Sexual Health Nurse Salary 2026/27

Last updated: 30 October 2026 · Figures verified against the NHS Employers 2026/27 pay circular.

By the NHS Bands Pay editorial team

Sexual health nurse pay 2026/27: the Band 5, Band 6 and Band 7 scales

England awarded Agenda for Change staff 3.3% from 1 April 2026, and the award was paid on time in April salaries. The scales below are 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, which is the standard Agenda for Change conversion. Monthly pay is annual pay divided by 12. Weekly pay is annual pay divided by 52.2. For the wider picture at each band, including the roles that share these scales, see the Band 5 salary guide, the Band 6 salary guide and the Band 7 salary guide.

The step from the top of Band 5 to the entry of Band 6 is £916 a year, the smallest step on this ladder, because the two scales nearly meet. The step from the top of Band 6 to the entry of Band 7 is £1,270 a year. Inside each band, the journey is worth £6,970 at Band 5, £8,158 at Band 6 and £7,128 at Band 7. Those internal steps arrive through the normal incremental progression of Agenda for Change, subject to the usual appraisal and performance requirements, and they explain why two nurses with the same job title can be paid several thousand pounds apart. A new Band 5 nurse and a Band 5 nurse at the top of the scale are doing the same clinic work in the same building, but the top-of-scale nurse is paid £6,970 more for the experience the scale recognises.

One point that trips up newcomers: the band follows the post, not the person and not the job title. A trust can advertise a Band 5 sexual health nurse post and a Band 6 senior sexual health nurse post in the same clinic, with overlapping duties, and pay them from different scales. The job evaluation behind each post decides the band, based on the knowledge, responsibility and effort the post demands. That is why this page quotes bands and steps rather than a single salary figure. Anyone comparing offers should ask for the band and the step, not just the headline annual figure, because the step alone can be worth £2,519 at Band 5, from £32,073 at entry to £34,592 at the intermediate step.

What a sexual health nurse actually does

Sexual health nursing is clinic-based work, and that shapes both the day and the pay. A typical service runs booked clinics and walk-in sessions for sexually transmitted infection testing and treatment, contraception advice and fitting, HIV testing and care, pre-exposure and post-exposure prophylaxis, partner notification, and follow-up for patients who need repeat testing or ongoing treatment. Some services run dedicated clinics for young people, for people living with HIV, or for patients referred from general practice, and some run outreach sessions in community settings. The nurse is often the first clinician a patient sees, and in many clinics the nurse runs the consultation from history-taking through examination, testing and treatment, with medical support available for complex cases.

The work calls for a particular mix of skills that does not show up on a payslip. Patients arrive with worries they may not have told anyone else about, and a good sexual health nurse takes a careful history without judgement, explains tests and results in plain language, and keeps confidentiality at the centre of every consultation. The clinical side is precise work: taking samples correctly, reading results, giving treatments and vaccinations where the service provides them, and knowing when a case needs a doctor or a specialist referral. The administrative side matters too, because partner notification, contact tracing and follow-up only work when records are accurate and patients who need a second visit actually return. None of that changes the national scale, but it explains why trusts value experienced sexual health nurses and why senior posts carry the responsibility they do.

Confidentiality deserves a direct word here, because it is the feature of this specialty that new starters ask about most. Sexual health records are handled with the same duty of confidence as any other clinical record, and services are set up so that a patient can attend without their attendance becoming general knowledge in the building. That is a service design point, not a pay point, but it affects daily working life: separate waiting areas, discreet clinic signage, and careful handling of letters and messages are normal parts of the job. A nurse who is comfortable with that way of working tends to settle quickly. A nurse who expects ward-style teamwork and constant visibility may find the clinic model quieter than expected.

Becoming a sexual health nurse: the route in

The entry route is straightforward. A sexual health nurse is first a registered nurse, registered with the Nursing and Midwifery Council, and most Band 5 posts ask for that registration plus an interest in sexual health and some relevant clinical experience. Newly qualified nurses can and do take Band 5 sexual health posts, and the Band 5 figures on this page are the starting point for them: £32,073 at entry, rising to £34,592 and then £39,043 through the scale. Experience in general practice, urgent care, genitourinary medicine or community nursing all transfer well, because the consultation skills and the comfort with intimate examination carry across.

Specialist study helps a nurse reach the senior posts, but it does not lift the band on its own. Agenda for Change pays the post, not the certificate. A Band 5 nurse who completes specialist sexual health study stays on Band 5 until appointed to a Band 6 post. That can feel unfair given the study involved, and it is worth knowing before committing to a course. The return comes through access: senior, lead and specialist posts go to nurses who hold the specialist knowledge, and the Band 6 and Band 7 figures on this page are the reward for reaching those posts. Universities and professional bodies run sexual health modules and courses, and trusts often support nurses through them, but the course catalogue changes year to year, so this page does not quote course lengths or fees. The school nurse salary guide covers another community-facing specialty nurses sometimes compare with clinic work, and the clinical nurse specialist salary guide covers the wider specialist ladder that Band 7 sexual health leads sit alongside.

