Allied Health Professions

Job market

Diagnostic radiographer jobs in the UK

Diagnostic radiographers usually start on NHS band 5, which pays £32,073 in England for 2026/27, 173 NHS organisations of the kinds that employ them sit across 12 regions and nations. What a first post involves, who hires in each region, what it pays there, and where the vacancies are actually advertised.

Band 5 entryHCPC registration required
£32,073 Band 5 starting salary England, 2026/27, before London weighting
£39,043 Top of band 5 England, 2026/27
48,437 On the UK register Shared register part. As at 1 April 2025
16,651 FTE Published NHS workforce Across the 135 employers that publish a return
67 Approved courses The pipeline feeding this labour market

What a first diagnostic radiographer post looks like

Almost every newly qualified diagnostic radiographer post in the NHS is advertised at band 5, and band 5 means the same thing everywhere: £32,073 at the bottom of the band rising to £39,043 at the top in England for 2026/27. Employers cannot pay above the band to compete for you, so what actually differs between two adverts at the same band is the work, the supervision and the place.

A first post is usually rotational. You are appointed to the department rather than to one clinical area, and you move through a fixed sequence of placements — commonly general and trauma radiography, fluoroscopy, theatre and mobile imaging, then computed tomography and magnetic resonance imaging once you are competent in the basics — spending a set spell in each before moving on. The point of it is breadth: you finish the rotation having practised across the range, which is what lets you choose a specialty at band 6 on the basis of experience rather than guesswork. It also means the size and case mix of the employer matters more than the wording of the advert. A large acute trust can offer rotations that a small organisation simply does not hold.

Whichever shape the post takes, the first year is a preceptorship year in all but name. Most employers run a structured programme for newly qualified staff — protected supervision, a competency framework and a named practice educator — and the quality of that programme varies far more between organisations than the pay does. It is a fair thing to ask about before you accept, and a better basis for choosing than the job title.

What it pays across the four nations

Each nation publishes its own Agenda for Change circular, so the figures diverge. Registration is UK-wide, so these are genuinely comparable options.

Agenda for Change pay for the bands a diagnostic radiographer works through
Nation Pay year Band 5 start Band 6 start Band 7 top
England 2026/27 £32,073 £39,959 £56,515
Northern Ireland 2025/26 £31,049 £38,682 £54,710
Scotland 2026/27 £34,544 £43,231 £61,466
Wales 2026/27 £32,557 £40,559 £57,365

Posts in the Inner London high cost area zone add 20% of basic pay on top , with a floor of £5,794 and a ceiling of £8,746 (2026/27). See the London page for how that changes the comparison.

Regulator
Health and Care Professions Council
Protected title
Radiographer and Diagnostic radiographer
Usual entry band
Band 5
SOC 2020 code
2254
Common settings
NHS acute trust imaging department, emergency department, operating theatres, CT and MRI units and nuclear medicine

Where the employers are

NHS organisations of a type that employs diagnostic radiographers, the approved courses in the same region, and what band 5 pays under that nation’s pay circular. Imaging departments sit in organisations with acute or specialist services; community and mental health trusts rarely hold their own imaging.

Diagnostic radiographer employers, courses and pay by region
Region Nation NHS organisations Approved courses Published workforce (FTE) Band 5 start Median full-time pay
North West England 24 6 2,682 £32,073 £37,361
London England 21 4 2,925 £32,073 £49,692
Scotland Scotland 21 7 Not published £34,544 £39,719
South East England 20 9 2,315 £32,073 £39,983
West Midlands England 16 5 1,883 £32,073 £37,064
Yorkshire and The Humber England 14 8 1,705 £32,073 £35,682
East of England England 13 5 1,684 £32,073 £38,597
South West England 13 11 1,262 £32,073 £37,195
Wales Wales 11 2 Not published £32,557 £35,796
East Midlands England 8 6 1,359 £32,073 £35,600
North East England 7 3 837 £32,073 £34,403
Northern Ireland Northern Ireland 5 1 Not published £31,049 £37,052

Organisation counts are the NHS bodies in the dataset whose type plausibly employs this profession. They are not vacancy counts, and a large organisation may hold many posts while a small one holds none. The full-time equivalent column sums only the organisations that publish a workforce return for this profession, so it is a floor rather than a total. Median full-time pay is the ONS whole-economy figure for the region, not an NHS figure — it is here as the benchmark to read a band against.

