NHS Rota Calculator: Take-Home Pay for Your Shift Pattern

NHS rota pay examples: what common shift patterns are worth

The same salary produces very different take-home pay depending on when you work. This table runs six common patterns for a full-time Band 5 nurse on Point 2 (£34,592 a year, 2026/27 England scale, no London weighting, NHS Pension included) through the calculator on this page, using the example shift times shown in the tool. Every figure is a typical month, so bank holidays are not included.

Permanent nights are the biggest single lever: at 135 weekday night hours a month plus a Sunday night, the enhancement alone adds £922 a month before tax. The weekend-only pattern works fewer hours (25 a week), so its basic pay is lower, which is why its net figure is not directly comparable. Read our guides to NHS night shift pay and NHS rotation patterns for how these rotas work in practice.

NHS unsocial hours rates by pay band

Unsocial hours enhancements are set nationally in Section 2 of the NHS Terms and Conditions of Service Handbook. NHS Employers publishes the England table, and the percentage depends on your band:

Source: NHS Employers, Unsocial hours payments (Section 2, England). Payments are worked out on basic salary and exclude high cost area supplements, and they apply to staff whose standard hours, within the normal 37.5-hour week, fall at those times. Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland publish their own Section 2, so check the version for your nation.

The lower bands get higher percentages, which is why the band you pick matters. Here is the same mixed pattern (three 12.5-hour long days and nights a week on a three-week cycle) at three bands:

The full explanation of each rate, with worked examples and who it applies to, is in our guide to NHS unsocial hours payments.

How a night shift splits across midnight

Two rules decide what a shift pays. First, each hour counts in the category of the calendar day it falls on, and Sunday or a public holiday takes priority over the night window. Second, when more than half of a night or evening shift that starts on a non-holiday weekday falls between 8pm and 6am, the whole shift qualifies. Here are four 12.5-hour night shifts (19:30 to 08:00, no unpaid break) for a Band 5 nurse on Point 2, whose basic rate is £17.69 an hour:

The Monday and Friday nights qualify in full under the more-than-half rule. The Saturday night is split by the clock, 30% until midnight and 60% from midnight, and the Sunday night starts at 60% and drops to 30% after midnight on Monday because the Monday morning is a weekday night hour. Our midnight worked example walks through the same idea hour by hour.

Bank holidays in the next 12 months

Every hour worked on a public holiday is paid at the top rate (60% for Bands 4 to 9), whether it falls on a weekday or not. The remaining England and Wales bank holidays for 2026 and 2027 on gov.uk are:

• • 2026: Summer bank holiday Monday 31 August, Christmas Day Friday 25 December and the Boxing Day substitute day Monday 28 December
• • 2027: New Year's Day Friday 1 January, Good Friday 26 March, Easter Monday 29 March, early May bank holiday Monday 3 May, spring bank holiday Monday 31 May, summer bank holiday Monday 30 August, and the Christmas Day and Boxing Day substitute days Monday 27 and Tuesday 28 December
• • Scotland has its own list, including St Andrew's Day on 30 November, and Northern Ireland adds St Patrick's Day and 12 July
• • Your leave entitlement is separate from the pay: see NHS bank holiday pay explained for time off in lieu

Whether you are rostered on one depends on where your pattern lands, which is exactly what the Pro calendar view works out. The free tool leaves bank holidays out of a typical month rather than guess.

Why combining before tax is the only correct approach

It is tempting to treat a payslip as three separate payments that are each taxed alone: basic salary, unsocial hours money and overtime. HMRC and the NHS Pension Scheme do not work that way. Every pound you earn shares the same personal allowance, the same National Insurance threshold and the same pension tiers. Your basic pay uses up the bottom of the allowance first, and enhancements and overtime sit on top, taxed at whatever your marginal rate then is.

Worked example: Band 5, Point 2, with 4 nights, 3 Saturdays, 1 Sunday and 6 hours of overtime

A full-time Band 5 nurse on Point 2 (£34,592 a year) works their normal shifts, plus 4 night shifts, 3 Saturdays and 1 Sunday of 7.5 hours each (30 night hours, 22.5 Saturday hours, 7.5 Sunday hours) and 6 hours of overtime at 1.5x.

Taxing the three streams as separate annual incomes instead gives £2,694.80, which is £220.04 more than the correct figure, purely because it hands each stream its own allowance and NI-free band.

Free or Pro: what each version includes

Pro is also included in the FrontlinePay Pro subscription, which unlocks every paid tool.

How we calculate this, and what it cannot tell you

• ✓ Basic pay is your band and point salary pro-rated to your contracted hours, using the same 52.143-week year as our NHS Pay Calculator
• ✓ Enhancements follow Section 2: the percentage for your band applied to your basic hourly rate for hours in each window, with the more-than-half rule for weekday night and evening shifts
• ✓ Tax, National Insurance, NHS Pension (2026/27 tiers) and student loan are worked out once on the combined gross pay using the same engine as the main Pay Calculator
• ✓ Shift times in the builder are examples, not national standards, and an unpaid break is assumed to fall mid-shift: edit them to match your rota
• ✓ Bank holiday dates come from gov.uk; the real-calendar view uses the England and Wales list for England, Wales and Northern Ireland and the Scottish list for Scotland
• ✓ Runs entirely in your browser; saved answers stay on your device and can be cleared in one tap

Sources: NHS Employers, Unsocial hours payments; NHS Terms and Conditions of Service Handbook; gov.uk bank holidays; gov.uk income tax rates.