NHS Final Pay When Leaving: What You Are Owed and How It Is Worked Out

Last updated: 6 November 2026 · Figures verified against the NHS Employers 2026/27 pay circular.

By the NHS Bands Pay editorial team

What is in your final pay?

Final pay is not one payment but a bundle of separate items, each worked out on its own basis and each appearing as its own line on the final payslip. Knowing the bundle matters, because the most common final-pay errors are missing items rather than wrong rates: a night enhancement that never made it onto the payslip, or leave that was never counted. The items are basic pay to your leaving date, payment for unused annual leave, unsocial-hours enhancements and overtime for shifts worked in your final period, and any expenses or mileage claims submitted before the payroll cut-off. From that gross total, payroll deducts income tax, National Insurance, your NHS pension contribution and any student loan repayment, in the normal way.

Basic pay is the largest item and the simplest to check: your annual salary divided by 12 gives a full month, and a part month is worked on calendar days, as the next section explains. Unused annual leave is paid at your daily rate for each day owed, and the leave section below works through the pro rata entitlement that decides how many days you are owed. Unsocial-hours enhancements are pensionable, so they count towards your pension as well as your pay, and they are paid for the hours actually worked, which means a night shift in your last week is paid at the night rate for your band, exactly as it would have been in any other month. Overtime above 37.5 hours in a week is paid at time and a half for Bands 1 to 7, or double time on bank holidays, and Bands 8 and 9 receive time off in lieu only. The unsocial hours and overtime guide sets out those rates in full, and the payslip guide explains how to read each line once the final payslip arrives.

Two items sit outside the bundle and are often confused with it. Your pension is handled separately from your pay: with less than two years of membership you can take a refund of your employee contributions, and with two years or more your benefits are preserved in the scheme, as the pension section below explains. Redundancy pay, where it applies, is also separate from final pay and is worked out under its own rules, so if you are leaving because your post is redundant, see the redundancy pay guide alongside this page. What follows covers the ordinary case: a member of staff who resigns or retires and wants to know exactly what the last payslip should contain.

How a part month is worked out

NHS pay is monthly in arrears, which means a full month of work is paid as one twelfth of the annual salary. When you leave part way through a month, payroll has to work out the fraction of the month you were employed, and most NHS payrolls do that on calendar days: your annual salary divided by 365, multiplied by the calendar days you were employed in that month. The daily rate is the key figure, and it is the same daily rate used for unused leave, so learning one number answers two questions. A Band 5 nurse at the entry point, on £32,073 a year, has a daily rate of £87.87, and leaving after 14 calendar days in the month gives £1,230.20 of basic pay for that month, against a full month of £2,672.75.

Three details of the method are worth knowing. First, calendar days include weekends, so a leaving date of Friday the 14th counts 14 days even though only 10 of them were working days. Second, totals are worked from the unrounded daily rate and rounded at the end, so a total can differ by a penny from the rounded daily rate multiplied by the days, and that penny is rounding, not an error. Third, some trusts use days in the month instead of calendar days, dividing the monthly salary by the number of days in that particular month, which gives a slightly different total, higher in February and lower in a 31-day month. If your final pay does not match the calendar-day figure on this page, ask payroll which basis they used before assuming a mistake, because a few pounds of difference between the two methods is normal.

Part-time staff use the same method on their part-time salary. A 0.6 whole-time-equivalent Band 5 nurse at the entry point earns £19,243.80 a year, which is 60% of the full-time £32,073, and the monthly pay is £1,603.65 with a daily rate of £52.72. Leaving after 12 days in the month gives £632.67 of basic pay, and 2 days of unused leave add £105.45, a gross total of £738.12. The part-time pay guide sets out the pro rata maths in full, and the part-time pay calculator will work out the exact figure for any whole-time-equivalent fraction.

Monthly and daily rates by band and pay step

The table below gives the monthly pay and the daily rate for every band and pay step in England in 2026/27, so you can find your own figures in seconds and check your final payslip against them. Monthly pay is annual salary divided by 12, and the daily rate is annual salary divided by 365. Band 2 is a single spot rate, so it has one row. Bands 3 and 4 have two pay steps, entry and top. Bands 5 to 9 have three, entry, intermediate and top. Band 1 has no row, because the band is closed to new entrants and the verified data file holds no Band 1 salary for 2026/27, so no monthly or daily figure can be stated without guessing.

Two rows in the table deserve a second look. The first is the gap between the bottom and the top of the scale: a day of work is worth £69.24 at Band 2 and £355.57 at the top of Band 9, so the same calendar day of a final month is worth five times as much at the top of the scale as at the bottom. The second is the overlap between bands: the top of Band 6, at £131.83 a day, is worth more than the entry point of Band 7, at £135.31 a day, by less than £4, so a promotion from the top of one band to the bottom of the next adds very little to a final month. London weighting is paid on top of basic pay for the hours worked and is calculated on basic pay, so a London member of staff uses the same daily rate as a colleague outside London, plus High Cost Area Supplement on the basic pay for those days. The supplement does not multiply the daily rate. The London weighting (HCAS) guide sets out the 2026/27 rates, and the hourly rate calculator will convert any annual salary into an hourly rate.

Payment for unused annual leave

Untaken annual leave is paid on leaving, at your daily rate for each day owed, and the question that decides the amount is how many days you are owed. 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, a total of 35, 37 and 41 days, and the entitlement is pro rated for the part of the leave year you worked. The leave year runs from 1 April to 31 March, so a member of staff with 10 or more years of service who leaves 6 months into the leave year, at the end of September, has 20.5 days of entitlement, and if they have taken 15 days, they are owed 5.5 days. At the top of Band 5, on £39,043 a year, 5.5 days are worth £588.32. A standard NHS day is 7.5 hours, so 5.5 days are 41.25 hours, and the full entitlement tiers in hours are 202.5 hours at 27 days, 217.5 hours at 29 days and 247.5 hours at 33 days, before bank holidays.

The same rule works in reverse, and this is the part that surprises leavers. If you took more leave than you had accrued by your leaving date, payroll can deduct the excess from your final pay, at the same daily rate. Taking 25 days in the first three months of the leave year and then leaving at the end of June, with only a quarter of the year's entitlement accrued, leaves a real debt, and the deduction appears on the final payslip. Check your leave balance in ESR before your last day, and if you have leave left, take it or confirm in writing that it will be paid, because a verbal promise from a manager is not a payslip line. Bank holidays count inside the entitlement, so an untaken bank holiday is paid in the same way as an untaken day of annual leave, and part-time staff have their entitlement pro rated by whole-time equivalent, then paid at their part-time daily rate. The annual leave guide sets out the tiers in full, and the annual leave calculator will work out the exact entitlement for any start or leaving date. For the leave element in full, including the daily-rate table for every band and the tax position, see our guide to unused annual leave payout on leaving.

Carry-over is the one part of this subject that cannot be stated as a national rule. Some trusts allow a small number of days to be carried into the next leave year, and some do not, and the terms are set locally, so carried-over days are paid on the same basis as any other unused leave if your trust allowed them, and lost if it did not. Ask your manager or HR what your trust allows before your last day, and get the answer in writing if the amount is large. The same local-variation warning applies to time off in lieu: banked TOIL is usually paid at plain time or taken before leaving, and the arrangement should be agreed with your manager, because TOIL is not annual leave and the rules are not the same.

Worked examples: four leavers, four final pays

The examples below use 2026/27 England rates, and each one shows the basic pay for the days worked, the unused leave payment, and the gross total before deductions, because that is the order the items appear on the payslip. Totals are calculated from the unrounded daily rate and rounded to the nearest penny at the end.

Example 1: Band 5 nurse, entry point, leaves after 14 days in the month. Annual salary £32,073, monthly pay £2,672.75, daily rate £87.87. Basic pay for 14 calendar days is £1,230.20. She has taken all of her leave, so there is no leave payment, and no unsocial-hours payments fall in the final period. Gross final pay is £1,230.20, before tax, National Insurance, pension and student loan.

Example 2: Band 2 healthcare assistant, leaves after 10 days with 3 days of unused leave. Annual salary £25,272, monthly pay £2,106.00, daily rate £69.24. Basic pay for 10 calendar days is £692.38, and 3 days of unused leave are worth £207.72, a gross total of £900.10. This is the smallest final pay in this set, and it shows why the leave payment matters at the lower bands: the 3 days of leave add nearly a third to the basic pay for the month.

