NHS Band 3 Pay in Northern Ireland 2026/27

Last updated: 8 November 2026 · Figures verified against the NHS Employers 2025/26 pay scales, the NHS Pay Review Body 39th Report and the Department of Health (NI) statement of 14 October 2026.

By the NHS Bands Pay editorial team

Band 3 is the experienced support-worker grade of the NHS. It is where a healthcare assistant who has proved herself becomes a senior healthcare assistant, where an emergency care assistant, a pharmacy assistant, a maternity support worker and a therapy assistant sit, and where the administrators who keep wards and clinics running are paid for the judgement their jobs actually need. It is not a trainee grade and it is not a registered-professional grade. It is the grade for staff who carry delegated clinical tasks, supervise newer colleagues and know the ward well enough to spot trouble before it becomes an incident. In Northern Ireland those staff are being paid a year behind the rest of the UK. In England and Wales the 3.3% award landed in April salaries, on time. In Scotland a two-year deal delivered 3.75% and a shorter week. In Northern Ireland the same 3.3% was recommended, the Health Minister said he wanted to pay it, and nothing has happened since, because the Northern Ireland Executive has not agreed the funding. Health and Social Care staff are still being paid on last year's scale, and the Royal College of Nursing is balloting its members on strike action over the delay. This page gives the Band 3 figures as they actually stand: the scale in payment, the hourly and monthly rates, the take-home pay after the Northern Ireland pension rates, the unsocial-hours and overtime rates, and exactly what the missing 3.3% is worth at each pay point. Every figure that is in payment comes from the verified 2025/26 scale, and every figure for the award is labelled illustrative, because presenting it as live pay would be wrong.

What Band 3 pay is in Northern Ireland right now

Band 3 is the experienced support-worker grade in Agenda for Change, and in Northern Ireland it is paid on the 2025/26 scale. The band has two pay points, entry and top, and staff move between them after about two years, subject to a satisfactory appraisal and mandatory training. The table below gives the annual salary, the hourly rate on a 37.5-hour week, and the monthly and weekly equivalents for each point. The hourly rate is the annual salary divided by 52.2 weeks and then by 37.5 hours, which is the convention used across this site.

Two things about that table are worth saying plainly. First, the figures are a year behind the rest of the UK, and the gap matters more at this end of the scale than it does higher up, because every pound of it comes out of a household budget that is already tight. A Band 3 worker at the top of the band in Northern Ireland earns £26,598 a year; the same job in England earns £27,476, a difference of £878 a year, or £73.17 a month. At entry the gap is £823 a year, or £68.58 a month. Second, the scale is not a guess. Northern Ireland matched England's scale in 2025/26, when the award was 3.6%, so the 2025/26 England figures are the confirmed Northern Ireland figures. That is the position the Northern Ireland pay guide sets out for every band, and it is the position this page works from throughout.

The weekly column is the figure that matters most for anyone checking a payslip, because HSC Trusts pay monthly but most people think in weeks. A Band 3 worker at entry takes £477.72 a week before deductions, and £509.54 at the top. Those are gross figures, before pension, tax and National Insurance, and the take-home section below works out what is left after each deduction.

It is also worth setting Band 3 against the grades either side of it. Band 2, the entry support-worker grade, is a single spot salary of £24,465 in Northern Ireland, so the step from Band 2 to Band 3 entry is worth £472 a year, or £39.33 a month. That is a small step in cash terms, but it is a real step in responsibility: Band 3 roles typically require greater experience and delegated clinical tasks, which is why the move is worth making even before the money is counted. The step up to Band 4 is bigger. Band 4 entry in Northern Ireland is £27,485, which is £887 a year above Band 3 top, or £73.92 a month, and £2,548 a year above Band 3 entry, or £212.33 a month. Band 4 is the grade for nursing associates and other assistant practitioners, and it is the natural next step for a Band 3 worker who wants a registered route. The Band 3 salary guide sets out the roles and the progression route in detail, and the Band 2 guide covers the grade below.

Why the 2026/27 rise has not arrived

The story of the missing rise has three dates. On 12 February 2026 the NHS Pay Review Body published its 39th Report and recommended a 3.3% consolidated uplift for Agenda for Change staff across the UK, including Northern Ireland. The recommendation would add an estimated £120 million to the Northern Ireland pay bill. The Health Minister said on the same day that he wished to proceed with the 3.3% from 1 April 2026. In England and Wales the recommendation was accepted and the award was paid on time in April salaries, the first on-time award since 2020. In Northern Ireland it was not paid, because the Northern Ireland Executive had not agreed a budget for the financial year, and implementing a pay award needs Executive approval for the funding.

