Public sector workers including nurses, prison officers, civil servants, members of the armed forces, doctors and teachers have been offered above-inflation pay rises of between 3.25% and 4.5%.
It comes after the government accepted recommendations from pay review bodies higher than the 2.8% it previously budgeted for. Unions had argued that 2.8% was too low.
Health secretary Wes Streeting said he had accepted pay recommendations for NHS staff from the NHS Pay Review Body (NHSPRB), the Review Body on Doctors and Dentists Remuneration (DDRB), and the Senior Salaries Review Body (SSRB). He said the “awards are above forecast inflation over the 2025-26 pay year, meaning that the government is delivering a real-terms pay rise, on top of the one provided last year, underlining the extent to which we value our nurses, doctors, and other NHS staff.”
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Resident doctors (formerly junior doctors) will receive 5.4%, doctors 4% and nurses and other health care staff on Agenda for Change contracts, 3.6%.
Streeting acknowledged that to maintain financial prudence, there would be “difficult decisions” on other areas of spending to afford these uplifts.
Unions were critical of the pay rises, as they did not restore salary value to what it was in previous decades.
Professor Nicola Ranger, head of the Royal College of Nursing, warned last week that nurses could strike again. She said in response to the 3.6% rise: “It is a grotesque decision to again favour doctor colleagues for higher increases than nursing and the rest of the NHS.”
Resident doctors in England had already announced dates for a ballot for renewed strikes and industrial action over pay.
The British Medical Association’s resident doctor committee said earlier this month it had chosen to ballot its members for strike action. This is scheduled to open on 27 May and close on 7 July.
The British Dental Association also criticised the deal and said the 4% dentists had been offered was too little to “halt the exodus from NHS dentistry”.
Shabana Mahmood, the justice secretary, said she had not accepted the recommendation from the Senior Salaries Review Body, despite acknowledging the judiciary’s recruitment and retention problem. The body said judges should get a 4.75% pay rise in 2025-26, but Mahmood said they would receive 4%. She said this “strikes a balance between addressing SSRB’s advice and managing the overall affordability to my department”. Prison officers would also receive 4% in line with the recommendation from the Prison Service Pay Review Body.
The award recognises the crucial value of teachers in our society and will help to improve teacher recruitment and retention” – Jack Worth, NFER
Bridget Phillipson, the education secretary, said teachers would get a 4% pay rise, but schools would have to fund a quarter of this from their own budgets, much of which would come from an extra £615 million being made available to them. She said school teachers have seen an “increase in their pay of almost 10% since this government took power and over 22% over the last four years”, adding the rise would provide a competitive starting salary of almost £33,000, with the average teacher now gaining a salary of over £51,000 from September.
Jack Worth, school workforce lead for the National Foundation for Educational Research, said the charity welcomed the 4% award “as it recognises the crucial value of teachers in our society and will help to improve teacher recruitment and retention”.
He warned, however, that requiring schools to find efficiencies to fund some of this pay rise would put extra strain on school budgets that are already very tight.
“We encourage the government to make additional funding available at the spending review for schools over this parliament to deliver the 6,500 teacher pledge and support schools to provide a high-quality education for all pupils.”
Worth also said it was happy to see an additional £160m for further education colleges and providers, as “this could enable FE teacher pay to keep pace with teacher pay and avoid falling further behind in competitiveness than it already is.”
Members of the armed forces have been offered 4.5%. Last year they received a 6% pay rise, their largest increase in 22 years.
Civil servants including at ministerial departments, non-ministerial departments, agencies, non-departmental public bodies and arm’s length bodies have been offered 3.25%. PCS general secretary Fran Heathcote said: “While we have shifted the government in talks from its original proposal of 2.8%, we’re disappointed with the headline figure of 3.25% as inflation hits 3.5%.
Labour ended long-running public sector strikes last summer by accepting recommended pay rises between 4.75% and 6% for last year leading to accusations from the Conservative opposition that they had lost control of public sector pay.
TUC general secretary Paul Nowak did not address the individual claims and awards of various groups of workers but said: “Unions want to work with the government to address the recruitment and retention crisis gripping our public services. A crisis caused by 14 years of Conservative mismanagement and deliberate underinvestment.
“That means getting around the table to develop workforce plans for every area of the public sector.
“Ministers need to talk directly to unions to address the root causes behind dedicated and experienced public servants quitting their professions.
“And we need a clear, jointly agreed long-term strategy to improve public sector pay, alongside other crucial issues such as better working hours, more manageable workloads, and enhanced flexible working options.”
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