NHS nurses to receive 3.3% pay rise in April

NHS nurses on Agenda for Change contracts in England and Wales will receive a 3.3% pay rise for 2026/27, it has been announced.

Health and social care secretary Wes Streeting said the increase would be in nurses’ pay packets from April ‘for the first time in six years’.

‘We have listened to the workforce and understand the difficulties they face when pay awards are not delivered on time,’ he added.

Mr Streeting said the government had accepted the NHS Pay Review Body’s recommendations ‘in full’ and that this year’s award was ‘above the government’s affordability’.

He added that as part of an overall Agenda for Change pay package for 2026/27, the government will, with trade unions, ‘agree and implement funded improvements’ to the pay structure.

‘These talks will build upon discussions held to date exploring the feasibility of multi-year arrangements, and separate funding will be made available for these reforms as committed to in response to the 2025/26 [pay review body] recommendation on pay structure reform,’ said Mr Streeting.

‘Once agreed, the reforms will deliver additional pay increases for some staff that will be effective from, and backdated to, 1 April 2026.’

Most nurses working in general practice are not on Agenda for Change contracts and are employed independently by their GP practice, meaning today’s announcement will not apply.

A report by the Review Body on Doctors’ and Dentists’ (DDRB), which makes pay recommendations for GPs and salaried practice staff including GPNs, has not yet been published.

The announcement comes after the Westminster government revealed on Wednesday that NHS nurses on Agenda for Change contracts will receive a ‘career boost’ under plans agreed with health unions that include increased graduate nurse pay and a review of Band 5 nurse roles.

The news has sparked disappointment among primary care nurses who say an ‘essential’ part of the nursing workforce has been excluded, and that doing so could damage recruitment and retention efforts in general practice.

‘An insult’

Today unions have reacted with disappointment at the government’s 3.3% pay award for 2026/27.

Royal College of Nursing (RCN) general secretary and chief executive, Professor Nicola Ranger, described the pay award as ‘an insult’.

She said: ‘Unless inflation falls, the government is forcing a very real pay cut on its NHS workers. This knife-edge gameplaying is no way to treat people who prop up a system in crisis.

‘We will compare and contrast this announcement with the awards for the rest of the NHS and the public sector as a whole before deciding a way forward. Nursing staff will not tolerate the disrespect of other years, when we were bottom of the pile.

‘The evidence is clear about the impact low pay and poor working conditions are having on our profession. Morale is at a historic low and nursing staff, who feel deeply undervalued, are being driven away from the NHS.’

NHS staff ‘downright angry’

Unison’s head of health, Helga Pile, added that ‘hard-pressed’ NHS staff will be ‘downright angry’ at the ‘below-inflation’ pay award.

‘Yet again, they’re expected to keep delivering more while effectively being given less, as pay slides behind living costs,’ she said.

‘Having an increase on time for once is only small comfort.’

She added that the government ‘promised’ to reform the Agenda for Change pay structure 18 months ago, causing staff to become ‘fed up’.

‘Until further talks are successfully concluded, NHS workers are in the dark about who’ll benefit and by how much,’ she said.

‘For staff to have any confidence that the government is serious about funding further rises, they need far more detail.

‘So far there are only pledges to include improvements for low-paid workers and staff in graduate professional pay bands.

‘For that to mean anything the government must now clear the decks to set up proper talks with serious money on the table. And get on with it fast.’

This is a breaking news story, more to follow