The second date is 26 August 2026, when Nursing Times reported that HSC staff were still waiting for the award, nearly five months after it took effect elsewhere, because the ministerial direction needed to implement it was awaiting approval by the Executive. A ministerial direction is an unusual step: the former Health Minister, Mike Nesbitt, issued one to authorise implementing the award in the absence of standard budget approvals. The direction still needs the Executive to agree to release the funding, and that agreement has not come.

The third date is 14 October 2026, when the Royal College of Nursing in Northern Ireland opened a statutory ballot for industrial action, including strike action, over pay. The same day, the Department of Health issued a statement in which the current Health Minister, Robbie Butler, said he understood the frustration felt by nurses and other HSC staff, that the 2026/27 award should be implemented and pay parity with colleagues in NHS England restored as soon as possible, and that he would do everything in his power to deliver it. The statement also formally committed to introducing the Real Living Wage across Health and Social Care, and noted that structural Agenda for Change pay reform discussions continue. The ballot papers go to Civica Election Services by Friday 20 November 2026, and the RCN is urging members to vote yes to both action short of strike and full strike action. The full timeline and what a yes vote would mean are on the RCN strike ballot page.

None of that changes what is on the payslip today. Until the Department of Health confirms implementation, the 2025/26 scale in the table above is the pay, and any figure that starts with £25,760 for Band 3 is a forecast, not a salary. That distinction is the reason this page separates the two sets of figures so firmly, and it is the reason the next section labels its figures illustrative in every row.

What the 3.3% would be worth

If the Executive approves the funding and the Department of Health implements the award, Band 3 in Northern Ireland would move onto the same figures England has paid since April: £25,760 at entry and £27,476 at the top. The table below puts the two scales side by side, with the rise at each point and the arrears that would have built up by the end of October 2026, seven months into the pay year, if the award is backdated to 1 April 2026.

The arrears column is the one that turns an abstract percentage into money owed. By the end of October, seven months of the pay year have passed without the award. A Band 3 worker at the top of the band is owed £512.17 for those seven months if the award is backdated to 1 April, and £480.08 at entry. Each further month of delay adds another £73.17 or £68.58 to the amount owed. That is the cost of the delay in the most concrete sense, and it is also why the unions are pressing for backdating: standard Agenda for Change practice is for an award to be backdated to 1 April, and the ministerial direction is understood to intend the same, but no backdating date is legally confirmed until the Executive approves the funding, so treat the arrears figures as the amount that would be owed, not a promise.

One caution applies to the illustrative column, and it matters more at Band 3 than it does at Band 5 or Band 6. It assumes Northern Ireland restores parity with England, which is what has happened with every previous award, and what the Health Minister has said he intends. It is not a published Northern Ireland scale, because no Northern Ireland pay circular for 2026/27 exists. If the eventual implementation differs, for example by applying the Real Living Wage floor at the bottom of the scale as Wales did, the lower bands would change. Wales applied a floor of £13.45 an hour to the Band 1, 2 and 3 minimum, and the Department of Health in Northern Ireland has committed to introducing the Real Living Wage across Health and Social Care, but no rate has been published for HSC staff, so no figure is quoted here. Band 3 entry in Northern Ireland is paid £12.74 an hour, which is below the Welsh floor, so the eventual Band 3 entry figure could end up above the illustrative £25,760 if a living-wage floor is applied. The pay scales by country comparison sets out the same position for every band and nation.

Take-home pay after pension, tax and National Insurance

Gross pay is not what arrives in the bank. The table below works out take-home pay for each Band 3 point in Northern Ireland, on the rates actually in payment, using the same method used across this site: the HSC pension contribution comes off first, income tax is charged on what is left after the personal allowance, and National Insurance comes off gross pay. Student loan repayments are not in the table, and are dealt with separately below.

