NHS Medical & Dental Pay Calculator

NHS medical pay is not like a normal salaried job where one annual figure tells the whole story. A resident doctor might have a basic nodal salary, weekend allowance, night enhancement, on-call availability supplement, flexible pay premia, LTFT allowance and backdated arrears. A consultant might have a threshold salary, extra programmed activities, clinical awards, waiting-list work and local arrangements. Dentists and salaried GPs have their own national ranges. Then payroll still has to apply NHS pension contributions, PAYE, National Insurance, student loan deductions and post-tax subscriptions.

This calculator is therefore designed as a practical take-home pay estimator rather than a full work-schedule engine. It gives you the current national England pay-scale starting point, then lets you add the parts that are personal to your rota or contract. That makes it useful for checking whether a new rotation looks affordable, comparing a 2025/26 payslip with the 2026/27 uplift, or sense-checking the effect of pension, salary sacrifice and student loans.

If you are a nurse, midwife, paramedic, HCA, pharmacist on AfC, administrator, scientist or another Agenda for Change member of staff, use the NHS Agenda for Change pay calculator instead. If you want a more general PAYE estimate for non-NHS locum or private-sector employment, the take-home pay calculator is a better fit.

The 2026/27 award increased the main medical and dental pay ranges in England by 3.5% from 1 April 2026, with salaried dentists in community dental services receiving 3.75%. The calculator uses 2026/27 as the default because that is the current pay year on May 12 2026. It keeps 2025/26 available because many people still need to check arrears, August 2025 rotations, P60s or a previous work schedule.

Resident doctors and dentists in training are usually paid on nodal points rather than the old annual incremental scale. An FY1 is much simpler than a registrar rota because the basic pay is just the start. Weekend allowance can add 3% to 15% of basic salary depending on rota frequency. On-call availability is commonly 8% where the contract conditions apply. Night work and additional hours can add a lot more. If your work schedule gives one annual total, enter it in the additions box. If it gives weekly hours instead, open the advanced work-schedule section and let the calculator estimate additional hours and the 37% night enhancement.

Consultants are different. The pay threshold is only the core contract figure. Many real consultant payslips include additional programmed activities, clinical excellence or clinical impact awards, waiting-list initiatives, management allowances or local extra sessions. Those amounts are not automatically predictable from a job title, so this calculator asks you to enter them manually. That is less flashy than pretending to know your job plan, but much more honest.

This is an England national pay-scale calculator. It does not automatically calculate devolved Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland medical pay scales, even though it can apply Scottish income tax if you tick the Scotland box. It also does not replace ESR, NHS payroll, a lead employer, HMRC or the official NHS pension record.

The calculator assumes that the basic salary, weekend allowance, on-call allowance and manual additions you enter are pensionable unless salary sacrifice is entered. Some locum bank work, waiting-list work, awards, expenses, mileage, relocation support, private practice income or locally agreed payments may be taxed, pensioned or reported differently. For broader non-NHS or private work, use the PAYE take-home pay calculator or speak to payroll.

It also does not model tapered annual allowance, pension annual allowance tax charges, scheme pays, clinical award pension interactions, old 1995/2008 section protections, McCloud remedy choices, non-domicile issues, self-employed private practice or partnership accounts. The pensionable-pay selector is included because resident doctor rota enhancements, SAS work and consultant programmed activities can be treated differently. If pensions are the main question, the pension contribution tax relief calculator can help with general tax-relief mechanics, but NHS defined-benefit pension decisions need scheme-specific advice.