NHS Take-Home Pay by Band 2026/27: What Every Band Keeps Each Month

Last updated: 7 November 2026 · Figures verified against the NHS Employers 2026/27 pay circular.

By the NHS Bands Pay editorial team

A salary is quoted gross, but nobody budgets gross. The number that matters at the end of the month is what lands in the bank after pension, tax and National Insurance. This page works that number out step by step for every Agenda for Change band in England in 2026/27, from the Band 2 spot rate to the top of Band 9, using one stated method throughout, so the figures can be compared across bands without wondering whether a different calculation sits behind each row.

Every figure on this page follows the same method, the same method used in the nurse take-home pay guide, the midwife take-home pay guide, the paramedic take-home pay guide and the consultant take-home pay guide. Pension contributions come off gross pay first, and tax is calculated on what remains. That order matters, because it means pension contributions also reduce the tax bill. National Insurance is calculated on full gross pay, not on pay after pension. Student loan deductions are shown in a separate column, because they apply only to borrowers. All figures are for basic pay only, full-time equivalent, on a standard tax code, in England. Unsocial hours, overtime, London weighting and part-time hours are covered as additions in the later sections, and the devolved nations have their own section at the end.

Monthly take-home by band: the full table

Read the table by band and step. Gross salary is the full-time 2026/27 Agenda for Change figure for England. Pension, income tax and National Insurance are monthly amounts. Take-home is what remains after those three deductions, before any student loan. The final column shows take-home after a Plan 2 student loan, which is zero at the lowest steps, because Plan 2 only takes 9% of pay above £29,385 a year.

Three patterns stand out. First, the share of gross pay that reaches the bank falls as pay rises: a Band 2 worker keeps 80.73% of gross pay, while a Band 9 director at the top keeps 56.54%, because a larger share of each higher salary sits above the personal allowance and the National Insurance threshold, and the pension tier steps up from 6.5% to 12.5% across the table. Second, the step from one band to the next is usually worth far less net than the gross rise suggests. The move from Band 5 top to Band 6 entry looks like £916 a year in gross terms, but it is worth £48.98 a month net, because the pension tier does not change at that step and the whole rise is taxed at the basic rate only. Third, the largest single monthly gain in the table is inside Band 8, from Band 8d entry to Band 8d top: £14,458 more gross a year becomes £608.44 more a month net, the biggest monthly gain on offer short of a move into Band 9. The smallest gain is the move from Band 2 to Band 3 entry, worth £27.16 a month net on a gross rise of £488 a year, which is why a Band 3 post is rarely worth taking for the basic pay alone, and is usually taken for the role or the hours.

For the gross salary picture behind these figures, including role descriptions at every band, see Agenda for Change pay scales 2026/27, and for the hour-by-hour view see the hourly rate calculator. Role-specific take-home guides cover nurses, midwives, paramedics, healthcare assistants, pharmacists, physiotherapists, radiographers, sonographers, occupational therapists, biomedical scientists, district nurses and consultants.

Intermediate steps: the pay points between entry and top

Bands 2, 3 and 4 have no intermediate step in the England scale: Band 2 is a single spot rate, and Bands 3 and 4 have an entry and a top step only. Bands 5 to 9 each have one intermediate step, reached after a set period at entry, and the table below works out the take-home figure for each of them on the same method as the headline table.

The intermediate step is where the pension tier often changes, and that change blunts the gain. A Band 5 nurse moving from entry to the intermediate step gains £2,519 a year gross, but the pension tier rises from 8.3% to 9.8% only at the top step, so the intermediate gain is comparatively clean: take-home rises from £2,040.21 to £2,177.41 a month. The move from the Band 5 intermediate step to the top is different: gross pay rises by £4,451 a year, the pension tier rises from 8.3% to 9.8%, and take-home rises by £203.39 a month. The same pattern repeats at Band 7, where the top step crosses into the 10.7% tier, and at Band 8b, where the top step crosses into the 12.5% tier. A promotion that crosses a pension tier boundary is still worth taking, the net gain stays positive at every step in this table, but the tier rise takes a visible slice of the gross rise, and that is worth knowing before the new payslip arrives.

A worked month: the Band 5 entry payslip

Take a newly qualified staff nurse on Band 5 entry, £32,073 a year, full-time, no student loan, standard tax code. Gross monthly pay is £2,672.75. Pension at 8.3% takes £2,662.06 a year, which is £221.84 a month, leaving £29,410.94 of pay after pension for tax purposes. Take off the £12,570 personal allowance and taxable income is £16,840.94 a year, all of it inside the 20% basic-rate band, giving annual tax of £3,368.19, or £280.68 a month. National Insurance is 8% of the £19,503 between £12,570 and the salary, giving £1,560.24 a year, or £130.02 a month, with no 2% slice because pay sits below £50,270. What is left is £24,482.51 a year, which is £2,040.21 a month. With a Plan 2 student loan, a further £20.16 a month comes off, leaving £2,020.05.

