NHS Pay Rise Calculator 2026/27

Last updated: 5 November 2026 · Figures verified against the NHS Employers 2026/27 pay circular.

By the NHS Bands Pay editorial team

The calculator

Enter the salary you were paid before the rise. That is the key input to get right. Staff already on 2026/27 rates should enter their 2025/26 salary, because the calculator applies the award once. Entering a 2026/27 salary would apply the rise a second time and give an answer that is too high. The tool works on basic pay only: London weighting, overtime and unsocial hours enhancements sit outside it. One rounding note: published band scales are rounded to whole pounds, so the calculator answer can differ by under £1 from the scale figure for your band. Your payroll record is the authoritative figure.

How the calculation works

Every Agenda for Change award is a percentage uplift applied to the whole pay scale. The maths is the same at every band: take the old salary, multiply by one plus the award, and the difference is the rise. A Band 5 nurse at the entry step in England earned £31,049 in 2025/26. Multiply by 1.033 and the 2026/27 salary is £32,073. The uplift is £1,024 a year, which divides by 12 into £85.33 a month. Nothing else enters the calculation at this stage: no pension tier, no tax band, no London weighting. Those all apply after the new basic salary is fixed.

The same method gives the headline figures for the other bands. A Band 2 porter on the spot rate went from £24,465 to £25,272, an uplift of £807 a year or £67.25 a month. A Band 6 nurse at the top of the band went from £46,580 to £48,117, an uplift of £1,537 a year or £128.08 a month. At the senior end, a Band 8a manager at the top went from £62,682 to £64,750, an uplift of £2,068 a year or £172.33 a month. Higher salaries get larger cash rises from the same percentage, which is why percentage awards always widen the cash gap between bands even though every band gets the same rate.

One check worth doing by hand: divide the new salary by the old one. For England and Wales the answer should be 1.033, and for Scotland 1.0375. If your payslip shows a different ratio, something else changed at the same time, most often a pay-step progression, a change in hours, or a move between bands. The award itself cannot explain a jump bigger than the percentage, and a smaller jump usually means the comparison mixes two different contracts, such as a pre-rise salary at one WTE fraction with a post-rise salary at another. Allow a few pence of slack in this check: the published scales are rounded to whole pounds, so £31,049 × 1.033 gives £32,073.62 against a published rate of £32,073, a 62p gap that comes from scale rounding rather than from any error.

The 2026/27 awards by nation

The four nations did not move together in 2026/27, and the differences matter for anyone using this calculator. England and Wales both implemented 3.3% from 1 April 2026, announced in February 2026 and paid on time in April salaries. That on-time payment was itself news: it was the first Agenda for Change award in six years to land in April pay without arrears, so most staff in England and Wales had nothing to back-calculate. Scotland agreed a two-year deal: 4.4% in 2025/26, then 3.75% from 1 April 2026, alongside a move to a 36-hour working week from April 2026. The shorter week changes the hourly maths even though the annual award looks close to England's, because the same annual salary now buys fewer hours.

Northern Ireland is the exception that needs a warning, not a calculation. The 3.3% award was recommended but had not been implemented at the last check, and the RCN strike ballot for Northern Ireland nurses running through autumn 2026 over the unpaid rise. Staff there should not budget on the 3.3% figure until implementation is confirmed, and any arrears question depends on the eventual implementation date. The calculator still offers the Northern Ireland option, but it labels the result as recommended only, and the Northern Ireland pay guide carries the latest position. For the full announcement story, see the 2026/27 pay rise guide and the 2027 pay outlook.

What the rise was worth, band by band

The table below works the England and Wales 3.3% award through every Agenda for Change band from Band 2 to Band 8d entry, using the published 2025/26 starting points and the 2026/27 rates. Read it as the cash story behind the percentage: the lowest-paid full-time staff gained around £67 a month, a Band 5 nurse at the top gained £103.92 a month, and a Band 8c manager at the top gained £243.92 a month. Part-time staff get the same percentage on a smaller base, so their cash rise is smaller in exact proportion to their hours.

