The Health and Social Care Secretary has accepted the recommendations of The Review Body on Doctors' and Dentists' Remuneration (DDRB) to confirm pay awards for 2026-27 for doctors and dentists. Recommendations were accepted in February for nurses, midwives and other NHS staff on the Agenda for Change contract.
Here, we confirm what these groups will be paid for the next financial year – every group is receiving an above forecast inflation pay rise for the third year in a row
A deal to reform resident doctor pay, career progression working conditions has also been rejected by the British Medical Association Resident Doctors Committee (BMA RDC), without giving their members a chance to have their say.
Here, we also explain more about what was in the deal.
How much are the pay awards?
Doctors and most dentists will receive a headline-pay increase of 3.5 per cent for doctors and certain dentist groups.
If the BMAs RDC had given their members a chance to vote to accept the deal put to them by the government, resident doctors on average would have seen a basic pay uplift of 4.9% for 2026/27.
Salaried dentists working in Community Dental Services will receive a headline-pay increase of 3.75 per cent.
Nurses and other NHS staff including midwives and paramedics have already received their pay award for 2026-2027 – 3.3%. This pay boost will be in pay packets from April for the first time in six years.
When will NHS staff receive their pay rise?
Staff on the Agenda for Change contract will see their pay award in pay packets from April for the first time in six years.
Secondary care doctors, such as consultants, psychiatrists and surgeons will receive their pay increase from June, which is 2 months earlier than last year. We are working closely with payroll systems to ensure pay uplifts for secondary care staff will be effective from June, which is 2 months earlier than last year.
Pay uplifts will be backdated to 1 April 2026
What was in the deal to resident doctors?
Since the start of the year, the government has been engaged in intensive, good-faith talks with the BMA Resident Doctors Committee.
We listened carefully to the concerns of resident doctors, on pay, conditions and career progression, and we acted on them.
Resident doctors have already received a 28.9% pay rise over the last three years — the most significant uplift anywhere in the NHS and public sector.
We have also fast-tracked legislation to prioritise UK medical graduates and doctors with significant NHS experience for jobs, halving competition ratios for training places.
On top of this, we pulled every available lever to put forward a generous package that would have genuinely transformed resident doctors working lives and career prospects.
This included:
- Reform of the pay structure, so resident doctors would benefit from more frequent and fairer pay rises at each stage of their training, as they reach key competencies and enhance productivity.
- Combining pay structure reform with the DDRB uplift of 3.5%.
- Pay rises over three years baked in, linked to the independent DDRB recommendations, as requested by the BMA.
- Starting pay for new graduates entering the profession this year would have been nearly £12,000 higher than four years ago.
- Up to 4,500 more specialty training places would have been created over the next 3 years, including 1,000 for this year’s applicants with the additional round of recruitment launching in April.
- Reimbursement of costly Royal College exam fees from April this year, which resident doctors currently must pay out of pocket to progress with their training, meaning resident doctors would have been thousands of pounds better off.
- Contract reform for locally employed doctors to ensure they also benefit from this new deal.
This offer was designed with the BMA leadership, so it’s deeply disappointing that members didn’t get the chance to vote on it.
Are resident doctors going to strike again?
The BMA has announced another round of strike action from 7am on 7th April to 6.59am on 13th April.
Our attention has now turned to protecting the NHS and minimising the impact of disruption to patients.
The NHS has tried and tested ways to minimise disruption. Due to the dedication of NHS staff, the NHS delivered almost 95% of planned activity during the five days of strike action in December- similar to the levels of activity during the November strikes and surpassing levels in July.
Why are doctors being given higher pay rises than nurses again?
Each independent Pay Review Body (PRB) makes recommendations based on evidence from government, employers and unions.
Different conclusions between PRBs reflect the specific circumstances of each workforce.
This year’s pay award for nurses is expected to increase average annual pay to over £39,000.
For 1.4 million NHS staff on the Agenda for Change contract, we are working with the NHS Staff Council to reform the pay structure and to prioritise increasing pay for graduates and the lowest paid members of staff.
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