NHS ODP Salary 2026/27: £32,073 to £56,515

Operating Department Practitioner is one of the 14 officially recognised Allied Health Professions, yet it's routinely folded into "theatre nurse" searches and job adverts as if it were the same registration under a different name. It isn't — ODPs are a distinct, HCPC-registered profession with their own degree route, and 2024 brought a real change to how you qualify. This guide covers the real 2026/27 ODP pay figures on their own terms, what the role actually covers across anaesthetics, surgery and recovery, and exactly how it differs from theatre nursing.

ODP pay points 2026/27 (England, Wales & Northern Ireland)

Use the NHS Pay Calculator for your exact take-home figure at any band and point, including London weighting.

Scotland's rates

NHS Scotland's 2026/27 Band 6 runs from £43,231 to £52,679 under its own separately negotiated pay deal. See the full Agenda for Change pay scales guide for every band across all four nations side by side.

HCPC registration: the 2024 degree change

Registration with the Health and Care Professions Council (HCPC) is legally required to practise as an ODP and to use the protected title — the same regulator covering physiotherapists, radiographers, podiatrists and paramedics. From September 2024, the HCPC raised the minimum entry qualification for new ODP registrants from a Diploma of Higher Education to a full degree, bringing ODP training in line with most other HCPC-regulated professions. This doesn't affect anyone already registered under the previous diploma standard — existing ODPs keep their registration and aren't required to top up to a degree — but anyone starting ODP training from that point onwards needs to complete a degree-level programme to register.

What an ODP actually does

ODPs train and work across all three phases of perioperative care from the start of their career, rather than specialising into one from day one:

• • Anaesthetics — preparing equipment, drugs and monitoring, and directly supporting the anaesthetist before, during and immediately after induction of anaesthesia.
• • Surgery/scrub — working at the sterile field, passing instruments, managing the surgical swab and instrument count, and supporting the surgical team throughout the procedure.
• • Post-anaesthesia care (recovery/PACU) — monitoring patients as they wake from anaesthesia, managing pain and airway safety, and confirming they're stable enough to leave recovery.
• • Beyond the theatre — many ODPs' resuscitation and airway skills transfer into critical care outreach, resuscitation officer posts, simulation-based clinical education, and pre-operative assessment roles.

ODP vs theatre nurse: two professions, overlapping work

Because ODPs and theatre nurses rotate through the same three practice areas, work the same lists, and sit on the same Agenda for Change bands for equivalent posts, it's easy to assume they're the same job under two names. They aren't. Our theatre nurse and ODP pay guide covers both professions together with the full shared pay picture; here's the short version of what genuinely differs.

In practice, the two professions are deliberately used together in most theatre teams rather than as substitutes for each other — a scrub list is commonly staffed by a mix of ODPs and theatre nurses working side by side, with the professional registration mattering for revalidation and scope of practice rather than for who's allowed to do which task on a given list.

Career ladder beyond Band 5

Worked example: take-home pay across the ODP bands

Using the same 2026/27 Income Tax, National Insurance and NHS Pension Scheme rules that power our NHS Pay Calculator, here's what a full-time salary (pension included, no student loan) actually nets at each stage of the ODP ladder, outside any High Cost Area Supplement zone: