NHS Pension Calculator: Estimate Your 2015 Scheme Pension

Last updated: 13 October 2026 · Figures verified against the NHS Employers 2026/27 pay circular.

By the NHS Bands Pay editorial team

The calculator

How the 1/54th accrual works

Every year you are an active member of the 2015 scheme, a slice of pension is added to your personal pension account. The slice equals your pensionable pay for that year divided by 54. It is that simple at its core:

• Earn £27,000 pensionable pay in a year → £27,000 ÷ 54 = £500 of annual pension added.
• Earn £32,073 (Band 5 bottom, 2026/27) → £593.94 added.
• Earn £48,117 (Band 6 top, 2026/27) → £891.06 added.

Each year's slice is banked separately and stays yours. Leave the NHS, rejoin later, go part-time — the slices you have already banked are not affected. This is the fundamental difference from the old final-salary arrangements, where your pension depended heavily on your pay in your last years of service. Here, every year counts on its own merits, which tends to suit staff whose pay peaks early or who take career breaks.

The headline figure to remember is 54. Some public-sector schemes use 1/60th or 1/80th — the NHS 1/54th is among the most generous accrual rates in UK public service, and it is one of the reasons the NHS scheme is consistently ranked as one of the best workplace pensions in the country. The trade-off for that generosity is the tiered employee contribution: higher earners pay up to 12.5% of pay, far above typical private-sector defined-contribution rates.

CARE and revaluation, explained

CARE stands for Career Average Revalued Earnings. "Career average" means what it says: your pension reflects average earnings across your career, not your final salary. "Revalued" is the part people miss — and it matters enormously over a long career.

Each April, the pension you have banked so far is revalued — increased — by an amount set by Treasury order. The long-term policy is CPI inflation plus 1.5%. So a £500 slice banked in 2026 is not worth £500 in 2046; after 20 years of revaluation at, say, 3.5% a year, it would be worth around £995. The calculator's projection box applies whatever revaluation assumption you enter, compounded over the years until your retirement.

Two practical consequences follow. First, early-career contributions are disproportionately valuable because they get revalued for the longest. A nurse who joins at 22 and works to 68 gets 46 years of revaluation on her first year's slice. Second, revaluation protects you against inflation by design — the scheme is explicitly built so that what you banked keeps its purchasing power plus a margin. That is a large part of why NHS pensions are so valuable compared with private defined-contribution pots, where investment returns are uncertain.

One caveat: revaluation applies to deferred pensions too. If you leave the NHS with banked benefits and rejoin years later, the old slices kept being revalued while you were away. They are never frozen in nominal terms.

Contribution tiers 2026/27

You pay a percentage of your pensionable pay that depends on which tier your whole-time equivalent pay falls into. The employer pays 23.7% on top of whatever you pay — one of the highest employer rates anywhere in the UK.

Important: the 2026/27 tier boundaries above are provisional estimates, not yet officially published — the calculator and this table use them, and we will update when NHS Pensions confirms the final figures. The 2025/26 official tiers ran 5.2% to 12.5% on slightly lower boundaries. See our full pension contributions guide and the band-by-band contribution breakdown for detail.

Note the part-time trap the calculator handles: tiers are assessed on your whole-time equivalent pay. A nurse working 0.6 WTE on £19,244 actual pay is tiered on £32,073 — the 8.3% tier, not the 6.5% tier her actual pay would suggest. She still only pays 8.3% of her actual £19,244 (£1,597 a year), but the rate is higher than it looks at first glance.

What counts as pensionable pay

Not everything on your payslip counts. Pensionable pay is generally your basic salary plus any permanent pensionable allowances — which for most Agenda for Change staff means basic pay plus things like London weighting (HCAS) where it is a permanent feature of the post. The detailed position:

• Counts: basic salary, HCAS, permanent allowances attached to the post.
• Does not count: overtime, bank shifts, most temporary allowances, and one-off payments.
• Unsocial-hours enhancements (Section 2) are generally pensionable where they are a regular, contractual part of your pay — which matters a lot for shift workers, since enhancements can be a large share of total earnings.
• If you are unsure what your trust treats as pensionable, your payslip's pensionable-pay figure and your ESR record are the authority — not this page.

Because overtime is not pensionable, picking up lots of bank shifts boosts your take-home pay but not your pension. Conversely, regular night and weekend enhancements do build pension for most shift workers. If you work unsocial hours regularly, your effective pension accrual is on a higher base than your basic salary alone.

The 1995 and 2008 sections, and the McCloud remedy

Many long-serving staff hold benefits in the older sections alongside the 2015 scheme, and the calculator deliberately covers only the 2015 scheme — here is what sits around it:

• 1995 section: final-salary, 1/80th accrual plus an automatic lump sum of 3/80ths per year of service, normal pension age 60. Closed to new accrual in 2015 (with transitional protections).
• 2008 section: final-salary, 1/60th accrual, normal pension age 65, no automatic lump sum.
• The McCloud remedy: when everyone was moved to the 2015 scheme in 2015, transitional protections for older staff were ruled discriminatory. Staff in service between 1 April 2015 and 31 March 2022 (the remedy period) get a deferred choice underpin: at retirement, they can choose whether that period's benefits are calculated under their legacy section or the 2015 scheme, whichever is better for them.

If you have legacy benefits, your total pension is the 2015-scheme estimate from the calculator plus your 1995/2008 section benefits — the calculator shows only the 2015 part. Your annual benefit statement shows the combined position. Do not try to add the two schemes' figures yourself without understanding the remedy choice; NHS Pensions provides personalised illustrations.