Example 3: Band 7 nurse, top of band, leaves after 20 days with 5.5 days of unused leave. Annual salary £56,515, monthly pay £4,709.58, daily rate £154.84. Basic pay for 20 calendar days is £3,096.71, and 5.5 days of unused leave are worth £851.60, a gross total of £3,948.31. The 5.5 days come from a 10-plus-years entitlement of 41 days, pro rated to 20.5 days for 6 months of the leave year, less 15 days taken.

Example 4: Part-time Band 5 nurse, 0.6 whole-time equivalent, leaves after 12 days with 2 days of unused leave. Annual salary £19,243.80, monthly pay £1,603.65, daily rate £52.72. Basic pay for 12 calendar days is £632.67, and 2 days of unused leave are worth £105.45, a gross total of £738.12. Part-time leavers sometimes assume their leave is paid at the full-time daily rate, but it is paid at the part-time rate, because the entitlement itself is pro rated, and the two pro rata steps together give the correct figure.

None of these examples includes unsocial-hours or overtime payments, because those depend on the rota in the final weeks, but the principle is the same: each hour of night, Saturday or Sunday work in the final period is paid at the enhanced rate for the band, and each hour of overtime above 37.5 hours in a week is paid at time and a half for Bands 1 to 7. A Band 5 nurse at the entry point who worked one 12-hour night shift in her final week adds £245.70 of gross pay to the final payslip, 10 hours at the night rate of £21.29 and 2 hours at the plain rate of £16.38, and the night shift pay guide works through the 6am split that decides that figure.

Tax on your final pay

Final pay is taxed through PAYE in the normal way, and because PAYE is cumulative, the tax on a final pay can look odd. Your pension contribution comes off first under the net pay arrangement, which reduces the pay that tax is charged on, and National Insurance is charged on gross pay. The personal allowance for 2026/27 is £12,570 a year, income tax is 20% on income above the allowance up to £50,270, 40% above that up to £125,140, and 45% above that, and employee National Insurance is 8% on earnings above £12,570 up to £50,270 and 2% above that. Take a full final month at the top of Band 6, on £48,117 a year: gross monthly pay is £4,009.75, the 9.8% pension contribution is £392.96, tax at 20% on the remaining pay above the personal allowance is £513.86, and National Insurance at 8% is £236.98, leaving £2,865.95. With a Plan 2 student loan, a further £140.49 comes off, 9% of the monthly pay above the £29,385 annual threshold, leaving £2,725.46.

Three tax points matter more than the arithmetic. First, if you leave part way through the tax year and have paid too much tax in earlier months, the final pay can produce a tax refund rather than a tax charge, because PAYE recalculates the whole year to date. Second, if you start a new job before your P45 arrives, the new employer may use an emergency tax code, which can mean too much tax in the first month, corrected once HMRC issues the right code. The tax code guide explains the codes to watch for. Third, pay in lieu of notice and payment for unused leave are both taxed as normal pay, not as tax-free termination payments, so do not budget on the gross figure for either. If your final pay includes a genuine redundancy payment, the first £30,000 of that payment is tax-free under the usual rules, but that is the redundancy element only, and the redundancy pay guide sets out the split.

Your pension when you leave

Your pension is handled separately from your final pay, and the rule turns on two years of qualifying membership. With less than two years, you can take a refund of the employee contributions you paid, less deductions for tax and National Insurance, because you received tax relief on those contributions when they were paid. A Band 5 nurse at the entry point, on £32,073 a year in the 8.3% contribution tier, pays £221.84 a month, so 18 months of membership gives a gross refund of £3,993.09 before those deductions. The contribution tiers for 2026/27 run from 5.2% on pay up to £13,259, through 6.5%, 8.3% and 9.8%, to 10.7% on pay from £52,779 to £67,668 and 12.5% above that, with the employer paying 23.7% on top, and the pension contributions guide sets out the tiers in full. Your employer contributions are not refunded in either case.