For nurses weighing this specialty against ward nursing, the honest comparison is about hours and pace rather than basic pay. The basic scales are identical for the same band anywhere in Agenda for Change. What differs is the rota: sexual health clinics run mainly in daytime, with evening and Saturday sessions, and rarely run night shifts. Ward nursing runs nights and weekends as a matter of course, and the unsocial-hours money that follows can make a ward nurse's total earnings higher than a clinic nurse's at the same band, even though the basic pay matches exactly. The next sections put numbers on that difference.

Unsocial hours: Saturday clinics and evening sessions

Agenda for Change Section 2 pays Bands 4 to 9 time plus 30% for Saturday and weekday night hours, from 8pm to 6am, and time plus 60% for Sunday and public-holiday hours. Sexual health services use both, but in a pattern that differs from ward work. Saturday clinics are common, because patients who work weekdays need a weekend option, and evening clinics run for the same reason. Sunday clinics are rarer, and night work is uncommon. The result is that unsocial-hours money in this specialty is real but modest for most nurses, concentrated in Saturday and evening sessions rather than spread across nights.

A worked example makes the point concrete. A Band 6 sexual health nurse at the intermediate step earns £21.54 an hour in plain time. A Saturday clinic session of 7.5 hours at time plus 30% pays £28.00 an hour, which is £210.00 for the session against £161.55 at plain time, a difference of £48.45 for that one session. Run that Saturday session every week for a year and the enhancement alone is worth about £2,519, before any overtime or London weighting. That is why two nurses at the same band can take home different amounts: the rota, not the scale, creates the gap. The full rules, including how unsocial hours interact with overtime, are covered in the unsocial hours and overtime guide, and the overtime calculator works out shift pay for a specific rota.

Outreach work deserves a mention, because some sexual health services run sessions outside the clinic, in community venues or partner organisations. Outreach hours are paid on the same Agenda for Change terms as clinic hours, so an evening outreach session attracts the same enhancement as an evening clinic session. Travel time and expenses for outreach follow trust policy and the Agenda for Change mileage terms, which are covered in the mileage rates guide. Outreach does not carry a separate rate of pay, and any nurse offered outreach work should check how travel time is counted, because that detail varies between trusts.

Overtime: time and a half, double on bank holidays

Overtime under Agenda for Change Section 3 is time and a half for Bands 1 to 7, and double time on bank and public holidays. Bands 8 and 9 receive time off in lieu instead, but that does not affect this specialty, which tops out at Band 7 on this page. Overtime means hours above 37.5 in a week for full-time staff. Part-time staff are paid at plain time, plus any unsocial enhancement that applies, for hours above their contracted hours up to 37.5, and only earn overtime rates above 37.5. Overtime and unsocial-hours enhancement cannot both be claimed for the same hours, so a nurse picks the better of the two for any given hour, and staff may elect time off in lieu instead of pay.

In practice, sexual health services generate less overtime than wards, because clinic sessions are planned and capped at appointment numbers. Overtime tends to appear when a clinic overruns, when a Saturday session needs extra cover, or when a service runs a catch-up clinic after a closure. A Band 7 nurse at the top who covers a 7.5-hour bank-holiday clinic earns £57.74 an hour, which is £433.05 for the session, against £216.53 at plain time. That is a strong rate for a single session, but it is occasional money, not a reliable part of monthly income, and any nurse budgeting on overtime should treat it as a bonus rather than a baseline.

London weighting: what HCAS adds

High Cost Area Supplement in 2026/27 is 20% of basic pay in inner London, subject to a minimum of £5,794 and a maximum of £8,746; 15% in outer London, minimum £4,870 and maximum £6,137; and 5% in the fringe zone, minimum £1,346 and maximum £2,270. HCAS is pensionable, which matters for the pension figures later on this page, because it raises pensionable pay as well as take-home pay. London sexual health services are large, and HCAS is often the single biggest addition to a London clinic nurse's pay.

The caps bite at the top of this ladder. A Band 7 nurse at the top would earn 20% of £56,515, which is £11,303, in inner London without a cap, but the supplement is capped at £8,746, so the total is £65,261 rather than £67,818. The same cap applies to every Band 7 step in inner London, and to Band 6 at the top. At the bottom of the ladder the minimums bite instead: a Band 5 nurse at entry in outer London would earn 15% of £32,073, which is £4,810.95, but the outer minimum lifts the supplement to £4,870, giving a total of £36,943. The London weighting guide covers the zone boundaries and the interaction with part-time work, where HCAS is paid pro rata.

