Agenda for Change
NHS band 8c pay
Band 8c in England pays £79,504 to £91,609 a year in 2026/27. All four UK nations publish a band 8c scale, and they do not match — each row below is labelled with its own nation and pay year.
Band 8c pay points, nation by nation
Annual full-time rates as published in each nation's Agenda for Change circular. The pay year is not the same everywhere, so it is stated on every row.
| Nation | Pay year | Entry | Point 2 | Top | Top of band |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| England | 2026/27 | £79,504 | £84,346 | £91,609 | £91,609 |
| Northern Ireland | 2025/26 | £76,965 | £81,652 | £88,682 | £88,682 |
| Scotland | 2026/27 | £90,808 | £97,338 | £97,338 | |
| Wales | 2026/27 | £80,698 | £85,611 | £92,984 | £92,984 |
Uplifts applied to these scales: England 3.3% for 2026/27, Northern Ireland 3.6% for 2025/26, Scotland 3.75% for 2026/27 and Wales 3.3% for 2026/27 . Agenda for Change scales are uplifted each April, and an award agreed later in the year is backdated to 1 April.
What a band 8c post actually is
Band 8c is senior management: a head of therapies across a large trust or health board, or a very senior consultant practitioner. Clinical time is usually a small part of the week.
The band is attached to the post, not to you. Job evaluation matches the job description against national profiles, so two people doing genuinely different work in the same team can sit at different bands, and moving employer at the same band means no change in basic pay at all. That is the practical reason people compare bands rather than salaries when they look at NHS jobs.
Coming from band 8b: the top of band 8b in England is £77,368 and band 8c starts at £79,504, so a promotion taken at the top of the band below is a smaller immediate rise than the gap between the two starting salaries suggests — what you gain is the ceiling you are moving under. Where you land within band 8c depends on the employer's assessment of relevant experience, and starting above the bottom point is possible but not automatic.
Everything on this page is basic pay. Unsocial hours enhancements, on-call payments and any high cost area supplement sit on top; the NHS pension contribution, income tax and National Insurance come off. For a benchmark outside the NHS, median gross annual pay for full-time workers in United Kingdom was £39,039 in 2025 — a whole-economy figure across all occupations, not a health one.
- Pay structure
- NHS Agenda for Change
- Pay year shown
- 2025/26 and 2026/27
- Pay points
- 3
- Uplifted
- Each April, following the NHS Pay Review Body recommendation
- Effective from
- 1 April 2026
Band 8c with London weighting
Posts in and around London attract a high cost area supplement on top of basic pay. The uplifted figures below are calculated by this site: the published band 8c range for England (2026/27) plus the published percentage for each zone, with the published minimum and maximum applied.
| Zone | Supplement | Floor and cap | Starting, with supplement | Top of band, with supplement |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Outside the zones | None | None | £79,504 | £91,609 |
| Inner London | 20% | £5,794–£8,746 | £88,250 | £100,355 |
| Outer London | 15% | £4,870–£6,137 | £85,641 | £97,746 |
| Fringe | 5% | £1,346–£2,270 | £81,774 | £93,879 |
Calculation: basic pay plus 20% for Inner London, 15% for Outer London and 5% for Fringe, where the supplement cannot fall below the published minimum or rise above the published maximum for the zone. At the bottom of the lower bands the floor is what actually applies, which is why the percentage alone will not reproduce these figures. Supplement values are for 2026/27 and apply in England only.
Band 8c by profession
The scale is identical whichever allied health profession you are in — what differs is what the post involves and how many band 8c jobs exist in that service.
Band 8c art therapist
What band 8c means in art therapist practice.
Band 8c diagnostic radiographer
What band 8c means in diagnostic radiographer practice.
Band 8c dietitian
What band 8c means in dietitian practice.
Band 8c dramatherapist
What band 8c means in dramatherapist practice.
Band 8c music therapist
What band 8c means in music therapist practice.
Band 8c occupational therapist
What band 8c means in occupational therapist practice.
Band 8c operating department practitioner
What band 8c means in operating department practitioner practice.
Band 8c orthoptist
What band 8c means in orthoptist practice.
Band 8c osteopath
What band 8c means in osteopath practice.
Band 8c paramedic
What band 8c means in paramedic practice.
Band 8c physiotherapist
What band 8c means in physiotherapist practice.
Band 8c podiatrist
What band 8c means in podiatrist practice.
Band 8c prosthetist/orthotist
What band 8c means in prosthetist/orthotist practice.
Band 8c speech and language therapist
What band 8c means in speech and language therapist practice.
Band 8c therapeutic radiographer
What band 8c means in therapeutic radiographer practice.
Neighbouring bands
- Band 8b — From £66,582 in England
- Band 8d — From £94,356 in England
- All bands and the full scales — Every nation, every band
Next
- Find band-level vacancies — Job market by profession
- The professions — What each job involves
- Funding while you train — Before the first payslip
- England pay scale — 2026/27
- Northern Ireland pay scale — 2025/26
- Scotland pay scale — 2026/27
- Wales pay scale — 2026/27
Where this page’s data comes from
Pay values are the numeric rates published in each nation's Agenda for Change circular. Figures shown with a high cost area supplement are calculated by this site from those published rates and the published supplement percentages.
- Agenda for Change pay scales and NHS terms and conditions handbookNHS Employers (NHS Confederation) · No open licence stated; NHS Employers copyright · checked 3 September 2026
- ONS Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings (ASHE) via NomisOffice for National Statistics, delivered by Nomis (Durham University) · Open Government Licence v3.0 · checked 3 September 2026Source: Office for National Statistics licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0.
- health-ni.gov.ukCited page
- bso.hscni.netCited page
- publications.scot.nhs.ukCited page
- nhs.walesCited page