London Daily

Focus on the big picture.
Wednesday, Jan 28, 2026

Teachers, police officers, nurses: What pay rise are they getting?

Teachers, police officers, nurses: What pay rise are they getting?

The government could be on a collision course with millions of public sector workers after announcing this year's pay awards.

Pay deals covering 2.5 million workers, including teachers and NHS staff in England, and police in England and Wales, have been published.

Unions attacked the deals, saying they amounted to real-terms cuts that do not reflect the rising cost of living.

So who has been given what?


Teachers

Schools in England could find themselves caught up in industrial action after the biggest education union said it would ballot teachers.

Pay for most teachers in England will rise by 5% from September this year, an increase from the initial offer of 3% for 2022-23.

Teachers with more than five years experience will get £2,100 on the average salary of £42,400.

For teachers in the first years of their career the increase is bigger - 8.9% - but only because of a long-standing promise to raise the starting salary to £30,000 in England by September 2023.

This was a promise made long before the current cost-of-living crisis.

All of this has to be paid for by schools out of existing budgets. Schools in England are getting more cash, but after a long squeeze on their budgets many are worried about other cost pressures, such as rising energy bills.

The National Education Union has said it will ballot teachers over the 5% pay award, raising the prospect of industrial action in schools later this year.

Kevin Courtney, joint general secretary of the union, said the "biggest real-terms pay cut in a generation" left them with no choice but to seek the views of teachers.

The other main teaching union, NASUWT, said it was dismayed and would consider how to respond. The last national dispute over teachers' pay was in 2008.


Doctors, nurses and NHS staff

It looks unlikely that the pay award for NHS will be enough for staff - their unions had been looking for above-inflation rises. The Royal College of Nursing asked for 5% above inflation, which at the time of asking equated to a 12.5% hike.

It responded immediately, warning the government was making a "grave misstep" and it would be consulting its members.

Meanwhile, the joint group of NHS unions, which represent other staff including midwives, physios and porters, said a pay award like this would be "nowhere near enough".

The British Medical Association has yet to respond, but has already warned it was preparing to ballot junior doctors if more significant pay rises were not made.

As they agreed a four-year pay deal in 2019 when inflation was much lower, they are only entitled to just over 2% this year - not the 4.5% more senior doctors will receive.


But beyond the threat of industrial action there is another problem for ministers.

The NHS budget was settled on the expectation that staff would only get 3% and therefore this award would add nearly £2bn extra to the costs the health service faces.

Managers are warning that unless that is covered by the Treasury, services will have to be cut.


Police and prison staff

With the government committed to employing thousands more police and prison officers, the real-terms pay cut for public sector workers in the criminal justice system will make those ambitions more challenging.

Police officers are to receive a £1,900 salary uplift - equivalent to a 5% overall pay award.

For new recruits, the increase is worth 8.8%, and ministers will be hoping that is enough to attract the 8,000 extra officers they are planning for this financial year.

For some more senior staff, the award is worth less than 1%.

Prison staff are to receive a base pay increase of at least 4%, but as with the police, new recruits will get more, around £2,500 extra. There is a plan to recruit an additional 5,000 prison officers in the next two years.

The courts system is under huge pressure at the moment, but Justice Secretary Dominic Raab has agreed only to increase the pay of judicial office holders by 3%.

Data published by the Office for National Statistics hours before the pay awards were announced show record levels of vacancies in public administration - 39,000 empty jobs in a sector which includes police and prison officers, as well as courts staff.

Competition for recruitment will be intense.