Pension: what comes off the payslip

NHS pension contributions for England and Wales in 2026/27 are provisional, calculated from the published 2025/26 tiers, and this page labels them as such wherever they appear. The provisional tiers are 5.2% up to £13,259, 6.5% from £13,260 to £28,854, 8.3% from £28,855 to £35,155, 9.8% from £35,156 to £52,778, 10.7% from £52,779 to £67,668, and 12.5% at £67,669 and above. The employer contributes 23.7% on top of pensionable pay, which is a large part of the total reward that never appears in a monthly bank balance. Scotland has a separate nine-tier structure from 5.7% to 12.7%, and this page does not quote Scotland pension figures for that reason.

Two threshold effects are worth knowing. A Band 5 nurse crossing from the intermediate step to the top crosses the 8.3% to 9.8% boundary at £35,155, so the monthly contribution jumps from £239.26 to £318.85, a rise of £79.59 a month, while gross pay rises by £370.92 a month. The nurse is still better off, but the pension bite grows faster than the pay rise at that step. The same effect hits at the top of Band 7, where the 10.7% tier starts at £52,779: a Band 7 nurse at the intermediate step pays £424.11 a month, and at the top pays £503.93, while gross pay rises by £381.92 a month. The pension contributions guide explains how tiers are assessed on whole-time equivalent pay, which matters for part-time nurses, whose tier is set by their full-time equivalent salary rather than their actual part-time earnings.

Part-time work, annual leave and the smaller extras

Part-time work is common in sexual health services, and clinic timetables often suit it. Part-time pay is the full-time salary multiplied by the whole-time equivalent fraction. A Band 5 nurse at entry working 0.6 whole-time equivalent earns £19,243.80 a year, and a Band 6 nurse at the top working 0.8 earns £38,493.60. A Band 7 nurse at entry working 0.6 earns £29,632.20, and a Band 7 nurse at the top working 0.8 earns £45,212.00. HCAS follows the same fraction, and pension tiers are assessed on the full-time equivalent salary, so a part-time nurse can sit in a higher pension tier than their actual earnings alone would suggest. The part-time pay guide covers the hours conversion in full, and the part-time pay calculator works out a specific fraction.

Annual leave under Agenda for Change Section 13 in England is 27 days plus 8 bank holidays for staff with up to 4 years of service, 29 days plus 8 for 5 or more years, and 33 days plus 8 for 10 or more years. Part-time sexual health nurses receive the same entitlement pro rata. A nurse working 0.6 whole-time equivalent with 5 years of service receives 60% of 37 days, which is 22.2 days. Leave is counted in hours for staff on varied shifts, and sexual health nurses should check how their trust counts leave, because the two methods give different answers for part-time rotas. The annual leave guide covers the hours conversion and the mid-year starter rules.

Uniform tax relief is a small but reliable extra. Nurses, midwives, healthcare assistants, therapists, radiographers, physiotherapists and dental nurses can claim a flat-rate expense of £125 a year for laundering a uniform, which is worth £25 a year in tax relief at the basic rate and £50 at the higher rate. It is claimed through a tax code change rather than through payroll, so it never appears on a payslip, but it is real money for a sexual health nurse who washes clinic scrubs at home. The tax code guide explains how to claim it.

Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland

Scotland awarded 3.75% from 1 April 2026 and moved to a 36-hour full-time week, with its own pay scale. Wales awarded 3.3% and paid it on time, with its own scale that differs slightly from England. This page quotes no Scotland or Wales Band 6 or Band 7 sexual health figure, because the verified data file holds only the national awards and the Band 5 comparison points: Scotland Band 5 runs from £34,494 at entry to £42,977 at the top, which is £18.36 to £22.87 an hour on the 36-hour week, and Wales Band 5 runs from £32,557 at entry to £39,631 at the top, which is £484, £522 and £588 above the England Band 5 steps. Northern Ireland has a 3.3% recommendation for 2026/27 that had not been implemented as of late August 2026, so this page quotes no Northern Ireland figure. Sexual health nurses in the devolved nations should check the national scale for their nation rather than applying the England figures on this page. For the national hubs, see NHS Scotland pay, NHS Wales pay and NHS Northern Ireland pay.