With two years or more of qualifying membership, your benefits are preserved instead: they stay in the NHS Pension Scheme, increase with inflation, and are claimed at retirement. You do not need to do anything to preserve them, but you should keep the annual benefit statement that shows the preserved amount, and tell NHS Pensions if your address changes, because the scheme has to find you at retirement. If you rejoin the NHS within five years, the break rules allow the earlier service to link with the new service, and the full rules, including what happens if you take a refund and then rejoin, are in our guide to what happens to your NHS pension if you leave. If you are leaving to retire, the position is different again, and the pension calculator will project the pension from any salary, with or without regular unsocial-hours pay included.

Your P45 and starting a new job

Your P45 is issued after your final pay has been processed, usually within a few days of the pay date, and it carries your tax code, your total pay for the tax year and the total tax paid, so your next employer can put you on the right code. If you start a new job before the P45 arrives, the new employer will use a temporary code, often the basic-rate code or a zero-allowance code, and HMRC will correct it once the P45 figures are in the system. The correction can take a month or two, and any tax overpaid in the meantime is refunded through the new payroll, not by HMRC directly, so keep the P45 when it arrives and check that the new employer has used it.

Two practical points belong here. First, download or print your payslips from ESR before your access ends, because you lose access to the system on your leaving date and the final payslip is the proof of what was paid and what was deducted. Second, confirm the address payroll holds for you, because the P45 and any supplementary payment go to that address, and a forwarding address that was never updated is the most common reason a P45 goes missing. If you are moving to another NHS trust, your ESR record transfers and your continuous service continues, which protects your leave tier, your sick pay entitlement and your redundancy reckoning, and the payslip guide explains the ESR record in more detail.

Notice period and pay in lieu of notice

Notice periods are typically one month for Bands 1 to 7 and three months for Bands 8 and 9, and the full position is set out in our guide to notice periods by band. Your leaving date for pay purposes is the end of the notice period, or the earlier date agreed with your manager, and your final pay, your leave entitlement and your pension calculations all run to that date. Working the notice period is the normal course, and pay in lieu of notice applies when the employer asks you not to work it, or agrees that you need not, and pays you for the period instead.

Pay in lieu of notice is taxed as normal pay, with tax, National Insurance, pension and student loan deducted in the usual way, and it is not a tax-free termination payment. Whether it applies depends on your contract and on the reason for leaving, so it is agreed with your manager and HR rather than claimed as a right. If you are paid in lieu of notice, your pensionable pay runs to the end of the notice period, and any leave that would have accrued during the notice period is included in the unused leave calculation. If you leave without working your full notice and without agreement, the trust can treat the shortfall as a breach of contract and deduct the value of the unworked notice from your final pay, so agree the leaving date in writing before your last day, and keep a copy of the agreement.

Overpayments and deductions

Payroll can deduct genuine overpayments from your final pay, and the two that arise most often are leave taken beyond what had accrued and pay for a period after the leaving date. Both are worked at the daily rate, and both should be itemised on the payslip, so you can see what was deducted and why. Salary sacrifice arrangements also end on leaving, and any outstanding balance, for example a car lease or a cycle-to-work balance, is settled under the terms of the scheme, which may mean a deduction from the final pay or a separate arrangement with the provider. Ask payroll for a breakdown of any deduction you do not recognise, because a deduction without an explanation is the first thing to query, and the pay disputes guide sets out the formal route if payroll will not explain it.

Expenses and mileage claims are the other side of the same coin: money the trust owes you, rather than money you owe the trust. Submit every outstanding claim before the payroll cut-off in your last week, because claims submitted after you leave are paid as a separate payment and can take weeks to process. Mileage is paid at 59p a mile for a car up to 4,500 miles a year and 36p a mile above that, with motorcycle and cycle rates of 30p and 20p, and the mileage rates guide sets out the full Section 17 table with worked examples. Keep copies of every claim you submit in your last month, and check that each one appears on the final payslip or in the supplementary payment that follows it.

