NHS Wales Pay Rise 2027: What We Know So Far

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

By the NHS Bands Pay editorial team

Searches for the Wales pay rise in 2027 are already running at more than 100 impressions a month with no page to land on, and the question behind them is a fair one: Wales matched England's award last time, the English round has already produced its first number, and Welsh staff want to know whether theirs will follow. The honest answer, as of 7 November 2026, is that nothing has been decided yet. This page separates what is confirmed from what is still speculation, sets out the award that is ending, explains how the Welsh process works, and shows what the English 2.4% figure would be worth on Welsh pay if Wales matched it, which it has not agreed to do.

What is confirmed

To be blunt about what is actually known as of 7 November 2026:

• The 2027/28 award has not been announced. No percentage, no timetable and no offer has been published for Wales's 2027/28 Agenda for Change pay round.
• Wales follows the Pay Review Body route, but decides for itself. The Welsh Government submits its own evidence to the NHS Pay Review Body and decides whether to accept the recommendation, in whole or in part. England's 2.4% proposal is not Wales's figure.
• The current award runs to 31 March 2027. Wales awarded 3.3% from 1 April 2026, paid on time, with a Real Living Wage floor of £13.45 an hour lifting the lowest points to £26,300. Until a 2027/28 agreement is reached, Welsh staff stay on the 2026/27 scale.
• The Review Body's 40th report is the next milestone. The Pay Review Body reports in early 2027, and the Welsh Government announces its decision in spring 2027, effective from 1 April 2027.
• A multi-year deal is possible, not agreed. A deal covering 2027/28 and 2028/29 has been raised as a possibility, alongside structural reform talks for Agenda for Change. No terms have been published.
• The Real Living Wage floor is a separate decision. Whether the £13.45 floor rises again depends on the Living Wage Foundation's autumn announcement and the Welsh Government's decision to apply it. Nothing has been announced on either point.

The award that is ending

Wales's 2026/27 award was straightforward, and it was paid cleanly. The Welsh Government awarded a 3.3% rise from 1 April 2026, matching the headline award in England, and it was paid on time in April salaries, so there was no backpay to complicate payslips. That matters for this page, because the 2026/27 round is the baseline every 2027/28 figure will be measured against, and it is the last award with a published percentage.

On top of the headline rise, Wales did something England did not. In a separate January 2026 circular, the Welsh Government applied the Real Living Wage Foundation rate of £13.45 an hour as a floor to the lowest-paid staff: Band 1, the Band 2 spot rate and the Band 3 minimum were all lifted to £26,300 a year. For the lowest-paid staff that was a 5.9% rise, well above the 3.3% headline, and the Band 3 minimum rose 3.9% at that point. The floor is why Wales is the better-paid nation at the bottom of the scale, and it is a separate mechanism from the annual award, which is why it gets its own section below.

In cash terms, the 2026/27 rise added about £1,040.06 a year to a Band 5 entry salary. The 2026/27 entry figure is £32,557, and working back through the 3.3% rise gives a 2025/26 entry figure of about £31,516.94, so the rise itself is the difference between the two, roughly £1,040 before deductions. At the top of Band 5 the rise was about £1,266.04 a year, from about £38,364.96 to £39,631. What lands in the bank depends on income tax, the pension tier, student loan deductions and any unsocial-hours enhancements. Wales uses the same pension contribution tiers as England, six tiers from 5.2% to 12.5% with the employer adding 23.7%, and income tax in Wales follows UK rates, so a Welsh salary and an English salary at the same gross produce the same take-home before pension differences.

Wales vs England: how far ahead Wales sits

Wales awarded the same 3.3% headline rise as England in 2026/27, but the Welsh scale is not the English scale, and the living-wage floor makes the difference wider at the bottom. The table below compares the two nations' 2026/27 scales at the bands where both are verified:

The pattern is consistent: Wales runs roughly 1.5% ahead of England at the top of almost every band, from Band 5 at £588 a year more to Band 9 at £1,949 a year more. The exception is the bottom of the scale, where the living-wage floor pushes the gap wider: Band 2 pays £1,028 a year more in Wales, 4.1% higher, and the Band 3 minimum is £26,300 in Wales against £25,760 in England. For healthcare assistants and support workers, who make up a large share of the Welsh workforce, that is the difference that matters most. The full Welsh scale, including intermediate pay steps and hourly rates, is in the NHS Wales pay guide, and the four-nation comparison is in the NHS pay scales by country guide.

The hourly picture follows the annual one, because Wales and England both use a 37.5-hour full-time week. A Band 5 nurse earns £16.63 to £20.24 an hour in Wales, a Band 7 nurse £25.61 to £29.31, and a Band 9 manager £58.48 to £67.30. Band 2 sits at £13.43 an hour on the Welsh floor, against £12.91 in England. For the English baseline used in these comparisons, see how Agenda for Change works in England, and for band-by-band figures see Band 2 pay, Band 5 pay, Band 7 pay and Band 9 pay.

