NHS nurses in England and Wales are set to receive a 3.6% pay rise for 2025/26, it has been announced.
Governments in both England and Wales have today accepted the pay recommendations of the NHS Pay Review Body which is applicable to Agenda for Change (AfC) nurses, health visitors, midwives and other health professionals.
The government in England said a 3.6% rise would see the starting salary of an NHS nurse increase ‘from £27,055 in 2022/2023 to around £31,050 this year – an increase of around £4,000 over the last three years’.
But the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) warned the pay award does not go far enough and would be ‘entirely swallowed up by inflation’.
Professor Nicola Ranger said 3.6% would do ‘nothing to change the status quo – where nursing is not valued, too few enter it and too many quit’.
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Separately, the governments in both England and Wales have confirmed a 4% uplift for GPs, which should also be passed onto salaried general practice staff, including general practice nurses (GPNs).
Resident doctors, formerly known as junior doctors, will see their pay rise by an average of 5.4% (a 4% rise plus a consolidated payment of £750).
All pay uplifts will be backdated to April 1 and should appear in pay packets from August – two months earlier than last year and the earliest award in years, the government said.
It has also been announced that the NHS Staff Council will undertake a ‘pay structure reform next year to resolve outstanding concerns about banding within the AfC pay structure’.
Unison’s head of health Helga Pile recognised that the awards were more than the 2.8% increases the government had originally planned for 2025/26, but said the rise was both late and still not enough.
‘The pay rise is more than ministers said they could afford, but it barely matches inflation. The money will also be landing in pay packets four months late,’ she said.
‘Health workers had high hopes this government would have learned from the mistakes of its predecessors.
‘But a reliance on the slow, outdated and unnecessary pay review body process has once again failed to deliver.’
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Unite general secretary Sharon Graham also criticised the government’s decision to award professions differently.
‘NHS workers, who were on the frontline during the pandemic, are still suffering from historic pay cuts in real terms over the last fifteen years and are contending with a worsening cost-of-living crisis,’ she said.
‘Treating public sector workers differently, while not dealing with the long term pay erosion suffered by NHS and other public sector workers, is storing up inevitable unrest and pushes morale to rock bottom.’
Announcing the awards today, health and social care secretary Wes Streeting said: ‘These are thoroughly deserved pay rises for all our hard-working nurses, doctors and other NHS staff.
‘We inherited a broken health service with extremely low morale after years of pay erosion and poor industrial relations.
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‘Which is why, despite the difficult financial situation the nation faces, we are backing our health workers with above-inflation pay rises for the second year in a row.’
He added: ‘This government was never going to be able to fully reverse a decade and a half of neglect in under a year, but this year’s pay increases – and last year’s – represent significant progress in making sure that NHS staff are properly recognised for the outstanding work they do.’
Last week, NHS nurses in Scotland voted to accept the government’s 8% NHS pay offer for 2025/26 and 2026/27.