Read the table across one row and the shape of a Band 3 payslip is clear. At entry, on £24,937 a year, the pension takes £1,670.78, income tax takes £2,139.24 and National Insurance takes £989.36, leaving £20,137.62 a year, or £1,678.14 a month. At the top, on £26,598, the pension takes £1,782.07, tax takes £2,449.19 and National Insurance takes £1,122.24, leaving £21,244.50 a year, or £1,770.38 a month. The pension is the largest single deduction at both steps, which is why the pension section below matters: it is also the deduction that buys the most, because it accrues pension at the 1/54th rate while cutting the tax bill.

The chart above the table plots monthly take-home by pay point. The step from entry to top is worth £92.24 a month in take-home, on a gross step of £1,661 a year. That is a modest step, and it is the shape of the lower half of the Agenda for Change spine since the 2018 restructuring, which collapsed many small annual increments into fewer, larger steps. Band 3 has only two steps, so the whole of the band's progression is that one jump, and once a worker reaches the top, the only way to earn more in basic pay is to move up a band.

Student loans are the good news on a Band 3 payslip, for most staff at least. Both pay steps sit below the Plan 1 threshold of £26,900 and the Plan 2 threshold of £29,385, so no repayment is due on either plan, at entry or at the top. Plan 5, the plan for students who started on or after 1 August 2023, starts at £25,000, so it bites only at the top step: entry pay of £24,937 is £63 below the threshold and nothing is due, while top pay of £26,598 is £1,598 above it, so the repayment is 9% of that, which is £143.82 a year, or £11.99 a month. Take-home with a Plan 5 loan at the top is therefore £1,758.39 a month. The student loan repayments on NHS pay guide and the student loan calculator work out the deduction for any salary and plan.

Unsocial hours and overtime

Band 3 staff in Northern Ireland work the same unsocial-hours rules as their counterparts in England, because Agenda for Change Section 2 is a UK-wide framework. Band 3 sits in the bands 1 to 3 group, which is paid more generously for unsocial hours than the higher bands, because the lower-paid staff do the most unsocial work. Saturday and weekday night work, between 8pm and 6am, is paid at the hourly rate plus 35%, and Sunday and public holiday work at the hourly rate plus 69%. The rates below are worked out from the rounded hourly rates actually in payment, so they are the rates a Band 3 worker in Northern Ireland is paid today, not the illustrative rates.

A worked example shows what the enhancements are worth on a real rota. A Band 3 worker at the top of the band who works a 12-hour Sunday shift is paid 12 hours at £22.97, which is £275.64 for the shift, against £163.08 at the plain rate, a difference of £112.56 for that one shift. A Saturday night shift of the same length at £18.35 is £220.20, a difference of £57.12 over plain time. Those enhancements are pensionable and taxable in the same way as basic pay, so they raise the pension contribution and the tax bill as well as the gross pay. For Band 3 staff on a full unsocial-hours rota, the enhancements are a substantial part of the monthly pay packet, and a worker who does regular Sundays can take home several hundred pounds a month more than the plain-time figures on this page suggest. The unsocial hours and overtime guide works through the rules in full, including the rule that overtime and unsocial-hours enhancement cannot both be claimed for the same hours.

Overtime is paid at time-and-a-half for hours above 37.5 a week, and double time on bank holidays, for Bands 1 to 7. A Band 3 worker at entry earns £19.11 an hour for overtime and £25.48 on a bank holiday; at the top the figures are £20.38 and £27.18. Part-time staff are paid at plain time for hours above their contracted hours up to 37.5, with overtime rates only above that. Staff may elect time off in lieu instead of pay. The overtime calculator works out shift pay for any combination of hours.

The HSC pension on Band 3 pay

Northern Ireland runs its own pension contribution tiers through the HSC Pension Service, and they are not the same as the England and Wales tiers. The thresholds are the same in both years, but the rates are higher in Northern Ireland in the second and fourth tiers: 6.7% where England charges 6.5%, and 10.0% where England charges 9.8%. The full 2026/27 HSC structure is 5.2% up to £13,259, 6.7% to £28,854, 8.5% to £35,155, 10.0% to £52,778, 10.9% to £67,668 and 12.7% above that. Both Band 3 steps sit inside the 6.7% tier, which covers salaries from £13,260 to £28,854, so there is no tier jump inside Band 3, unlike higher bands where the top step can cross into the next tier.

