Doctor Salary UK 2026: What Doctors Earn at Every Grade, From FY1 to Consultant

What doctors earn in the UK at every grade, from FY1 to consultant, by year and by month before tax, with GP pay, the 2026/27 pay award and the June 2026 BMA offer explained.

By Tony Musso on Fri Jun 19 2026

A medical doctor in England starts on about £38,800 a year as a first-year foundation doctor (FY1), which is roughly £3,240 a month before tax. Basic pay climbs at each stage of training to about £77,700 for a senior registrar, and consultants earn about £109,700 to £145,500. Those are the 2025/26 national rates. For 2026/27 the government has accepted a 3.5% pay award, and a separate offer to the BMA in June 2026 would raise starting pay further if it is agreed.

This page is the overview: what doctors earn at every grade, by year and by month, how GP pay differs, and what the 2026 changes mean. If you want the detail of the resident (junior) doctor contract, including rotas and how extra hours are paid, read our resident doctor salary guide.

Doctor salary UK at a glance

Basic pay for doctors in England on the 2025/26 national scale. Monthly figures are the annual figure divided by 12, before tax, National Insurance and pension.

Two points before you compare these with a job advert. First, this is basic pay for a standard week. Hospital doctors who work nights, weekends and extra rostered hours are paid more on top, so actual earnings are usually higher. Second, these are England's rates. Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland set their own pay, covered further down.

FY1 doctor salary: what a new doctor earns

FY1 is the first paid year after graduating from medical school, and the year you need to complete to get full registration with the General Medical Council. On the 2025/26 scale an FY1 doctor in England earns £38,831 basic, about £3,240 a month before tax.

Most FY1s take home more than the basic figure suggests, because their rota usually includes some nights, weekends and hours above the standard 40-hour week, all paid as extras. Your work schedule, which the trust sends before you start, shows exactly which extras apply to your post.

FY2 brings the first pay rise of your career, to £44,439 (about £3,700 a month). After that, the next jump comes when you start core or specialty training.

Salary of a junior doctor in the UK

"Junior doctor" is still the phrase most people search for, but in England these doctors are now called resident doctors. It covers everyone below consultant or GP level, from FY1 to a senior registrar with ten or more years of experience, so "junior doctor salary" can mean anything from about £38,800 to about £77,700 basic.

Resident doctors in England are paid by nodal point, a pay level tied to your stage of training rather than how many years you have worked. You move up a nodal point when you progress to the next stage of training, not automatically each year. That is why a doctor who takes a year out of training, or works in a non-training post, can stay on the same basic pay for a while.

Our resident doctor salary guide covers this group in depth, including each pay element of the contract and how to read your work schedule.

Consultant doctor salary UK

Consultants are the senior doctors who lead a team and take overall responsibility for patients in their specialty. You can apply for consultant posts once you hold a Certificate of Completion of Training (CCT) and are on the GMC Specialist Register.

On the 2025/26 scale, consultant basic pay in England runs from about £109,700 to £145,500, roughly £9,140 to £12,130 a month before tax. Consultants move up the scale with years in post. Many add to basic pay with extra programmed activities, clinical excellence or local awards, and private practice outside their NHS contract.

What about GPs?

GPs are paid differently from hospital doctors because most surgeries are independent businesses that hold an NHS contract.

• GP trainees are paid on the resident doctor scale while they train, starting from nodal point 3.
• Salaried GPs are employees of a practice, usually paid within a BMA-recommended range.
• GP partners share the practice's profits, so their income varies the most.
• Locum GPs set their own session rates and arrange their own pension and indemnity.

We cover GP pay in its own guide, GP salary in the UK, and trainee pay in how much GP trainees earn.

SAS doctors

Specialty and specialist (SAS) doctors are experienced doctors who are neither in training nor consultants. They have their own national contracts, and the specialist grade, introduced in 2021, offers a senior non-consultant career with pay that reaches into the lower end of the consultant range. Many doctors choose SAS posts for steadier hours or to stay in one hospital.

Doctor pay in 2026/27: the 3.5% award and the BMA offer

Two things have happened in 2026 that affect these figures.

The 3.5% award. For 2026/27 the government accepted the Doctors' and Dentists' Remuneration Review Body's recommended pay award of 3.5%, effective from 1 April 2026 (announced on GOV.UK, with pay circulars from NHS Employers). Once your employer has applied it, basic pay is about 3.5% above the 2025/26 figures in the table, with back pay for any months already paid at the old rate. Check the latest NHS Employers pay circular for the exact new rates.

The June 2026 offer to the BMA. Separately, the government put an offer to the BMA in June 2026 that proposes reforming the nodal points for resident doctors. Under the offer, FY1 basic pay would rise to £41,226 and FY2 to £47,610. This is an offer, not settled pay: it only takes effect if it is accepted, and acceptance had not been confirmed when we last updated this page. Until it is, the 2025/26 scale plus the 3.5% award is what doctors are paid.

How much do doctors earn in the UK in total?

Basic pay is the floor, not the full picture. For hospital doctors in England, total pay usually includes some of these:

• Extra rostered hours above the standard 40-hour week
• A night enhancement for hours worked at night
• A weekend allowance, higher the more often you work weekends
• An on-call allowance if you are on call from home
• London weighting if you work in or near London
• Flexible pay premia for some hard-to-fill specialties, including general practice

Because rotas vary so much, two doctors at the same grade can earn quite different amounts. The headline award also affects these extras unevenly: enhancements worked out as a percentage of basic pay rise with it, but fixed allowances may not.

Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland

Health is devolved, so each nation sets its own pay for doctors. Scotland pays resident doctors on a different structure from England, and the size and timing of pay awards in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland can differ. Grades and training stages are broadly similar across the UK, but check the current scale for the nation you will work in rather than using England's figures.

What comes off a doctor's pay

The monthly figures above are before deductions. From each payslip you lose:

• Income tax and National Insurance, as for any employee
• NHS Pension contributions, set on a tiered scale by pensionable pay, in exchange for a defined benefit pension with a large employer contribution
• Professional costs such as the annual GMC fee, royal college membership and exams during training, many of which you can claim tax relief on

Is medicine worth it for the money?

Medicine pays well over a whole career and offers strong job security, but the money comes late. You spend five or six years at medical school, usually funded by student loans, then several years on training rotas before registrar and consultant pay. Specialty choice changes both how long you train and what you can earn.

If you are weighing medicine against other options, our doctor career guide sets out how long it takes and each route, and you can compare pay across hundreds of jobs in UK salaries by career. Health careers with shorter training include physiotherapist, paramedic and nurse.

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