Diagnostic radiographer at North Cumbria Integrated Care NHS Foundation Trust

The job at North Cumbria Integrated Care NHS Foundation Trust

Diagnostic radiographers produce and interpret the medical images that let clinicians see inside the body. They operate X-ray equipment, CT and MRI scanners, fluoroscopy, ultrasound and nuclear medicine cameras, positioning patients accurately, justifying and optimising radiation dose and checking image quality. The work mixes technical precision with fast-moving patient care, from trauma imaging in the emergency department to theatre, wards, clinics and screening programmes. Experienced radiographers report images, lead ultrasound lists and take on advanced practice roles. Patients of all ages, from newborns to older people, who need imaging for diagnosis, screening, monitoring or image-guided treatment, including trauma, cancer, cardiac and emergency patients.

At an integrated care organisation such as North Cumbria Integrated Care NHS Foundation Trust, that work means a caseload that can cross the ward, the outpatient clinic and the patient’s home inside a single organisation, because acute and community services sit under one employer. Rotations can follow the pathway rather than the building, so you can see the same patient group in hospital and at home without applying for a different job. Across the profession as a whole, diagnostic radiographers work in settings including NHS acute trust imaging department, emergency department, operating theatres, CT and MRI units and nuclear medicine — an organisation of this type will run some of those services and not others, which is why two posts with the same job title in the same city can be very different jobs.

Pay is not an employer decision. Agenda for Change is negotiated nationally and set separately in each of the four nations, so North Cumbria Integrated Care NHS Foundation Trust pays band 5 exactly what every other NHS employer in England pays it: £32,073 at the bottom of the band on the 2026/27 scale. For context, median full-time pay across all occupations in the North West was £37,361 in 2025. What genuinely differs between two employers is the caseload, how rotations are structured, how much protected time you get for supervision and continuing professional development, how much band 6 progression is built into the establishment, and how far you travel between sites. Those are the questions worth asking at interview.