NHS Wales Pay Scales 2026/27: Full Bands

If you're searching for "NHS Wales pay scales" or "is Welsh NHS pay different," the answer is yes: Wales publishes its own Agenda for Change pay scales, set by the Welsh Government because health is a devolved matter. This page gives the full 2026/27 table and explains how it relates to England's.

For how the national system works across the four nations, see what Agenda for Change is.

NHS Wales Agenda for Change pay scale 2026/27

Every figure below is from the Welsh Government pay letter AfC(W) 02/2026 (12 February 2026) as amended by its correction to Band 3 (1 June 2026), both published on the NHS Wales website. Band 1 is closed to new entrants. Wales has no High Cost Area Supplement. The full-time week remains 37.5 hours.

Bands 2 and 3 progress after two years on a point, Band 4 after three; for Bands 5 to 9 the letter sets two years on the entry point and two or three on the intermediate point depending on the band. The Welsh Government also raised the sleeping-in and on-call allowances by 3.3% (on-call weekday/weekend £26.05, on-call public holiday £52.08, sleeping-in £44.82).

Why "is Wales different" is a reasonable question to ask

It's a sensible thing to check, not a strange one. Health policy in the UK has been devolved since 1999, meaning the Welsh Government — not Westminster — is legally responsible for the NHS in Wales, in the same way the Scottish Government is responsible for NHS Scotland. Given that Scotland has used its devolved powers to build a genuinely separate, restructured pay spine with its own negotiation timetable, it's entirely reasonable to wonder whether Wales has done something similar. It hasn't — at least not for Agenda for Change basic pay — and understanding why is more useful than just being told the figures happen to match.

What is the same as England

England and Wales both accepted the NHS Pay Review Body's 3.3% recommendation for 2026/27, confirmed on 12 February 2026, and both applied it from 1 April 2026. The bands, the job evaluation scheme and the Agenda for Change terms and conditions handbook (unsocial hours rates, sick pay, annual leave and so on) are shared. For medical staff, consultants and SAS doctors in Wales follow the DDRB track, and resident doctors' pay is negotiated with the BMA separately.

What is not the same is the cash value of each pay point, which is why you should use the Welsh table above for a Welsh post and the England table for an English one.

What's genuinely different: how NHS Wales is organised

Where Wales does look structurally different from England is in how NHS services are actually organised and delivered — this affects who you'd apply to, not what you're paid. NHS Wales is built around seven Local Health Boards (such as Cardiff and Vale, Betsi Cadwaladr, and Aneurin Bevan), each responsible for the full range of hospital, community and primary care services across a defined geographic area. That's a meaningfully different model from England, where hospital services, community services and increasingly integrated care are often split across several separate Trusts covering overlapping areas. Wales also has a small number of all-Wales NHS Trusts and special health authorities — covering functions like the Welsh Ambulance Service and Public Health Wales — that operate nationally rather than for a single geographic patch, sitting alongside the seven geographic Health Boards rather than replacing them.

If you're comparing job adverts or trying to understand who your actual employer would be, see our explainer on how the NHS is structured across all four UK nations — it sets Wales's Local Health Board model alongside England's Trusts, Scotland's Health Boards and Northern Ireland's integrated HSC Trusts side by side.

Where local differences can genuinely show up

None of this means every single term and condition is identical everywhere in Wales. Local Health Boards, like individual Trusts in England, can set some of their own local policies — things like travel and subsistence rates, local relocation packages, or how Welsh-language skills are recognised and supported in patient-facing roles. These sit alongside the shared national Agenda for Change pay scale rather than changing it, and they're the kind of detail that's genuinely worth checking directly with the specific Local Health Board you're applying to, rather than something we'd try to summarise nationally on this page. We've gone looking for genuine Wales-specific allowances beyond this in our dedicated NHS Wales Specific Allowances guide — including the All-Wales Recruitment and Retention Premia Protocol — and been honest about how little beyond that we could actually verify.

Your pension and total reward

Welsh NHS staff join the NHS Pension Scheme on the same terms as staff in England, see our guide to the NHS Pension Scheme (2015 section) for how that works. Pension contributions and accrual are based on your Welsh salary. The NHS Pay Calculator currently uses the England table for its "England, Wales, NI" option, so its basic salary will not match the Welsh table above; use the Welsh figures for your gross pay and treat the calculator's tax, National Insurance and pension logic as a guide.