daytime work, because clinics, ward rounds and group sessions are planned in advance. Evening clinics, weekend ward cover and seven-day services can still fall in the unsocial windows, and those hours attract Section 2 enhancements: time plus 35% for Saturdays and weekday nights (8pm to 6am) and time plus 69% for Sundays and bank holidays at Band 3, and time plus 30% and time plus 60% at Band 4. A Saturday hour at Band 3 entry is worth £17.77 against a plain hourly rate of £13.16, and a Sunday hour at the top of Band 4 is worth £25.47. An assistant weighing two posts should ask about evening and weekend working, because a post with regular weekend cover will pay more in practice than a weekday-only post at the same band.

Do dietetic assistants get overtime pay?

Yes, at Bands 3 and 4. Hours above 37.5 a week are paid at time and a half, and double time on bank holidays. An overtime hour at Band 3 entry is worth £19.74 and at the top of Band 3 £21.06. At Band 4 entry an overtime hour is worth £21.75 and at the top of Band 4 £23.88. On a bank holiday the double-time rates are £26.32 at Band 3 entry and £28.08 at the top of Band 3, and £29.00 at Band 4 entry and £31.84 at the top of Band 4. Part-time staff are paid at plain time, plus any unsocial-hours enhancement that applies, for hours above their contracted hours up to 37.5 a week, with overtime rates only above 37.5 hours. Overtime and unsocial-hours enhancement cannot both be claimed for the same hours. Staff may elect time off in lieu instead of overtime pay.

How much do dietetic assistants earn in London?

Where the post is based in a London trust, assistants receive the High Cost Area Supplement: 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 these bands the minimums bind for most steps: the inner minimum applies at Band 3 entry, Band 3 top and Band 4 entry, while the top of Band 4 uses the straight 20% (£6,231.40); the outer minimum applies at all four steps; the fringe minimum applies only at Band 3 entry. So Band 3 entry pays £31,554 in inner London, £30,630 in outer London and £27,106 in the fringe zone, and the top of Band 4 pays £37,388.40 in inner London, £36,027.00 in outer London and £32,714.85 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 dietetic assistant pay?

On the provisional 2026/27 England and Wales tiers, Band 3 entry, Band 3 top and Band 4 entry all sit in the 6.5% tier, at £139.53 a month on £25,760, £148.83 a month on £27,476 and £153.79 a month on £28,392. Only the top of Band 4 crosses into the 8.3% tier, at £215.50 a month on £31,157. The employer contributes 23.7% on top, which is £6,105.12 a year at Band 3 entry and £7,384.21 a year at the top of Band 4. 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 assistant is tiered on the full-time rate for the post, not on part-time earnings.

How do you become a registered dietitian from an assistant post?

The route is a degree, not time served. Assistant experience is a strong foundation for a dietetics degree, and many universities value it, but Agenda for Change pays the post, not the person, so years as an assistant do not convert into a registered band on their own. The usual route is a dietetics degree followed by registration with the Health and Care Professions Council. Some trusts support staff through degree apprenticeships, which let an assistant train while staying employed, but places are limited and competitive. A Band 4 assistant who qualifies as a dietitian typically enters at Band 5, which pays £32,073 at entry in England in 2026/27, a rise of £916 a year over the top of Band 4, with a much longer ladder above it.

Sources and independence

Source: NHS Employers pay award 2026.

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