How Wales's pay is decided

Wales's pay round runs through the NHS Pay Review Body, the same body that covers England, and that is the reason the English round's milestones matter for Welsh staff even though its numbers do not. The annual cycle begins with written evidence: the Department of Health and Social Care, the devolved administrations including the Welsh Government, the trade unions, NHS Employers and other parties all submit evidence to the Review Body. The Review Body weighs it and publishes a report recommending an award. Then each nation's government decides whether to accept it. The Review Body's remit covers the UK, but Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland choose their own approach, and Wales has exercised that choice: it matched the 3.3% award in 2026/27, and it applied the living-wage floor on top, a decision England did not make.

That structure has two consequences for 2027/28. First, the timetable is shared: the evidence phase runs through autumn 2026, the Review Body reports in early 2027, and the decision lands in spring 2027, backdated to 1 April 2027. Second, the outcome is not shared: the Welsh Government can accept the recommendation, accept part of it, or go its own way, as it did with the floor in 2026. The 2026/27 round shows the range of outcomes. For that year the Department of Health and Social Care had planned for around 2.5% without affecting other commitments, but the Review Body recommended 3.3% and the government accepted it in full, funding it from departmental budgets. The award was announced on 12 February 2026, earlier than recent rounds, and paid on time in April in England and Wales, with no backpay.

Doctors and dentists are a separate matter. They are covered by the Doctors' and Dentists' Review Body, not by the Agenda for Change process in any nation, so none of the figures on this page applies to medical or dental pay. For the medical scales, see NHS doctor pay scales 2026/27 and NHS dentist salary. For reference, Welsh consultants sit on a range of £114,099 to £166,585, and the Welsh National 0 clinical impact award is worth £10,500 a year.

The 2.4% figure and what it would mean for Welsh pay

In England, the first real number for 2027/28 has already landed: the government's written evidence to the NHS Pay Review Body, published 19 October 2026, proposes a 2.4% uplift for Agenda for Change staff in England. That is the government's opening position, not the final award. The table below shows what 2.4% would be worth on the current Welsh scales, as illustrative arithmetic, not a prediction. Wales has not agreed to 2.4% or to any other figure, and this table assumes Wales matched it exactly, which is only one of several possible outcomes.

The 2.4% figure sits below current inflation: CPI was 3.1% in August 2026, which is why UNISON called the proposal derisory and the British Dental Association described the equivalent 2.4% figure for doctors and dentists as a real-terms pay cut. The government's own evidence says 2.4% is what is affordable without having to make trade-offs against headline government health commitments, and that anything above 2.4% would have to come from existing departmental budgets and would inevitably have an impact on healthcare delivery. The 2026/27 round shows why the opening figure is not the award: the government planned for around 2.5% and the award was 3.3%. The full detail is in our NHS pay rise 2027 guide.

Two things about the Welsh position change how that figure should be read. First, Wales starts from a slightly higher base at every band, so the same percentage is worth slightly more cash in Wales than in England: 2.4% on a Welsh Band 5 top of £39,631 is £951.14 a year, against £937 on the English top of £39,043. Second, the living-wage floor is a separate decision from the headline percentage. If the Living Wage Foundation announces a higher rate in the autumn and the Welsh Government applies it, the bottom of the scale could rise by more than the headline percentage again, just as it did in 2026/27, when Band 2 rose 5.9% against a 3.3% headline. The headline figure and the floor move on different tracks, and both matter to the lowest-paid staff.

The 2027/28 timeline

No timetable has been published specifically for Wales's 2027/28 round, but the round follows the shared Pay Review Body cycle, so the timings below follow from the milestones that are already public. They are expectations, not announced dates:

The effective date is the one part of the timetable that can be stated with confidence. Every annual Agenda for Change award takes effect on 1 April, and the current award ends on 31 March 2027, so the next award is due from 1 April 2027. If the decision runs past that date, the award would be backdated, as earlier late awards were. The 2026/27 award, by contrast, was paid on time in April salaries with no backpay, which is the outcome both sides will be aiming for this time. The 2025/26 and earlier rounds were announced months late, which is why backpay became a familiar feature of NHS payslips, and the 2026/27 round was deliberately launched earlier to return to timely awards.

A multi-year deal for 2027/28 and 2028/29?

The most consequential open question is whether the next agreement covers one year or two. A possible multi-year deal covering 2027/28 and 2028/29 is listed among the developing stories in the pay data, and structural reform talks for Agenda for Change are under way at the same time. A multi-year deal would change the shape of the next round entirely: instead of a single percentage for 2027/28, staff would get certainty over two years, and the annual speculation cycle would pause for a year. That is the attraction, and it is also why the idea keeps surfacing.