Newsletter

Related Articles

0:00
0:00
Close
UK Prime Minister Traveled to China Using Temporary Phones and Laptops to Limit Espionage Risks
Google’s $68 Million Voice Assistant Settlement Exposes Incentives That Reward Over-Collection
Kim Kardashian Admits Faking Paparazzi Visit to Britney Spears for Fame in Early 2000s
UPS to Cut 30,000 More Jobs by 2026 Amid Shift to High-Margin Deliveries
France Plans to Replace Teams and Zoom Across Government With Homegrown Visio by 2027
Trump Removes Minneapolis Deportation Operation Commander After Fatal Shooting of Protester
Iran’s Elite Wealth Abroad and Sanctions Leakage: How Offshore Luxury Sustains Regime Resilience
U.S. Central Command Announces Regional Air Exercise as Iran Unveils Drone Carrier Footage
Four Arrested in Andhra Pradesh Over Alleged HIV-Contaminated Injection Attack on Doctor
Hot Drinks, Hidden Particles: How Disposable Cups Quietly Increase Microplastic Exposure
UK Banks Pledge £11 Billion Lending Package to Help Firms Expand Overseas
Suella Braverman Defects to Reform UK, Accusing Conservatives of Betrayal on Core Policies
Melania Trump Documentary Sees Limited Box Office Traction in UK Cinemas
Meta and EssilorLuxottica Ray-Ban Smart Glasses and the Non-Consensual Public Recording Economy
WhatsApp Develops New Meta AI Features to Enhance User Control
Germany Considers Gold Reserves Amidst Rising Tensions with the U.S.
Michael Schumacher Shows Significant Improvement in Health Status
Greenland’s NATO Stress Test: Coercion, Credibility, and the New Arctic Bargaining Game
Diego Garcia and the Chagos Dispute: When Decolonization Collides With Alliance Power
Trump Claims “Total” U.S. Access to Greenland as NATO Weighs Arctic Basing Rights and Deterrence
Air France and KLM Suspend Multiple Middle East Routes as Regional Tensions Disrupt Aviation
U.S. winter storm triggers 13,000-plus flight cancellations and 160,000 power outages
Poland delays euro adoption as Domański cites $1tn economy and zloty advantage
White House: Trump warns Canada of 100% tariff if Carney finalizes China trade deal
PLA opens CMC probe of Zhang Youxia, Liu Zhenli over Xi authority and discipline violations
ICE and DHS immigration raids in Minneapolis: the use-of-force accountability crisis in mass deportation enforcement
UK’s Starmer and Trump Agree on Urgent Need to Bolster Arctic Security
Starmer Breaks Diplomatic Restraint With Firm Rebuke of Trump, Seizing Chance to Advocate for Europe
UK Finance Minister Reeves to Join Starmer on China Visit to Bolster Trade and Economic Ties
Prince Harry Says Sacrifices of NATO Forces in Afghanistan Deserve ‘Respect’ After Trump Remarks
Barron Trump Emerges as Key Remote Witness in UK Assault and Rape Trial
Nigel Farage Attended Davos 2026 Using HP Trust Delegate Pass Linked to Sasan Ghandehari
Gold Jumps More Than 8% in a Week as the Dollar Slides Amid Greenland Tariff Dispute
BlackRock Executive Rick Rieder Emerges as Leading Contender to Succeed Jerome Powell as Fed Chair
Boston Dynamics Atlas humanoid robot and LG CLOiD home robot: the platform lock-in fight to control Physical AI
United States under President Donald Trump completes withdrawal from the World Health Organization: health sovereignty versus global outbreak early-warning access
FBI and U.S. prosecutors vs Ryan Wedding’s transnational cocaine-smuggling network: the fight over witness-killing and cross-border enforcement
Trump Administration’s Iran Military Buildup and Sanctions Campaign Puts Deterrence Credibility on the Line
Apple and OpenAI Chase Screenless AI Wearables as the Post-iPhone Interface Battle Heats Up
Tech Brief: AI Compute, Chips, and Platform Power Moves Driving Today’s Market Narrative
NATO’s Stress Test Under Trump: Alliance Credibility, Burden-Sharing, and the Fight Over Strategic Territory
OpenAI’s Money Problem: Explosive Growth, Even Faster Costs, and a Race to Stay Ahead
Trump Reverses Course and Criticises UK-Mauritius Chagos Islands Agreement
Elizabeth Hurley Tells UK Court of ‘Brutal’ Invasion of Privacy in Phone Hacking Case
UK Bond Yields Climb as Report Fuels Speculation Over Andy Burnham’s Return to Parliament
America’s Venezuela Oil Grip Meets China’s Demand: Market Power, Legal Shockwaves, and the New Rules of Energy Leverage
TikTok’s U.S. Escape Plan: National Security Firewall or Political Theater With a Price Tag?
Trump’s Board of Peace: Breakthrough Diplomacy or a Hostile Takeover of Global Order?
Trump’s Board of Peace: Breakthrough Diplomacy or a Hostile Takeover of Global Order?
The Greenland Gambit: Economic Genius or Political Farce?
×