That makes the pension maths simple to state. At entry the contribution is £1,670.78 a year, or £139.23 a month. At the top it is £1,782.07 a year, or £148.51 a month. The employer adds 23.2% on top, which is £5,785.38 a year at entry and £6,170.74 at the top. The England employer rate is 23.7%, so the Northern Ireland employer puts in slightly less, while the Northern Ireland member puts in slightly more. The pension contributions by band guide sets out the England and Wales tiers for comparison, and the pension contributions guide covers the scheme in full.

Each year of service accrues pension at 1/54th of pensionable earnings in the 2015 CARE scheme, so a year at Band 3 entry accrues £461.80 of annual pension, and a year at the top accrues £492.56. The built-up pension is revalued each April. The contribution also cuts the tax bill, because it comes off before tax: at entry the pension contribution saves £334.16 of income tax a year, which is the 20% rate applied to the £1,670.78 contribution, and at the top it saves £356.41. That tax saving is part of the value of the scheme, and it is the reason the take-home figures on this page are worked out with the pension taken off first.

Part-time Band 3 pay

Part-time pay is the full-time salary multiplied by the whole-time-equivalent fraction, and the pension tier is set by the full-time salary, not the part-time amount. A Band 3 worker at entry on 0.6 whole-time equivalent, which is 22.5 hours a week on the 37.5-hour week, earns £14,962.20 a year, or £1,246.85 a month. The pension tier is 6.7%, set by the full-time salary of £24,937, and it takes £1,002.47 a year, or £83.54 a month. Income tax is £277.95 a year and National Insurance is £191.38, leaving take-home of £13,490.40 a year, or £1,124.20 a month.

The same pro-rata rule applies to leave and to unsocial-hours enhancements, which are paid on the hours actually worked. One detail catches people out: the pension tier follows the whole-time salary, so a part-time worker whose full-time equivalent sits in a higher tier pays that tier's rate on the part-time pay, and the tier does not drop because the take-home is lower. At Band 3 that detail rarely bites, because both steps sit in the same tier, but it matters as soon as a worker moves up to Band 4 or Band 5. The part-time pay guide covers the pro-rata rules in full, including how leave is worked out for part-time staff.

What Band 3 jobs look like in Northern Ireland

Band 3 is the grade where support work becomes skilled work. In Northern Ireland, as across the UK, the band covers senior healthcare assistants, emergency care assistants, pharmacy assistants, maternity support workers, therapy assistants and senior administrators. The common thread is not the job title but the level of practice: work carried out with delegated clinical tasks, a degree of autonomy, and responsibility for supervising newer or less experienced colleagues. A senior healthcare assistant on a ward takes observations, supports patients with personal care, and is trusted to notice when a patient is deteriorating and escalate it. An emergency care assistant supports paramedics on ambulances. A maternity support worker assists midwives in antenatal clinics and on postnatal wards. A pharmacy assistant dispenses medicines under supervision. A therapy assistant carries out rehabilitation programmes set by physiotherapists and occupational therapists. A senior administrator runs the rotas, the clinics and the records that a ward depends on.

The role pages on this site give the detail for the most common Band 3 jobs. NHS 111 call handlers and clinical coders are both typically Band 3, and maternity support workers and pharmacy assistants sit at Band 3 as well. Each of those pages gives the same treatment as this one: the scale in payment, the take-home pay, and the unsocial-hours rates that matter most for the role.

The step from Band 3 to Band 4 is the one that changes a career. Band 4 entry in Northern Ireland is £27,485, which is £887 a year above Band 3 top, or £73.92 a month, and £2,548 a year above Band 3 entry, or £212.33 a month. Band 4 is the grade for nursing associates and other assistant practitioners, and it is the route into registered practice for support workers who want to qualify without leaving the workforce. The Band 4 salary guide gives the next step up, and the Northern Ireland Band 5 pay page and the Northern Ireland Band 6 pay page give the same treatment for the registered grades above it.

Northern Ireland against the rest of the UK

The table below puts Northern Ireland Band 3 beside England, on the same pay points, with the take-home figures from the same method. England is the right comparison because Northern Ireland has historically restored parity with England whenever an award is implemented, and the illustrative figures for Northern Ireland are the England figures.