Workforce and earnings, UK-wide

These are national figures. Nothing published at profession level is broken down by region, so they set the scale of the labour market rather than describing any one part of it.

Published workforce and earnings figures for diagnostic radiographers
Measure Value Geography As at
HCPC registrants on the 'Radiographers' part of the Register (all application routes) - a single register part shared by radiographer, diagnostic-radiographer, therapeutic-radiographer, so this count is not specific to one designated title Shared 48,437 United Kingdom (HCPC Register; includes registrants trained outside the UK) 1 April 2025
HCPC registrants on the 'Radiographers' part of the Register (all application routes) - a single register part shared by radiographer, diagnostic-radiographer, therapeutic-radiographer, so this count is not specific to one designated title 48,437 United Kingdom (HCPC Register; includes registrants trained outside the UK) 1 April 2025
People in employment in the UK in SOC 2020 unit group 2254 (Medical radiographers), Annual Population Survey estimate Shared 44,200 United Kingdom 31 March 2026
People in employment in the UK in SOC 2020 unit group 2254 (Medical radiographers), Annual Population Survey estimate 44,200 United Kingdom 31 March 2026
Median gross annual pay, full-time employee jobs (ASHE Table 14.7a, SOC 2020 2254) Shared £48,439 United Kingdom 2025
Mean gross annual pay, full-time employee jobs (ASHE Table 14.7a, SOC 2020 2254) Shared £48,354 United Kingdom 2025
Median gross annual pay, full-time employee jobs (ASHE Table 14.7a, SOC 2020 2254) £48,439 United Kingdom 2025
Mean gross annual pay, full-time employee jobs (ASHE Table 14.7a, SOC 2020 2254) £48,354 United Kingdom 2025

The ONS median of £48,439 for full-time employees covers every sector, not the NHS alone, and it covers everyone in the occupation rather than people at the start of it. Read next to the band 5 starting figure of £32,073, it tells you something useful: the gap between the two is roughly what career progression through the bands is worth, because most people in this occupation are several years past their first post. The register count is shared with the other professions in the same register part (Radiographers (diagnostic and therapeutic combined)), so it cannot be read as a count of diagnostic radiographers.

Where the actual vacancies are

This page carries no live adverts. The NHS Jobs adverts API is authenticated and publishes no terms of reuse, and the commercial aggregators attach conditions an open-data site cannot meet honestly, so rather than show you a partial or stale list, here is where employers actually post diagnostic radiographers vacancies.

NHS Jobs

Search "Radiographer" and filter by band. This is where NHS England trusts advertise, and for most of them it is the only place.

England

HealthJobsUK / Trac

The recruitment system many trusts and health boards run on. Search it separately — it does not mirror NHS Jobs, and some organisations post only here.

EnglandWales

NHS Scotland recruitment

One shared national system for all NHS Scotland boards. Scottish posts do not appear on NHS Jobs at all.

Scotland

HSC Recruitment

Health and Social Care Northern Ireland recruits centrally for the six HSC trusts and the ambulance service.

Northern Ireland

Society and College of Radiographers

The professional body for diagnostic radiographers. Professional bodies carry specialist and non-NHS vacancies that never reach a general board, alongside preceptorship and first-post guidance for new registrants.

SoR

Find an apprenticeship

An apprenticeship is a job, so it is advertised as a vacancy rather than listed as a course. One standard lead to registration by this route.

England

More on diagnostic radiographers

Job markets for related professions

Where this page’s data comes from

Vacancy sources are listed because this page describes their licence position. No live advert content is republished here.