Correspondence

Resident doctors pay award 2025 to 2026: investing in our medical workforce

Published 22 May 2025

Applies to England

I’m pleased to announce that resident doctors will receive an average pay rise of 5.4% for 2025 to 2026 - comprising a 4% rise plus a £750 consolidated payment. This represents the highest pay award across the public sector this year.

This builds significantly on last year’s pay deal, which resident doctors voted to accept. It means you have now seen an average increase in pay of 28.9% over the last 3 years - meaningful progress in recognising the value of your work.

Following this increase, we expect the average full-time basic pay for resident doctors to reach approximately £54,300 in 2025 to 2026.

I want to continue rebuilding the relationship with the resident doctor profession and work collaboratively to improve the experience of resident doctors in the NHS.

Getting your money faster

I understand how important it is that pay rises are delivered promptly:

• you’ll receive the increase in your pay packets from August - 2 months earlier than last year
• your pay uplift will be backdated to 1 April 2025
• we will start next year’s pay round in July this year, with an ambition to implement next year’s pay rise as soon as possible in 2026 to 2027

Funding that protects frontline services

The Chancellor has been clear that departments need to find savings to afford these pay awards. I’m proud that we’re fully funding this award by eliminating waste and low-value spending across the health service sector, including reducing NHS England headcount.

Every penny saved is being redirected to invest in the frontline, including staff pay. None of these pay increases will be funded by cutting frontline services.

Transforming working conditions

I know that pay is not the only issue and there is more to do to make the NHS an attractive place to work. That’s why we’re also implementing crucial reforms to improve your working lives:

• reforming exception reporting to make it easier to report additional hours worked and safety concerns
• taking further steps to improve the working lives of resident doctors, such as reducing pay roll errors, ensuring work schedules and rotas are provided on time, and that time is not wasted repeating statutory and mandatory training when rotating
• launching the postgraduate training review, overseen by Sir Chris Whitty, to improve the working lives of resident doctors, and enhance career progression and flexibility
• introducing the Employment Rights Bill to ensure fair pay, promote equality and address one-sided flexibility

Working in partnership

Together with NHS staff, we’ve already delivered over 3.5 million more appointments and cut waiting lists by over 200,000 since July 2024.

This progress shows what we can achieve when working in genuine partnership. I’m committed to resetting industrial relations and working alongside you to create a healthcare system that works for both staff and patients.

Thank you for your extraordinary commitment to the NHS.

Wes Streeting
Secretary of State for Health and Social Care