England is ahead by £49.13 a month at entry and £52.42 at the top. The gap is wider than the gross difference alone would suggest, because the Northern Ireland pension rate is slightly higher: 6.7% against 6.5% in England at both steps. Scotland is a different comparison again. Scotland pays its own scale, with Band 3 at £29,103 to £31,409, and works a 36-hour week, so the Scottish hourly rate is £15.50 at entry and £16.73 at the top, against £12.74 and £13.59 in Northern Ireland. Scotland also sets its own income tax bands, so a straight take-home comparison needs the Scottish tax figures as well. The data file cross-check puts Scottish Band 3 entry take-home at £1,906.97 a month, which is £228.83 a month more than Northern Ireland entry, on a shorter week. Wales pays Band 3 on the 2026/27 scale, with the 3.3% award paid on time, and applies a Real Living Wage floor of £13.45 an hour to the Band 1, 2 and 3 minimum, which is above the Northern Ireland Band 3 entry hourly rate of £12.74. The Scotland pay guide, the Wales pay guide and the pay scales by country comparison set out the four-nation picture in full.

One thing Northern Ireland does not have is London weighting. The High Cost Area Supplement is a London supplement, and it does not apply in Northern Ireland, and no equivalent supplement exists for Belfast or anywhere else in the region. The London weighting guide works through the caps band by band for staff who do work in London.

What to do while you wait

The practical advice for a Band 3 worker in Northern Ireland is short. First, check your payslip against the figures on this page. Your basic pay should be £24,937 or £26,598, depending on your pay point, and your pension deduction should be 6.7% of pensionable pay at both steps. If either figure is different, the first place to look is your pay point and your pension tier, because those two lines explain almost every difference between a published figure and the money that arrives. Second, do not budget on the 3.3%. Until the Department of Health confirms implementation, the illustrative figures are not income, and a household budget built on them will be short by £68.58 to £73.17 a month. Third, follow the ballot. The RCN ballot closes on Friday 20 November 2026, and the result will shape what happens next, whether that is industrial action, a renewed push for Executive approval, or both. Your trade union and your HSC Trust payroll team are the sources for the latest position, and this page will be updated when the Department of Health makes an announcement.

The delay is not a small administrative slip. By the end of October, a Band 3 worker at the top of the band is owed £512.17 in arrears, and the figure grows by £73.17 every month the award stays unpaid. That is money for rent, bills and childcare, and it is owed to tens of thousands of HSC staff across every band. The gap will close when the Executive agrees the funding, and until then the figures on this page are the ones to plan around. For the wider Northern Ireland picture, including every band and the latest award status, see the Northern Ireland pay guide, and for the dispute behind the delay, see the RCN strike ballot page.

Frequently asked questions

How much does a Band 3 worker earn in Northern Ireland?

A Band 3 worker in Northern Ireland earns £24,937 a year at entry and £26,598 at the top of the band. That is £12.74 and £13.59 an hour on a 37.5-hour week, or £2,078.08 and £2,216.50 a month. Band 3 has two pay steps, entry and top, and staff move between them after about two years, subject to a satisfactory appraisal. Those are the 2025/26 Agenda for Change rates, which are still the rates in payment because the 2026/27 award of 3.3% has not been implemented in Northern Ireland. The equivalent England figures for 2026/27 are £25,760 and £27,476.

Has Northern Ireland had the 2026/27 NHS pay rise?

No. The NHS Pay Review Body recommended a 3.3% consolidated uplift for Agenda for Change staff across the UK on 12 February 2026, and England and Wales paid it in April 2026 salaries. In Northern Ireland the recommendation has not been implemented: no Department of Health pay circular for 2026/27 has been published, and Health and Social Care staff remain on the 2025/26 scale. The Health Minister has said the award should be implemented as soon as possible, and a ministerial direction to implement it is awaiting approval by the Northern Ireland Executive. The Royal College of Nursing opened a ballot for industrial action on 14 October 2026, which closes on 20 November 2026.

What would Band 3 pay be in Northern Ireland if the 3.3% is implemented?

Band 3 would rise to £25,760 at entry and £27,476 at the top, matching the confirmed England 2026/27 scale. That is a rise of £823 and £878 a year, or £68.58 and £73.17 a month. Those figures are illustrative, not live pay: do not budget on them until the Department of Health confirms implementation. If the award lands, standard Agenda for Change practice is for it to be backdated to 1 April 2026, but no backdating date is legally confirmed until the Executive approves the funding. One caveat applies at this end of the scale: the Department of Health has also committed to introducing the Real Living Wage across Health and Social Care, and no rate has been published, so the eventual bottom of the scale could differ from the illustrative figures.