When you can take it: normal and early retirement

Your normal pension age in the 2015 scheme is linked to your State Pension Age — currently 66, rising to 67 between 2026 and 2028. That linkage is the single most important number in your pension planning, because everything else keys off it:

• Early retirement: you can take your 2015 pension from age 55 (rising to 57 from 2028), but it is reduced for early payment — roughly 4–5% for each year before your normal pension age, for life. Taking it five years early can cut the annual pension by around a fifth to a quarter.
• Late retirement: working past your normal pension age increases your pension — each extra year adds another 1/54th slice and the revaluation keeps compounding.
• Partial retirement: the scheme supports drawing some pension while continuing to work reduced hours — useful for a phased wind-down, though the detailed rules have changed over time, so check the current position with NHS Pensions.

The early-retirement reduction is actuarial, not a penalty — it reflects that the pension will be paid for more years. Whether early retirement is "worth it" depends on your health, your other income, and how much you value time over money. It is one of the few pension decisions where independent financial advice genuinely pays for itself.

Lump sums and commutation

Unlike the 1995 section, the 2015 scheme pays no automatic lump sum — your benefit is an annual pension for life. But you can create a lump sum at retirement by commuting (giving up) some of your annual pension. The standard commutation rate is £12 of lump sum for every £1 of annual pension given up.

Example: you retire with a £12,000 annual pension and commute £2,000 of it. You receive a £24,000 tax-free lump sum and a £10,000 annual pension for life. HMRC limits apply — broadly, up to 25% of the capital value of your benefits can be taken tax-free, subject to the lump sum allowance (currently £268,275 for most people).

Is commuting a good deal? The £12:£1 rate is less generous than the actuarial value of the pension you give up if you live a long retirement — but the lump sum is tax-free and available immediately, which suits people with mortgage balances to clear or who simply prefer cash in hand. Like early retirement, this is a permanent, one-way decision: model both options before you choose.

Death in service and ill-health cover

The pension scheme is also a life-insurance and disability policy, and these benefits are easy to overlook:

• Death in service: your nominated beneficiary receives a lump sum of twice your pensionable pay, plus a survivor's pension for your spouse, civil partner or eligible partner (and children's pensions where applicable).
• Death after retirement: a survivor's pension continues, typically at a fraction of your pension.
• Ill-health retirement: two tiers. Tier 1 — permanently incapable of your current NHS job — pays your banked pension immediately, unreduced. Tier 2 — permanently incapable of any regular work — pays your banked pension plus an enhancement of roughly half the pension you would have built had you worked to normal pension age.

Keep your nomination up to date — the death-in-service lump sum goes to whoever you have nominated, and an out-of-date nomination after a divorce or remarriage is one of the most common pension administration failures. You can check and update it through your ESR record.

Worked examples

*Monthly contributions use the provisional 2026/27 tiers: 6.5% up to £28,854; 8.3% to £35,155; 9.8% to £52,778; 10.7% to £67,668. The 0.6 WTE example is tiered on whole-time equivalent pay (£32,073 → 8.3%). Revaluation between now and retirement is not included in the "annual pension built" column — that is the value in today's terms. For the full contribution picture by band, see our band-by-band contributions guide.

Notice how the numbers scale: the Band 6 physio with 20 years has banked more than the Band 7 manager with 15, because years of service compound just as powerfully as pay. Time in the scheme is the variable most people underestimate — starting contributions in your twenties rather than your thirties can easily be worth tens of thousands in annual pension terms by retirement, thanks to decades of revaluation.

Pension deductions interact with the rest of your pay packet: contributions come out of gross pay with student loan and tax calculated on what remains, and they sit alongside the 2026/27 pay award that lifted the salaries these examples are based on. Staff weighing part-time hours should run both scenarios through the calculator — the pension difference is often larger than people expect.

Frequently asked questions

How is the NHS pension calculated?

In the 2015 NHS pension scheme, you build up 1/54th of your pensionable pay as annual pension for each year you are a member. For example, one year on £32,073 builds up £593.94 of annual pension. Each year's accrual is then revalued annually by CPI plus 1.5%.

How much do I pay into the NHS pension?

Employee contributions are tiered from 5.2% to 12.5% of whole-time equivalent pensionable pay in England and Wales, depending on your pay. Your employer contributes 23.7% on top of whatever you pay.

What is the NHS pension lump sum?

The 2015 scheme has no automatic lump sum, unlike the 1995 section. You can choose to give up (commute) some annual pension at retirement to create a tax-free lump sum, at a rate of £12 lump sum per £1 of annual pension given up, within HMRC limits.

When can I take my NHS pension?

Your normal pension age in the 2015 scheme is linked to your State Pension Age. You can take it earlier from age 55 (rising to 57 in 2028), but it will be reduced for early payment — roughly 4 to 5% for each year early.

Is the NHS pension based on final salary?

Not for new accrual. The 2015 scheme is a career average (CARE) scheme: each year's pension builds on that year's pay and is revalued. Older 1995 section benefits remain final-salary linked.

What is the McCloud remedy for NHS pensions?

Staff who were moved to the 2015 scheme in 2015 but were in service between 2015 and 2022 get a choice for that remedy period: take legacy scheme benefits or 2015 scheme benefits, whichever is better for them. This is the deferred choice underpin.

Do part-time NHS staff get the same pension?

Part-time staff build pension on their actual part-time pensionable pay, so the annual amount is pro-rated. But contribution tiers are assessed on whole-time equivalent pay, which can put part-timers in a higher contribution tier than their actual pay suggests.

NHS Bands Pay is an independent information website. It is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or acting on behalf of the National Health Service or NHS Employers. Pension rules are set by the scheme regulations and can change — the calculator is an estimate only and cannot replace your annual benefit statement or advice from NHS Pensions. For the full picture of what you pay in, read our NHS pension contributions guide.