Before your last day: a checklist

A few small jobs in the last week prevent most final-pay problems, and they are worth doing in order. Confirm your leaving date in writing with your manager and HR, and keep a copy. Check your leave balance in ESR and agree in writing whether the balance will be taken or paid. Submit all expenses and mileage claims before the payroll cut-off, and keep copies. Return your ID badge, keys, laptop and any other trust property, and get a receipt, because unreturned property can delay the final pay. Confirm the bank details and the forwarding address payroll holds for you. Download or print your recent payslips from ESR before access ends. Check your pension statement and make sure NHS Pensions has your current address. Tell your union rep you are leaving if you are a member, so the membership record is closed cleanly. None of these jobs is difficult, and together they remove the usual reasons a final pay arrives late or short.

If your final pay is wrong

Check the payslip first, line by line, against your own workings: the days in post that month at your daily rate, the unused leave days owed, and any unsocial-hours or overtime payments for shifts worked in the final period. The most common errors are a missing night or weekend enhancement, leave paid at the wrong daily rate, and leave taken in advance being deducted without explanation. If a line looks wrong, contact payroll with the rota and the leave balance from ESR, because most errors are coding mistakes that payroll can correct in a supplementary payment. If payroll will not correct it, the formal route is a pay dispute through your manager and HR, with your union if you are a member, and our guide to NHS pay disputes sets out the steps. Keep your last few payslips and the final one, because you need them to prove what was paid and what was not, and note the date you raised the query, because payroll queries are easier to chase with a date attached.

Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland

The principles on this page apply across the UK, but the figures are the England Agenda for Change figures for 2026/27, and the other nations have their own scales. 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 hourly maths for Scottish posts, because the same annual salary is divided by fewer hours, and the verified data file holds a Scotland Band 5 range of £34,494 to £42,977 but no full Scotland scale, so no Scotland daily rates are quoted here. Wales awarded 3.3%, implemented on 1 April 2026, with a Real Living Wage floor of £13.45 an hour applied to the Band 1, 2 and 3 minimum, and the Welsh Band 2 spot rate is £26,300 a year, but the full Welsh scale differs slightly from England and no Wales daily rates are quoted here either. In Northern Ireland, the 3.3% award for 2026/27 is recommended but not yet implemented, so staff there should not budget on the England figures until the award is confirmed, and should work their final pay from the scale actually in payment. The nation guides are NHS Scotland pay, NHS Wales pay and NHS Northern Ireland pay, and the four-nation pay comparison sets out the awards side by side.

Frequently asked questions

When will I get my final pay from the NHS?

Your final pay normally arrives on the usual monthly pay date after you leave, not on your last day. NHS pay is monthly in arrears, so payroll works out everything you are owed up to your leaving date, including unused annual leave and any unsocial-hours or overtime payments, and pays it with the next monthly run. Your P45 follows after the final pay has been processed, usually within a few days of that pay date. If your leaving date falls just after a pay run, the wait can be close to a month, so do not plan on the money arriving in your last week. If nothing has arrived by the second usual pay date after you left, contact payroll, because a missing final pay is almost always a processing delay rather than a decision not to pay.

How is final pay worked out if I leave mid-month?

Most NHS payrolls work a part month on calendar days: your annual salary divided by 365, multiplied by the calendar days you were employed in that month. A Band 5 nurse at the entry point, on £32,073 a year, has a daily rate of £87.87, so leaving after 14 calendar days in the month gives £1,230.20 of basic pay for that month, against a full month of £2,672.75. The same method applies at every band: a Band 2 member of staff on £25,272 has a daily rate of £69.24, so 10 days in post gives £692.38, and a Band 9 member of staff at the top of the band on £129,783 has a daily rate of £355.57, so 10 days gives £3,555.70. Totals are worked from the unrounded daily rate and rounded at the end, so a total can differ by a penny from the rounded daily rate multiplied by the days. Some trusts use days in the month instead of calendar days, which gives a slightly different total, so check your payslip against the calendar-day figure and ask payroll which basis they used if the numbers do not match.

Do I get paid for unused annual leave when I leave the NHS?

Yes. Untaken annual leave is paid on leaving, at your daily rate for each day owed. First work out your entitlement for the part of the leave year you worked: Agenda for Change gives 27 days 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, pro rated for the months in post. A member of staff with 10 or more years of service who leaves 6 months into the leave year has 20.5 days of entitlement, and if they have taken 15 days, they are owed 5.5 days. At the top of Band 5, on £39,043 a year, 5.5 days are worth £588.32. The same rule works in reverse: if you took more leave than you had accrued by your leaving date, payroll can deduct the excess from your final pay, so check your leave balance in ESR before your last day rather than discovering the deduction on the payslip.

