Money Worked Out

NHS nurse pay after tax 2026/27

Estimated take-home pay a month

£2,040.36

£24,484.31 a year from gross pay of £32,073.00

Your details

Contracted hours, from 1 to 37.5 a week.

Add nights, weekends, London weighting and extra hours

Use weekly averages for a typical week. Unsocial hours form part of your contracted hours. Put hours above your contract in extra hours.

Part of your contracted hours, after applying the whole-shift rule below.

Part of your contracted hours. Do not count these again as night or Saturday hours.

High cost area supplement (HCAS), scaled to your contracted hours.

All hours above your contracted hours, including public holiday extra hours.

The public holiday share of your extra hours. These count as overtime first.

Whole-shift rule: if more than half of a continuous weekday evening or night shift falls between 8pm and 6am, count the whole shift at the first rate. Apply this before entering your night hours. Sunday and public holiday hours use the second rate.

Your NHS pay and deductions
Pay or deductionA yearA month
Basic pay£32,073.00£2,672.75
Nights and weekends£0.00£0.00
London weighting (HCAS)£0.00£0.00
Extra hours at plain time£0.00£0.00
Overtime£0.00£0.00
Gross pay£32,073.00£2,672.75
Pensionable pay£32,073.00£2,672.75
NHS Pension (8.3%)£2,662.06£221.84
Income tax£3,366.39£280.53
National Insurance£1,560.24£130.02
Student loans£0.00£0.00
Take-home pay£24,484.31£2,040.36

How this was worked out
  1. Basic pay: £32,073.00 × 37.5 ÷ 37.5 = £32,073.00 a year. Standard week.
  2. Hourly rate shown: £16.40. We use the exact rate: full-time salary × 7 ÷ 365 ÷ 37.5. Weekly pay rule. The handbook sets weekly pay as 7/365 of salary but does not fix an hourly divisor for overtime. Your employer may differ by a few pence an hour.
  3. Nights and weekends: exact hourly rate × (0 hours × 30% + 0 hours × 60%) × 365 ÷ 7 = £0.00 a year. HCAS is excluded from the base. Unsocial hours rates.
  4. London weighting (high cost area supplement, HCAS): £0.00 a year. The full-time percentage is limited by the area's minimum and maximum, then multiplied by 37.5 ÷ 37.5. Part-time rule.
  5. Extra hours at plain time: exact hourly rate × hours up to the standard week × 365 ÷ 7 = £0.00 a year. Extra hours rule.
  6. Overtime above 37.5 hours: exact hourly rate × overtime hours × 1.5 (or 2 for public holidays) × 365 ÷ 7 = £0.00 a year. Public holiday extra hours count as overtime hours first, up to the hours above the standard week. Overtime rates.
  7. Gross pay: the five rounded annual components total £32,073.00. We round each annual component once to pennies, half up, combining both unsocial rates and both overtime rates before rounding. Monthly amounts are annual amounts divided by 12, rounded half up.
  8. Pensionable pay: basic pay + regular unsocial pay + HCAS + plain-time extra hours up to the standard week = £32,073.00. Hours above the standard week are excluded, even when paid at plain time. Pensionable extra hours; Regular unsocial pay; Pensionable HCAS. Check your payroll's treatment of regular payments.
  9. NHS Pension tier 3: 8.3% of actual pensionable pay = £2,662.06 a year. This is taken before income tax but does not reduce National Insurance or student loan pay. NHS Pension tiers.
  10. This is a whole-year tax estimate using the standard tax code, rest of UK income tax and the student loans you selected. A monthly payslip can differ.
  11. Salary: £32,073
  12. Pension (net pay): £32,073 × 8.3% = £2,662.06, taken off before tax
  13. Personal allowance: £12,570. Payroll applies it as tax code 1257L, which gives £12,579 of tax-free pay.
  14. Taxable income: £29,410.94 − £12,579 = £16,831.94
  15. Basic rate: £16,831.94 × 20% = £3,366.39
  16. Income tax: £3,366.39
  17. National Insurance: (£32,073 − £12,570) × 8% = £1,560.24
  18. Take-home pay: £32,073 − £3,366.39 − £1,560.24 − £2,662.06 = £24,484.31

Calculators

Where your employer may differ

  • The handbook sets weekly pay as 7/365 of salary but does not fix an hourly divisor for overtime. We divide weekly pay by standard weekly hours. Your employer's hourly rate can differ by a few pence.
  • You apply the whole-shift rule before entering your hours. We do not infer it from a rota.
  • For England and Wales bands 8a to 9, pay above the standard week is a local arrangement. We show plain time: check your contract.
  • Local HCAS harmonisation under handbook section 4.6 can change London weighting.
  • Sickness and annual-leave averaging of enhancements are not modelled.

This calculator does not cover ambulance staff under Annex 5, on-call pay, bank shifts on a separate contract or recruitment and retention premiums. It uses contribution tiers without modelling differences between the 2015, 1995 and 2008 pension sections. Tax is a whole-year estimate with the standard tax code. Your numbers stay in this browser.

Nurses in the NHS are paid on Agenda for Change, the same pay system as most other NHS staff. This page and the band pages below show what a full-time nurse keeps from each pay point in 2026/27 after the NHS Pension, income tax and National Insurance.

Nurse pay bands, England, 2026/27
Rank or gradeStarting salaryTop salaryTake-home a month
Band 5£32,073£39,043£2,040.36 to £2,380.95
Band 6£39,959£48,117£2,429.93 to £2,866.11
Band 7£49,387£56,515£2,934.01 to £3,309.29
Band 8a£57,528£64,750£3,352.83 to £3,663.25

Which band a nurse is on

The band depends on the job, and the NHS Employers national job profiles describe what nursing work fits each one. NHS careers guidance says adult, mental health, children's and theatre nurses typically start at Band 5. District nurses and health visitors typically start at Band 6. Both roles need further training after registration as a nurse.

More senior specialist and leadership posts reach Band 7 and above. The band pages for nurses explain the kind of work at each level in general terms. Individual posts are graded by the employer.

Where the full tables are

Each nurse page links to the matching page in the NHS pay calculator, which has the take-home table for every point in England and Scotland. Nurses on part-time hours can enter their hours there, and the calculator scales the salary and the pension tier to match.

Nurses in Wales and Northern Ireland

NHS Wales publishes its own Agenda for Change scale. For 2026/27 the Welsh salary is higher than the England salary at every point of Bands 5 to 8a, by a small margin. Wales uses the same NHS Pension Scheme as England, and at these bands each Welsh point falls in the same contribution tier as the matching England point.

Health and Social Care in Northern Ireland has its own scale too, and a confirmed 2026/27 scale had not been published when the figures were checked. Neither nation's pay is in the take-home tables.

What the figures leave out

The tables use basic pay for 37.5 hours a week, the standard tax code and no student loan. Unsocial hours payments, overtime, bank shifts and high cost area supplements are all extra and taxed as pay. Many nurses repay a student loan, and the student loan repayment calculator shows the amount.

Questions

What band does a newly qualified nurse start on?

Usually Band 5, and NHS careers guidance gives adult, mental health, children's and theatre nursing as roles that typically start there.

Are nurses in Wales paid more than in England?

Slightly. In 2026/27 the NHS Wales scale is higher at every point of Bands 5 to 8a. Scotland's scale is higher again.

Do the figures include unsocial hours pay?

No, they cover basic Agenda for Change pay. Unsocial hours, overtime and bank work add to taxable pay on top.