But no terms, percentages or timetable for a multi-year deal have been published, and the structural reform talks are at the same stage. The reform strand includes a review of Band 5 nursing roles, which is due to complete by October 2028, and any structural changes would land alongside the annual award rather than instead of it. Until terms appear, the multi-year deal is a possibility to watch, not a pay rise to budget on. If one is agreed, this page will be updated with the figures the moment they are confirmed.

What is speculation

With no figure announced, anything quoting a 2027/28 Welsh percentage today is speculation. That includes press reports of what unions might claim, social media posts quoting a number without a source, and any attempt to read across from England's 2.4% proposal. The read-across is the most common mistake, and it is worth spelling out why it fails: England's 2.4% is the government's opening position in a process Wales takes part in but does not follow blindly, and Wales's last award included a separate floor decision England did not make. A Welsh figure below England's would break the pattern of the last two years, and a figure above it would extend one, but neither follows from the English evidence. The Welsh number will be whatever the Welsh Government decides after the Review Body reports, and it has not been decided yet.

Union pay claims, when they appear, are also not awards. A claim is an opening position, and the gap between a claim and an offer is the negotiation. The claim matters because it sets the terms of the debate, but staff should not budget on it, any more than they should budget on a government figure that has not been accepted. The only numbers that belong in a household budget are the 2026/27 rates in force today.

How it differs from England's 2027/28 position

England's 2027/28 round is further along, and the contrast shows what Wales is still waiting for. In England, the first real number has already landed: the government's written evidence to the NHS Pay Review Body, published 19 October 2026, proposes a 2.4% uplift for Agenda for Change staff in England. The Review Body, which will publish its 40th report, reports in early 2027, and the government announces the award in spring 2027, backdated to 1 April 2027. Unions have already rejected the figure, with UNISON calling it derisory. The full detail is in our NHS pay rise 2027 guide.

Wales has no equivalent opening figure to track, because the Welsh Government's evidence is its own and the decision is its own. What Wales does have is a stronger starting position at the bottom of the scale, with the living-wage floor already banked, and a 2026/27 record of paying on time. None of that guarantees a higher Welsh award, but it does mean the Welsh negotiation is answering a slightly different question from England's: not just what percentage the budget allows, but whether the floor rises again and whether Wales keeps its lead at the bottom of the scale. For the 2026/27 award in full, see the 2026/27 pay rise guide.

Scotland and Northern Ireland

Scotland has also announced nothing for 2027/28, and its process is different again. Scotland does not use the Pay Review Body at all: the Scottish Government negotiates Agenda for Change pay directly with the trade unions. Its two-year deal, 4.4% in 2025/26 and 3.75% from 1 April 2026, runs to 31 March 2027, and its inflation guarantee is rechecked in early 2027, once 2026 CPI is known. Scotland also moved to a 36-hour week from April 2026. The full detail is in the NHS Scotland pay rise 2027 outlook and the Scotland pay guide.

Northern Ireland is further behind: the 3.3% recommendation for 2026/27 had still not been implemented at the last check, and an RCN strike ballot is under way, closing on 20 November 2026, see the RCN Northern Ireland strike ballot 2026 page and the Northern Ireland pay guide. Northern Ireland's 2027/28 position will only take shape once the 2026/27 award is resolved. For the current year across all four nations, see the NHS pay scales by country guide and the Wales pay guide.

What to do while you wait

The months between now and a decision are when rumours do the most damage to household budgets. A few practical rules for the waiting period:

• Do not budget on a rumoured percentage. Until the Welsh Government announces its decision, any number in the press is speculation. The 2026/27 award was 3.3%, but each year's settlement reflects that year's negotiation, not a pattern.
• Check the living-wage floor is on your payslip. If you are on Band 1, the Band 2 spot rate or the Band 3 minimum, your full-time equivalent salary should be £26,300, which works out at £13.43 an hour on a 37.5-hour week. If your payslip shows less, that is worth raising with payroll now, because it affects pay today rather than next year. The Wales pay guide sets out the floor in full.
• Check your pension tier. Wales uses the same six pension contribution tiers as England, from 5.2% to 12.5% of pensionable pay, with the employer adding 23.7%. Because Welsh salaries are slightly higher at equivalent bands, some staff sit in a higher tier than their English counterparts, which is worth checking on your payslip. The tiers are in the NHS pension contributions guide.
• Watch your April and May payslips, not the headlines. The award, when it comes, will show up there first, backdated to 1 April 2027 if the decision runs late. Until then, the 2026/27 rates are the rates that count.

Frequently asked questions

Has the NHS Wales pay rise for 2027/28 been announced?