That worked month doubles as a cross-check on the whole table, because the same method produces every row. A member of staff who gets a different payslip figure can start by looking for a different tax code, a student loan plan other than Plan 2, or unsocial hours and overtime on top of basic pay, rather than doubting the arithmetic. Monthly components are rounded to the penny, so adding rounded monthly components can differ from the monthly take-home by 1p. The same worked example appears in the nurse take-home pay guide, and the site take-home calculator on the homepage runs the same calculation for any salary.

Pension: which tier each band pays

Pension is the largest deduction for most NHS staff, and it is also the one that does quiet work elsewhere. Because contributions come off before tax is calculated, every pound of pension contribution saves 20p of basic-rate tax at these income levels, and 40p once taxable income passes the higher-rate threshold. The contribution tiers for 2026/27 are official, agreed by NHSBSA and in force from 1 April 2026, with thresholds uprated in line with CPI. The employer adds 23.7% on top of every member contribution. The full tier set is:

Four tier boundaries fall inside the band system, and each one shapes the gain from a promotion. Band 4 top crosses from 6.5% to 8.3%. Band 5 top crosses from 8.3% to 9.8%. Band 7 top crosses from 9.8% to 10.7%. Band 8b top crosses from 10.7% to 12.5%. A promotion across a boundary is never blunted into a loss, the net gain stays positive at every step, but the tier rise takes a slice of the gross rise that a promotion inside one tier does not. Full pension tier tables by band are in the pension contributions by band guide, and the wider pension picture is in NHS pension contributions. Opting out of the pension would lift take-home in the short term, but it would also give up the employer 23.7% contribution and the pension itself, so this page treats pension membership as the normal case and does not present an opt-out figure as a recommendation.

Student loans: the Plan 2 column

Student loan repayments are not tax and they are not pension, but they come off the same payslip, so they belong in any honest take-home figure. Plan 2 takes 9% of pay above £29,385 a year in 2026/27. At the bottom of the band system that means nothing at all: Bands 2 and 3 and Band 4 entry all sit below the threshold, so the Plan 2 column is £0.00 at every step up to Band 4 entry. Band 4 top, at £31,157, is the first step where a Plan 2 deduction applies, at £13.29 a month. From there the deduction grows with pay: £20.16 a month at Band 5 entry, £140.49 at Band 6 top, £203.48 at Band 7 top, £265.24 at Band 8a top, and £752.99 a month at Band 9 top, which is £9,035.88 a year off the payslip for a director carrying a Plan 2 balance.

Other plans use different thresholds, and a member of staff on Plan 1, Plan 4, Plan 5 or a postgraduate loan should run the threshold for their own plan rather than reading the Plan 2 column as their figure. Plan 1 takes 9% above £26,900, Plan 4 takes 9% above £33,795, Plan 5 takes 9% above £25,000, and the postgraduate loan takes 6% above £21,000. A Band 2 worker on Plan 5, for example, would pay 9% of the £272 above the threshold, which is £2.04 a month, even though the Plan 2 column for the same salary is zero. The full student loan rules for NHS staff are in the student loan repayments guide.

London weighting: take-home with HCAS

High Cost Area Supplement is pensionable, so it lifts both gross pay and the pension contribution, and it can push the total into a higher pension tier. Inner London pays 20% of basic pay with a minimum of £5,794 and a maximum of £8,746, outer London pays 15% with a minimum of £4,870 and a maximum of £6,137, and the fringe zone pays 5% with a minimum of £1,346 and a maximum of £2,270. The minimums matter at lower pay levels, because the percentages alone would fall short of them, and the maximums matter at higher pay levels, because the percentages alone would exceed them. The table below recomputes take-home in full for two steps, rather than estimating from the basic-pay figures.

Two details in the table are worth spelling out. First, the Band 5 entry outer London figure uses the £4,870 minimum supplement, not 15% of basic pay, because 15% of £32,073 is £4,810.95, just below the minimum, giving total pay of £36,943. Second, every Band 6 top figure uses a capped supplement: inner London 20% of £48,117 would be £9,623.40, but the £8,746 maximum caps it, giving total pay of £56,863, and the outer and fringe figures are capped the same way. The pension tier follows total pay, not basic pay: the Band 6 top inner London total of £56,863 sits in the 10.7% tier, while the basic salary of £48,117 sits in the 9.8% tier. The full London weighting rules are in the London weighting HCAS guide, and the HCAS calculator works out the supplement for any band and zone.

