How to compare an NHS job with an offer abroad

Start from the offer, not from a salary table. Get the net annual pay in writing if you can, or the gross pay and a tax rate you have checked with the destination's tax authority. Then add what changes hands outside the headline pay: any employer retirement contribution, the healthcare you would have to pay for, and the one-off cost of getting there. Convert the total to pounds at a rate you trust, and compare it with your NHS package built the same way. The calculator does each of those steps and shows the working, so you can see which line is doing the work.

What is counted on each side

• ✓ NHS take-home pay: your band and point (or a custom salary), with income tax, National Insurance, NHS Pension contribution and student loan from the same engine as the NHS Pay Calculator and the 2026/27 pay scales.
• ✓ NHS pension value: one scheme year of 2015 CARE pension (1/54 of pay), valued at 20 times the annual pension earned, the convention used in our pension tools. See the 2015 Scheme guide.
• ✓ Abroad net pay: supplied by you, as a net figure or as gross pay with a verified effective tax rate. We never calculate or default foreign tax.
• ✓ Employer retirement contribution and healthcare cost: optional, from your own offer or research.
• ✓ Move costs: optional one-off GBP costs spread over the years you expect to stay, with a payback figure if the offer pays more.
• ✓ Exchange rate: the one number we supply, dated and editable.

Worked example: how to read the result

Suppose a Band 5, point 2 nurse in England in the NHS Pension Scheme has an offer with a net A$75,000 a year, an employer retirement contribution of A$8,000, A$2,000 a year of healthcare cost and £6,000 of one-off move costs over three years. These are invented numbers to show the method, not a typical salary for any role or country. At 1.9004 Australian dollars to the pound (7 Oct 2026):

For these figures the offer would need to reach about A$71,804 net to match the NHS package once healthcare, retirement contribution and move costs are counted. The point of the break-even figure is that you can hold any other offer against it without redoing the sums.

Exchange rates and why you can edit them

Currency moves can swing a comparison by more than a pay rise, so we show the rate we used, the date and the source, and let you replace it. Rates are mid-market figures for 7 Oct 2026 from ExchangeRate-API's open data, and the tool links to XE so you can check today's. Your bank's rate on the day you transfer money will be less favourable than a mid-market rate, so treat the conversion as a best case.

The move costs most people forget

A one-off cost of a few thousand pounds is easy to overlook when you are comparing yearly pay, and it matters most if you only plan to stay a few years. The usual items are visa and registration fees, assessment or exam fees, flights, shipping, deposits and a few weeks of temporary housing. Add them from official fee pages and real quotes. If you might come back, also think about what leaving costs you here: a deferred pension you stop adding to, and any pay progression you would forgo.

What happens to your NHS pension if you go

With at least two years' qualifying membership your pension is normally kept as a deferred benefit and revalued until you draw it; with less, you are generally entitled to a refund of your own contributions. Our deferred benefits guide explains the rules and the two-year test. Moving the pension to an overseas scheme is a separate and riskier question, covered in transferring your NHS pension abroad. If you are weighing leaving the NHS for the private sector in the UK instead, see leaving the NHS for a private-sector job.

The healthcare cost line

As a UK resident you have access to NHS care free at the point of use. In several popular destinations, healthcare for residents, including healthcare workers and their families, can involve insurance premiums, co-payments or excess that do not exist here in the same way. The calculator subtracts the annual out-of-pocket figure you enter from the abroad side so it is not silently missing from the comparison. If you do not know it yet, finding out is more important than anything else on this page.

Sources and how we calculate

• NHS side: the same 2026/27 pay scales, tax, National Insurance, NHS Pension tiers and 2015 CARE accrual used across FrontlinePay. See our editorial policy for how we source and update figures.
• Exchange rates: ExchangeRate-API open data (daily mid-market), checked 7 Oct 2026; AED and SAR rates follow the pegs to the US dollar.
• Everything else on the abroad side comes from you. Check tax with the destination's tax authority, fees with its regulator and immigration site, and costs with Numbeo-style sites of your own choosing.
• Last updated October 2026.