No. As of 7 November 2026, no figure has been announced for 2027/28. Wales follows the Pay Review Body route, so the sequence to watch is the Welsh Government's evidence to the Review Body, the Review Body's 40th report in early 2027, and then the Welsh Government's decision in spring 2027. The current 2026/27 rates stay in force until then, and any new award would take effect from 1 April 2027, backdated if the decision runs late. This page is updated whenever anything is confirmed.

Does England's 2.4% pay proposal apply to Wales?

No. The 2.4% figure comes from written evidence submitted by the Department of Health and Social Care and NHS England to the NHS Pay Review Body, published 19 October 2026, and it covers Agenda for Change staff in England. Wales takes part in the same Pay Review Body process but makes its own decision: the Welsh Government submits its own evidence and decides whether to accept the recommendation, in whole or in part. Wales matched England's 3.3% award in 2026/27, but that was a decision, not an automatic link, and the Welsh scale already differs from England's.

What was the 2026/27 NHS Wales pay rise?

Wales awarded a 3.3% rise from 1 April 2026, implemented on time and paid in April salaries, so there was no backpay. On top of the headline rise, a separate January 2026 circular applied the Real Living Wage Foundation rate of £13.45 an hour as a floor to Band 1, the Band 2 spot rate and the Band 3 minimum, setting them at £26,300 a year. That was a 5.9% rise for the lowest-paid staff, well above the 3.3% headline. A Band 5 nurse at the top of the Welsh scale earns £39,631, £588 a year more than the English equivalent.

Is NHS Wales pay higher than NHS England pay?

Slightly, yes. Wales awarded the same 3.3% headline rise for 2026/27, but the £13.45-an-hour Real Living Wage floor lifted the bottom of the scale further: Band 2 pays £26,300 in Wales against £25,272 in England, £1,028 a year more. Higher bands run roughly 1.5% ahead of England: Band 5 tops out at £39,631 against £39,043 (£588 more), Band 7 at £57,365 against £56,515 (£850 more), and Band 9 at £131,732 against £129,783 (£1,949 more).

What would 2.4% be worth on Welsh pay?

Only as an illustration, not a prediction: if Wales matched a 2.4% uplift exactly, a Band 2 healthcare assistant on £26,300 would gain £631.20 a year (£52.60 a month), a Band 5 nurse at the top on £39,631 would gain £951.14 a year (£79.26 a month), a Band 7 nurse at the top on £57,365 would gain £1,376.76 a year (£114.73 a month), and a Band 9 manager at the top on £131,732 would gain £3,161.57 a year (£263.46 a month), all before tax, National Insurance and pension. Wales has not agreed to 2.4% or to any other figure, and the 2026/27 precedent shows the final award can come in above the government's opening position.

When will Welsh NHS staff know their 2027/28 pay?

When the Welsh Government announces its decision, expected in spring 2027. The sequence is the Welsh Government's written evidence to the Pay Review Body during autumn 2026, the Review Body's 40th report in early 2027, and then the Welsh Government's decision. The award would take effect from 1 April 2027. If the decision runs past that date, the award would be backdated, as earlier late awards were, but the 2026/27 round was paid on time, which is the outcome both sides will be aiming for this time.

What is the Real Living Wage floor, and will it rise again?

From January 2026, Wales applied the Living Wage Foundation rate of £13.45 an hour as a minimum to Band 1, the Band 2 spot rate and the Band 3 minimum, setting them at £26,300 a year on a full-time contract. Whether the floor rises again for 2027/28 depends on the Living Wage Foundation's autumn announcement of the new rate and on the Welsh Government's decision to apply it. Nothing has been announced on either point. The floor is separate from the annual pay award, so it can move even if the headline percentage does not.

What about Scotland and Northern Ireland for 2027/28?

Scotland has also announced nothing for 2027/28. Its two-year deal, 4.4% then 3.75%, runs to 31 March 2027, and its inflation guarantee is rechecked in early 2027. Scotland negotiates directly with the trade unions and does not use the Pay Review Body. Northern Ireland is further behind: the 3.3% recommendation for 2026/27 had still not been implemented at the last check, and an RCN strike ballot is under way, closing on 20 November 2026. Northern Ireland's 2027/28 position will only take shape once the 2026/27 award is resolved. The four-nation comparison for the current year is in the NHS pay scales by country guide.

Sources and independence

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

Source: NHS Wales pay circular AfC(W) 02/2026, Agenda for Change pay 2026/27, with the living-wage floor applied in a January 2026 circular (£13.45/hr).

Source: Department of Health and Social Care and NHS England, written evidence to the NHS Pay Review Body, published 19 October 2026 (2.4% proposal for Agenda for Change staff in England).

Source: Nursing Times, Government proposes 2.4% pay offer for nursing staff in England (19 Oct 2026).

Source: NHS Employers, NHS PRB pay award announcement 2026.

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. No 2027/28 award has been announced for Wales; this page will be updated when one is confirmed.