Part-time take-home pay

Part-time work is common across the NHS, and part-time take-home does not scale in a straight line from full-time take-home, because tax and National Insurance are calculated on actual pay. The pension tier follows actual pay too, though both part-time figures here still sit in the 6.5% tier.

Two practical points follow. First, a part-time worker whose actual pay falls below the personal allowance of £12,570 would pay no income tax at all, but neither part-time figure here falls that low: the lowest, Band 5 entry on 0.6 whole-time equivalent at £19,243.80, still sits above the allowance, so it pays £90.38 a month in tax. Second, hours worked above contracted hours up to 37.5 a week are paid at plain time, not overtime rates, so a part-time worker picking up extra shifts should check whether those hours are plain time or overtime before budgeting on them. The part-time pay guide and the part-time pay calculator cover the pro-rata maths in full.

Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland

The rates on this page are for England. Scotland agreed a 3.75% award from 1 April 2026 and moved to a 36 hour week, with its own pay scale and its own income tax bands. Scotland also has a nine-tier pension structure from 5.7% to 12.7%, but the tier thresholds are not in the verified data file, so this page quotes no Scotland take-home figure rather than estimating one from the England tiers. Wales applied the 3.3% award with a Real Living Wage floor of £13.45 an hour, giving a Band 2 spot salary of £26,300. On the same method as the England table, a Welsh Band 2 worker takes home £1,757.33 a month (pension £142.46, tax £200.34, National Insurance £91.53), against £1,700.11 for the England spot rate, because income tax and National Insurance rates are the same across the two nations and only the gross pay differs. Northern Ireland had the 3.3% award recommended but not implemented at the last check, so do not budget on it. For the devolved picture, see the Scotland pay guide, the Wales pay guide and the Northern Ireland pay guide.

What the figures leave out

These are basic-pay figures for full-time contracts unless a section says otherwise, and real NHS income is usually higher and messier. Unsocial hours add the most for ward staff: under Agenda for Change Section 2, Band 2 gets 41% on top of plain time for Saturday and weekday night hours, from 8pm to 6am, and 83% on top for Sunday and bank holiday hours, while Bands 5 to 7 get 30% and 60%. Overtime works on top of the same base: Bands 1 to 7 pay time and a half for overtime, and double time on bank and public holidays, with overtime starting above 37.5 hours a week. Bank and agency shifts pay above the Agenda for Change rate in most areas, but there is no national rate card and rates vary widely by region, urgency and specialty, so this page quotes no bank or agency figure. The Agenda for Change rate is still the right benchmark, because it is the pension-building foundation. Mileage for community staff is an expense reimbursement, not pay: car mileage is 59p a mile up to 4,500 miles a year and 36p a mile beyond that, and it is covered in the mileage rates guide rather than counted in take-home here. Uniform tax relief of £125 a year for nurses, healthcare assistants and porters (worth £25 at the basic rate and £50 at the higher rate) and any local recruitment premia are also left out, because they are expenses or local payments, not basic pay. The full unsocial hours rules are in the unsocial hours and overtime guide. A payslip that differs from this page by a small amount usually differs because of a different tax code, a student loan plan, or unsocial hours and overtime on top of basic pay.

Frequently asked questions

How much does an NHS worker take home each month by band in 2026/27?

In England in 2026/27, after income tax, National Insurance and NHS pension contributions and before any student loan, a full-time worker takes home £1,700.11 a month on Band 2 (£25,272 a year), £2,040.21 at Band 5 entry (£32,073) and £2,380.80 at Band 5 top (£39,043), £2,865.96 at Band 6 top (£48,117), £3,308.99 at Band 7 top (£56,515), £3,662.95 at Band 8a top (£64,750) and £6,115.48 at Band 9 top (£129,783). The full table on this page covers every band at entry and top, plus the intermediate steps.

How is NHS take-home pay calculated?

Pension contributions come off first, which reduces taxable income. Income tax is then calculated on what is left, using the 2026/27 personal allowance of £12,570, the 20% basic rate on taxable income up to £37,700 and the 40% higher rate above that, with 45% above £125,140 of taxable income. The personal allowance tapers by £1 for every £2 of adjusted net income above £100,000, reaching zero at £125,140, which is why the Band 9 top row on this page has a personal allowance of only £5,789.94. National Insurance is charged on full gross pay, at 8% between £12,570 and £50,270 and 2% above. Student loans are shown in a separate column, because they apply only to borrowers. All figures use a standard tax code and basic pay only.