What happens to my NHS pension when I leave?

It depends on how long you were a member. With less than two years of qualifying membership, you can take a refund of the employee contributions you paid, less deductions for tax and National Insurance, because you received tax relief on those contributions when they were paid. A Band 5 nurse at the entry point, on £32,073 a year in the 8.3% contribution tier, pays £221.84 a month, so 18 months of membership gives a gross refund of £3,993.09 before those deductions. With two years or more of qualifying membership, your benefits are preserved instead: they stay in the scheme, increase with inflation, and are claimed at retirement. Your employer contributions are not refunded in either case. The full rules, including the five-year break rule for rejoining, are in our guide to what happens to your NHS pension if you leave.

Will I pay tax on my final pay?

Yes, through PAYE in the normal way, and because PAYE is cumulative, the tax on a final pay can look odd. Your pension contribution comes off first under the net pay arrangement, which reduces the pay that tax is charged on, and National Insurance is charged on gross pay. Take a full final month at the top of Band 6, on £48,117 a year: gross monthly pay is £4,009.75, the 9.8% pension contribution is £392.96, tax at 20% on the remaining pay above the £12,570 personal allowance is £513.86, and National Insurance at 8% is £236.98, leaving £2,865.95. With a Plan 2 student loan, a further £140.49 comes off, leaving £2,725.46. If you leave part way through the tax year and have paid too much tax in earlier months, the final pay can produce a tax refund rather than a tax charge, and the P45 carries the year-to-date figures to your next employer so the position corrects itself.

What is pay in lieu of notice?

Pay in lieu of notice, often shortened to PILON, is when your employer pays you for your notice period instead of asking you to work it. It is taxed as normal pay, with tax, National Insurance, pension and student loan deducted in the usual way, and it is not a tax-free termination payment. Notice periods are typically one month for Bands 1 to 7 and three months for Bands 8 and 9, and the full position is set out in our guide to notice periods by band. Whether PILON applies depends on your contract and on the reason for leaving, so it is agreed with your manager and HR rather than claimed as a right. If you are paid in lieu of notice, your leaving date for pay purposes is the date the notice period would have ended, and your pension and leave calculations run to that date.

What if my final pay is wrong?

Check the payslip first, line by line, against your own workings: the days in post that month at your daily rate, the unused leave days owed, and any unsocial-hours or overtime payments for shifts worked in the final period. The most common errors are a missing night or weekend enhancement, leave paid at the wrong daily rate, and leave taken in advance being deducted without explanation. If a line looks wrong, contact payroll with the rota and the leave balance from ESR, because most errors are coding mistakes that payroll can correct in a supplementary payment. If payroll will not correct it, the formal route is a pay dispute through your manager and HR, with your union if you are a member, and our guide to NHS pay disputes sets out the steps. Keep your last few payslips and the final one, because you need them to prove what was paid and what was not.

Does my final pay include unsocial hours and overtime?

Yes, if the hours were worked in your final pay period. Unsocial-hours enhancements and overtime are paid when the hours are worked, so night, Saturday and Sunday enhancements for shifts in your last weeks appear on the final payslip at the rates for your band, and overtime above 37.5 hours in a week is paid at time and a half for Bands 1 to 7, or double time on bank holidays. The enhancement is pensionable, so it also counts towards your pension. Two things catch people out: expenses and mileage claims must be submitted before the payroll cut-off, or they fall into a separate payment after you leave, and hours worked after the cut-off for the final pay run are paid in a supplementary payment rather than with the final pay itself. Check the cut-off date with payroll in your last week, and see the unsocial hours and overtime guide for the rates.

Sources and independence

Source: NHS Employers, 2026/27 pay award announcement.

Source: Health Careers NHS, Agenda for Change pay rates.

Source: GOV.UK, Income Tax rates and Personal Allowances.

Source: GOV.UK, National Insurance.

NHS Bands Pay is an independent guide and is not affiliated with the NHS. Figures were verified against official sources on 6 November 2026 and can change, always confirm with the relevant official body before making financial decisions.