Source: NHS Employers pay circular 2026/27 and the 2025/26 Agenda for Change scale, via NHS Employers. Monthly figures are the annual uplift divided by 12, rounded to the nearest penny.

Two steps are left out of the table on purpose. The published 2025/26 starting points for the top of Band 8d and for Band 9 do not reconcile to a clean 3.3% uplift against their 2026/27 rates, so quoting a table uplift for them would dress up an uncertain comparison as a precise figure. The calculator has no such problem: enter any salary and it applies the award percentage directly, which is the correct method for those senior posts too. The same caution applies to Scotland, where only the Band 5 range is published in the verified data, so Scottish staff should use the calculator with their own pre-rise salary rather than reading a table figure.

Part-time staff: the same percentage, a smaller cash rise

Part-time pay under Agenda for Change is pro rata, and the rise follows the same rule. Work out the full-time uplift first, then multiply by the whole-time equivalent fraction. The Band 5 entry example makes the point clearly: the full-time uplift is £1,024 a year, so at 0.6 WTE the uplift is £614.40 a year, or £51.20 a month, and at 0.8 WTE it is £819.20 a year, or £68.27 a month. The hourly rate is untouched by part-time working: a Band 5 nurse at the entry step earns £16.38 an hour after the rise whether she works two days a week or five, because the hourly rate divides the full-time salary by full-time hours. What changes is how many of those hours are paid. The part-time pay calculator works through the full pro-rata picture, including London weighting and leave, for anyone who wants the whole payslip rather than the rise alone.

One trap catches part-timers every award round: comparing a pre-rise full-time salary with a post-rise part-time salary, or the reverse. Both figures in the calculator must sit on the same hours basis. Enter the full-time equivalent pre-rise salary and your WTE fraction, and the tool keeps the two apart, showing the full-time result and your-hours result side by side. If your contract changed at the same time as the award, for example a move from 0.6 to 0.8 WTE, work out the award on the old fraction first, then apply the new fraction to the new salary, so the rise and the hours change are not tangled together.

Scotland: a bigger percentage on a shorter week

Scotland's 3.75% award looks only a little larger than England's 3.3%, but the 36-hour week changes what it means per hour. Take the published Scotland Band 5 entry figure of £34,494 for 2026/27. Working backwards at 3.75%, the pre-rise figure is £33,247.47, and the uplift is £1,246.53 a year, or £103.88 a month. The hourly rate after the rise is £34,494 divided by 52.2 weeks and 36 hours, which is £18.36 an hour. On the old 37.5-hour week the same salary would have been £17.62 an hour, so the shorter week is worth about 74p an hour on top of the percentage rise for staff at that step. That is the real Scottish story of 2026/27: the headline percentage understates the hourly gain, and anyone comparing a Scottish hourly rate with an English one must check which week each side uses. The Scotland pay guide sets out the two-year deal in full.

Wales deserves a short note of its own. The Welsh award matches England at 3.3%, but Wales applies a Real Living Wage floor of £13.45 an hour to the bottom of the scale, which puts the Band 2 spot rate at £26,300 rather than England's £25,272. A Welsh Band 2 worker therefore starts higher, and the 3.3% award applies to that higher base. The Wales pay guide explains the floor and how it interacts with the award at Bands 1 to 3. For most staff at Band 3 and above, the Welsh and English cash rises are close enough that the calculator's nation choice changes the answer only through the floor effect at the bottom of the scale.

What the rise does not include

The calculator answers one question, what happened to basic pay, and it is worth being plain about what it leaves out. London weighting is separate: inner London adds 20% of basic pay subject to a £5,794 minimum and £8,746 maximum, outer London 15% between £4,870 and £6,137, and the fringe 5% between £1,346 and £2,270, and those supplements rise with basic pay because they are percentages of it. A Band 5 nurse at the top in inner London therefore gains twice over: the 3.3% on basic pay, and 20% of that uplift as extra weighting, which is £249.40 a year more before the cap bites. Use the HCAS calculator to add weighting to the result from this page.