Which pension tier applies to my band?

The official 2026/27 NHS pension tiers for England and Wales 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. Bands 2, 3 and Band 4 entry pay 6.5%. Band 4 top, Band 5 entry and the Band 5 intermediate step pay 8.3%. Band 5 top, all of Band 6 and Band 7 entry and intermediate pay 9.8%. Band 7 top and all of Band 8a pay 10.7%. Band 8b entry also pays 10.7%, but Band 8b top and every step of Bands 8c, 8d and 9 pay 12.5%. The employer adds 23.7% on top in every case. The full tier tables are in the pension contributions by band guide.

Do I pay student loan deductions on NHS pay?

On a Plan 2 loan, it depends on the salary. Plan 2 takes 9% of pay above £29,385 a year in 2026/27, so Bands 2 and 3 and Band 4 entry pay nothing, because their salaries sit below the threshold. Band 4 top pays £13.29 a month, Band 5 entry pays £20.16, Band 6 top pays £140.49 and Band 9 top pays £752.99 a month. Other plans use different thresholds: Plan 1 £26,900, Plan 4 £33,795, Plan 5 £25,000, all at 9%, and the postgraduate loan takes 6% above £21,000. The full student loan rules for NHS staff are in the student loan repayments guide.

What is the take-home pay for a Band 5 nurse?

A staff nurse on Band 5 entry (£32,073 a year) takes home £2,040.21 a month, a nurse on the Band 5 intermediate step (£34,592) takes home £2,177.41 a month, and a nurse at Band 5 top (£39,043) takes home £2,380.80 a month, all after tax, National Insurance and pension and before any student loan. The same three steps with a Plan 2 loan are £2,020.05, £2,138.36 and £2,308.37 a month. The role-specific figures, including London and part-time variants, are in the nurse take-home pay guide.

How much extra is London take-home pay?

With High Cost Area Supplement, a Band 5 nurse at entry takes home £2,351.10 a month in inner London, £2,268.52 in outer London and £2,127.56 in the fringe zone, against £2,040.21 with no supplement. A Band 6 nurse at the top takes home £3,323.95 a month in inner London, £3,181.45 in outer London and £2,987.91 in the fringe zone, against £2,865.96. London weighting is pensionable, so it also lifts the pension contribution and can push the total into a higher pension tier: the Band 6 top inner London total of £56,863 sits in the 10.7% tier, while the basic salary of £48,117 sits in the 9.8% tier. The full London weighting rules are in the London weighting HCAS guide.

What does a part-time NHS worker take home?

A Band 5 nurse at entry on 0.8 whole-time equivalent (30 hours) earns £25,658.40 a year and takes home £1,721.62 a month, and on 0.6 whole-time equivalent (22.5 hours, £19,243.80) takes home £1,364.54 a month. Part-time take-home does not scale in a straight line from full-time take-home, because tax and National Insurance are calculated on actual pay, and the pension tier follows actual pay too, though both part-time figures here still sit in the 6.5% tier. Hours worked above contracted hours up to 37.5 a week are paid at plain time, not overtime rates. The part-time pay guide and the part-time pay calculator cover the pro-rata maths in full.

Why does my payslip differ from the figures on this page?

The usual reasons are a different tax code, a student loan plan, unsocial hours or overtime on top of basic pay, London weighting, or a part-time fraction. Salary sacrifice for a car or pension, a previous employment in the same tax year, and arrears or back pay in a single month can also move one month away from the steady monthly figure. If the gap is small and steady, check the tax code first. If it is large, check whether unsocial hours or London weighting are included in the gross figure being compared, because this page starts from basic pay only. Monthly components are rounded to the penny, so adding rounded monthly components can differ from the monthly take-home by 1p.

Sources and independence

Source: NHS Employers, Pay and Conditions Circular (AfC) 2026/27 (3.3% award, effective 1 April 2026).

Source: NHSBSA, NHS Pension Scheme member contribution tiers 2026/27 (official, in force from 1 April 2026).

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

Source: GOV.UK, National Insurance rates.

Source: GOV.UK, Repaying your student loan.

NHS Bands Pay is an independent guide and is not affiliated with the NHS. Figures were verified against official sources on 7 November 2026 and can change, always confirm with the relevant official body before making financial decisions. Take-home figures assume a standard tax code, full-time basic pay in England, and no salary sacrifice.