NHS Band 8c salary (2026/27)
Band 8c on the NHS Agenda for Change pay scale covers heads of large services and deputy directors. These are the national rates for England from 1 April 2026.
Entry step
£79,504
2026/27
Top step
£91,609
2026/27
Como ler este número
How to read this figure
De onde vem o dado
Source: NHS Employers, Agenda for Change pay scales 2026/27 (England)
Cuidado
What this number does not tell you
O que fazer com isso
What to do with this figure
What Band 8c pays
A Band 8c post starts at £79,504 a year. After 2 years in the band you move to the next step, reaching the top of the band at £91,609.
Agenda for Change pay is national, so the same band pays the same in every NHS organisation in England, except for the high cost area supplements paid in and around London. Unsocial hours payments, on-call payments and overtime are added on top of the figures below.
Band 8c pay steps
| Step | Annual pay | Hourly rate |
|---|---|---|
| Entry step | £79,504 | £40.66 an hour |
| Intermediate step | £84,346 | £43.14 an hour |
| Top step | £91,609 | £46.85 an hour |
The whole Agenda for Change pay scale
Every non-medical NHS role in England sits on one of these bands. Doctors, dentists and very senior managers are paid on separate scales.
NHS Agenda for Change annual pay, England, 2026/27
| Band | Entry step | Intermediate step | Top step | Hourly rate at entry |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Band 1 | £25,272 | — | £25,272 | £12.92 an hour |
| Band 2 | £25,272 | — | £25,272 | £12.92 an hour |
| Band 3 | £25,760 | — | £27,476 | £13.17 an hour |
| Band 4 | £28,392 | — | £31,157 | £14.52 an hour |
| Band 5 | £32,073 | £34,592 | £39,043 | £16.40 an hour |
| Band 6 | £39,959 | £42,170 | £48,117 | £20.44 an hour |
| Band 7 | £49,387 | £51,932 | £56,515 | £25.26 an hour |
| Band 8a | £57,528 | £60,417 | £64,750 | £29.42 an hour |
| Band 8b | £66,582 | £70,896 | £77,368 | £34.05 an hour |
| Band 8c | £79,504 | £84,346 | £91,609 | £40.66 an hour |
| Band 8d | £94,356 | £100,140 | £108,814 | £48.26 an hour |
| Band 9 | £112,782 | £119,583 | £129,783 | £57.68 an hour |
Band 1 is closed to new entrants. These are the national rates for England and exclude high cost area supplements for London and the surrounding area.
What people in this band actually earn
The pay scale is the contractual rate. The Office for National Statistics measures what people are paid in practice, including overtime and unsocial hours: the median gross annual pay for nursing professionals across the whole UK was £37,597.
How does nhs band 8c salary (2026/27) compare with the rest of the United Kingdom?
At £79,504, nhs band 8c salary (2026/27) is well above the £32,890 that average salary in the uk publishes for the United Kingdom as a whole — a difference of 142%. That gap is the first thing worth checking before comparing two job offers.
Band 9 or Band 3: how far apart are they?
On this page, Band 9 tops the table at £112,782, while Band 3 is the lowest at £25,760 — 4.4 times more. A gap this size is worth a second look before treating the figures as interchangeable.
What does "from 1 April 2026" mean for nhs band 8c salary (2026/27)?
The figures for nhs band 8c salary (2026/27) come from NHS Employers, Agenda for Change pay scales 2026/27 (England), with a reference period of from 1 April 2026. Pay statistics like this one are not updated in real time: the underlying survey or register takes months to collect and process, so the number reflects pay around that date, not today.
Glossário: os termos desta página
Median vs. mean
The median is the middle value when every salary is lined up from lowest to highest: half earn less, half earn more. The mean is the simple average. A handful of very high salaries pulls the mean up without moving the median, so the median is usually the better guide to what a typical person earns.
Percentile
A percentile splits the distribution into 100 equal parts. The 10th percentile is the value only a tenth of people earn below; the 90th percentile is what only a tenth earn above. Looking at several percentiles shows the full spread, not just one average.
Fonte: Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings (ASHE) — Office for National Statistics.
Coefficient of variation
A measure of how much an estimate could be off, expressed as a percentage of the estimate itself. Statistical agencies use it to flag figures based on too small a sample: a high coefficient of variation means the number should be read as a rough order of magnitude, not an exact figure.
Fonte: Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings (ASHE) — Office for National Statistics.
Pay scale
A published table of fixed pay points or bands that an employer, usually in the public sector, must follow for a given role — for example an NHS band or a police rank. Pay within the scale usually rises with time served rather than being negotiated case by case.
Collective agreement
A pay and conditions deal negotiated between an employer or employer group and a trade union, binding on everyone it covers. Public-sector pay scales are usually set this way, which is why they change on a fixed schedule rather than whenever an individual employer chooses.
Reference period
The point in time, or the stretch of time, that a published figure actually describes. Pay surveys take months to collect and process, so the reference period is usually well before the date the figures are released, and always before the date you are reading them.
Pay statistics glossary — todos os 10 termos.
Source: NHS Employers, Agenda for Change pay scales 2026/27 (England)
Reference period: from 1 April 2026
Data collected on: 7 October 2026
Reference period: April 2025
Data collected on: 7 October 2026
Released 2025-10-22, last revised 2025-12-19. Estimates marked by ONS as having a coefficient of variation above 20% are suppressed and shown here as unavailable.
Figures are statistical averages for a whole group of employees. Your own pay depends on your employer, your experience, your hours and where you work.