Overtime and unsocial hours pay also sit outside the calculator, but they move with the award because they are multiples of the hourly rate. Bands 1 to 7 earn time and a half for overtime and double time on bank holidays, while unsocial hours enhancements run from 30% to 94% depending on band and time of day. When the hourly rate rises 3.3%, every overtime hour and every enhanced hour rises 3.3% too. The overtime calculator and the hourly rate calculator cover those pieces. Pension contributions move as well: the contribution is a percentage of pensionable pay, so a higher salary can push a member into a higher tier, and the pension contribution tiers guide shows where the boundaries sit.

Finally, the calculator shows gross pay. Income tax at 20% to £50,270 and 40% above, National Insurance at 8% then 2%, pension contributions from 5.2% to 12.5% by tier, and student loan repayments at 9% above the plan threshold all come off the gross figure. A Band 5 nurse at the entry step who gained £85.33 a month gross keeps roughly £54 of it after 20% tax, 8% National Insurance and an 8.3% pension contribution, before any student loan deduction. That is an illustration, not a promise: the exact take-home depends on the tax code and the pension tier that apply to the individual, and the payslip guide works through a full example line by line.

Back pay: when an award arrives late

England and Wales staff did not need a back-pay calculation for 2026/27, because the award was paid on time in April salaries. The method still matters, because late awards are the norm rather than the exception in most years, and Northern Ireland staff may face exactly this question if their recommended award is eventually implemented. Arrears equal the monthly uplift multiplied by the number of months owed: a Band 5 nurse at the entry step owed six months of a £85.33 monthly uplift would be due £512.00. The back pay calculator works out arrears for any band, salary and delay, and the Agenda for Change guide explains how awards are set in the first place. One warning applies to every back-pay figure: arrears are taxed in the month they are paid, so a lump sum can push a month's pay into a higher tax band even though the annual position is unchanged.

Frequently asked questions

How do I use the NHS pay rise calculator?

Enter the salary you were paid before the rise, pick your nation, and set your whole-time equivalent fraction if you work part time. Press Calculate my new salary. The tool shows your new salary, the annual uplift, the monthly uplift, your new monthly pay and your new hourly rate.

Which pay award percentages does the calculator use?

The 2026/27 Agenda for Change awards from the verified pay data: 3.3% for England, 3.3% for Wales, 3.75% for Scotland, and 3.3% for Northern Ireland. The Northern Ireland figure is the recommended award, which had not been implemented at the last check, so its result is labelled as recommended only.

I am already paid at 2026/27 rates. What should I enter?

Enter your 2025/26 salary, the rate before the rise. The calculator then shows what the rise was worth to you. If you enter your current 2026/27 salary instead, the tool will apply the award a second time and the answer will be too high.

Does the calculator include London weighting?

No. It works on basic salary only. High Cost Area Supplement is paid on top of basic pay and is not part of the award percentage maths. Work out your basic rise here, then use the HCAS calculator to add inner, outer or fringe London weighting.

How does the calculator handle part-time hours?

It works out the full-time rise first, then multiplies by your whole-time equivalent fraction. A Band 5 nurse at the entry step on 0.6 WTE had a full-time uplift of £1,024 a year, so the part-time uplift is £614.40 a year, or £51.20 a month. Your hourly rate does not change with part-time hours, only your total pay does.

Why is the Scotland hourly rate worked out on 36 hours?

Scotland moved to a 36-hour working week in April 2026, so a Scottish hourly rate divides the annual salary by 52.2 weeks and 36 hours. England, Wales and Northern Ireland still use 37.5 hours. The calculator picks the right week for the nation you select.

Should Northern Ireland staff budget on the 3.3% rise?

Not yet. The 3.3% award for Northern Ireland was recommended but had not been implemented at the last check, and an RCN strike ballot is under way through autumn 2026 over the unpaid award. Treat the calculator result for Northern Ireland as the value of the recommended rise, not as money in your pay packet, until implementation is confirmed.

Does the calculator show my take-home pay?

No, it shows gross pay before tax, National Insurance, pension contributions and student loan repayments. Those deductions depend on your tax code, pension tier and loan plan, so a gross rise of £85 a month does not mean £85 extra in your bank account. Use the payslip guide to see how each deduction is worked out.