The honest picture: what sexual health nurse pay does and does not do

Sexual health nurse pay is solid, transparent and nationally set, which is its strength. A nurse can look up the band scale, add the unsocial-hours percentage for the rota, add London weighting where it applies, and know the gross figure within a few pounds. There are no hidden bonuses and no negotiation over the basic: the scale is the scale. The weakness is the ceiling. Band 5 tops out at £39,043, and a nurse who wants more must move to Band 6, which means running clinics and supervising others, and beyond that the route narrows to the small number of lead posts in a service. Clinic work also carries demands that other nursing does not: the emotional weight of difficult consultations, the precision of testing and treatment, and the responsibility of a patient who may be receiving life-changing news in a short appointment. The pay is fair for the band. The work, and the hours pattern that suits nurses who want clinic days rather than night shifts, is the reason to take it, not the salary alone.

Frequently asked questions

What band is a sexual health nurse?

Most sexual health nurses sit at Band 5, Band 6 or Band 7. In England in 2026/27, Band 5 pays £32,073 at entry, £34,592 at the intermediate step and £39,043 at the top, Band 6 pays £39,959 at entry, £42,170 at the intermediate step and £48,117 at the top, and Band 7 pays £49,387 at entry, £51,932 at the intermediate step and £56,515 at the top. The band follows the post, not the job title, so a nurse running general clinics and a nurse leading a service can sit at different bands in the same trust.

How much does a sexual health nurse earn a month?

In England in 2026/27, a Band 5 sexual health nurse earns £2,672.75 a month at entry, £2,882.67 at the intermediate step and £3,253.58 at the top, before tax, National Insurance and pension deductions. A Band 6 sexual health nurse earns £3,329.92 to £4,009.75 a month, and a Band 7 sexual health nurse earns £4,115.58 to £4,709.58 a month. Those are gross figures for a full-time 37.5-hour week, before any unsocial-hours enhancement or London weighting.

Do sexual health nurses get unsocial-hours pay?

Yes, when the hours are worked. Agenda for Change Section 2 pays Bands 4 to 9 time plus 30% for Saturday and weekday night hours (8pm to 6am) and time plus 60% for Sunday and public-holiday hours. A Band 5 sexual health nurse at entry earns £21.29 an hour on a Saturday or at night and £26.21 on a Sunday or bank holiday, against £16.38 plain time. At the top of Band 7, £28.87 an hour becomes £37.53 and £46.19. Most routine sexual health clinics run on weekdays, so unsocial-hours money in this specialty comes mainly from Saturday clinics, late-evening sessions and outreach work.

Does a sexual health nurse get London weighting?

Yes, in London. High Cost Area Supplement in 2026/27 is 20% of basic pay 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). A Band 5 sexual health nurse at entry in inner London earns £38,487.60 in total, and a Band 7 nurse at the top in inner London earns £65,261, because the 20% supplement is capped at £8,746.

What pension contribution does a sexual health nurse pay?

Under the provisional 2026/27 England and Wales tiers, a Band 5 sexual health nurse at entry pays 8.3% of pensionable pay, which is £221.84 a month, and a Band 5 nurse at the top pays 9.8%, which is £318.85 a month. Band 6 nurses pay 9.8%, from £326.33 to £392.96 a month. Band 7 nurses pay 9.8% at entry and at the intermediate step and 10.7% at the top, which is £503.93 a month. The employer contributes 23.7% on top. The 2026/27 member tiers are provisional, calculated from the published 2025/26 tiers, and have not yet been formally published.

Is sexual health nursing a Band 6 or Band 7 job?

It can be either, and that is the point of the ladder on this page. Band 6 sexual health posts usually carry senior clinic responsibility, supervision of Band 5 nurses and a specialist caseload. Band 7 posts usually carry service leadership, advanced practice or a lead role for a defined area such as HIV care, contraception or young people's services. A nurse does not move up by length of service alone. The move needs appointment to a post that has been evaluated at the higher band.

Do sexual health nurses work nights?

Most do not work regular nights. Sexual health services are largely clinic-based, with daytime sessions, some evening clinics and Saturday clinics. Night work is uncommon in this specialty compared with ward or emergency nursing, and where a service runs an out-of-hours advice or on-call arrangement, the terms are set locally and vary by trust. Anyone choosing this specialty for the hours should check the clinic timetable of the specific service, because evening and Saturday rotas differ a lot between trusts.

How does sexual health nurse pay compare with school nurse pay?

The two specialties share the same national Agenda for Change scales, so a Band 5 nurse in either service starts from the same £32,073 in England in 2026/27. The difference sits in the working pattern and the band mix. Sexual health services run evening and Saturday clinics that attract unsocial-hours enhancement, while school nursing follows the school term pattern more closely. For the school nursing ladder, see the school nurse salary guide.

Source: NHS Employers unsocial hours payments. Pay figures: NHS Employers Agenda for Change pay circular 2026/27.