What is Band 3 take-home pay in Northern Ireland?

After the HSC pension contribution, income tax and National Insurance, a full-time Band 3 worker in Northern Ireland takes home £1,678.14 a month at entry and £1,770.38 at the top of the band. The same roles in England take home £1,727.27 and £1,822.80 a month, so Northern Ireland keeps £49.13 and £52.42 less per month. The gap comes from the lower gross pay and from the slightly higher Northern Ireland pension rate. Most Band 3 staff pay no student loan repayment, because both pay steps sit below the Plan 1 and Plan 2 thresholds. Staff on Plan 5, which starts at £25,000, pay nothing at entry and £11.99 a month at the top, which takes top-step take-home to £1,758.39 a month.

How much pension do Band 3 staff in Northern Ireland pay?

Band 3 staff in Northern Ireland pay 6.7% of pensionable pay at both pay steps: £1,670.78 a year (£139.23 a month) at entry and £1,782.07 a year (£148.51 a month) at the top. Both steps sit inside the same HSC pension tier, which covers salaries from £13,260 to £28,854, so there is no tier jump inside Band 3, unlike higher bands. The employer adds 23.2% on top. Northern Ireland uses the same tier thresholds as England and Wales but a higher rate at this level, so a Band 3 worker in Northern Ireland pays 6.7% where the England equivalent pays 6.5%.

What are unsocial hours rates for Band 3 in Northern Ireland?

Band 3 is in the bands 1 to 3 group under Agenda for Change Section 2, so Saturday and weekday night work is paid at the hourly rate plus 35%, and Sunday and public holiday work at the hourly rate plus 69%. On the rates actually in payment, that gives £17.20 an hour for Saturday and night work and £21.53 for Sundays and bank holidays at entry, and £18.35 and £22.97 at the top. Overtime above 37.5 hours a week is time-and-a-half, or double time on bank holidays: £19.11 and £25.48 an hour at entry, rising to £20.38 and £27.18 at the top.

Is Band 3 pay the same in Northern Ireland as in England?

Not right now. Northern Ireland is one pay award behind England: a Band 3 worker in Northern Ireland is paid £24,937 to £26,598 a year, while the same band in England is paid £25,760 to £27,476. The gap is £823 a year at entry and £878 at the top, or £68.58 and £73.17 a month. Historically Northern Ireland has restored parity with England whenever an award is implemented, and the Health Minister has said he intends to apply the same 3.3%, but until the Executive approves the funding, the England figures are only what the rise would be worth, not what anyone is paid.

When will Northern Ireland HSC staff get the pay rise?

There is no confirmed date. The Department of Health said on 14 October 2026 that the Health Minister would do everything in his power to deliver the award, and a ministerial direction to implement it is waiting for the Northern Ireland Executive to agree the funding. The Royal College of Nursing ballot on industrial action closes on Friday 20 November 2026, with the result expected shortly after. Watch announcements from the Department of Health, your HSC Trust payroll team and your trade union. Until implementation is confirmed, do not budget on the 3.3%, and check your payslip against the 2025/26 figures on this page.

Sources and independence

Source: NHS Pay Review Body, 39th Report 2026 (3.3% recommendation, 12 February 2026).

Source: Department of Health (Northern Ireland), statement on the RCN industrial action ballot, 14 October 2026.

Source: Royal College of Nursing Northern Ireland, industrial action ballot announcement, 14 October 2026.

Source: NHS Employers, Pay scales for 2025/26 (Northern Ireland matched England in 2025/26).

Source: NHS Employers, NHS PRB pay award announcement 2026 (England 2026/27 circular figures, illustrative for Northern Ireland).

Source: HSC Pension Service for Northern Ireland pension contribution tiers 2026/27 (same thresholds as England and Wales, rates 5.2% to 12.7%, employer 23.2%).

Source: GOV.UK for income tax bands, National Insurance and student loan thresholds (Plan 1 £26,900, Plan 2 £29,385, Plan 5 £25,000); NHS Employers unsocial hours factsheet for Section 2 rates.

NHS Bands Pay is an independent guide and is not affiliated with the NHS, the Department of Health (Northern Ireland) or the HSC Pension Service. Figures were verified against the official sources above on 8 November 2026 and can change, always confirm with the relevant official body before making financial decisions. The 2026/27 figures for Northern Ireland are illustrative until the Department of Health confirms implementation.