NHS Band 5 take-home pay in 2026: the Agenda for Change pay points, what you keep after tax, NI and pension, plus unsocial hours and London weighting.
If you are a Band 5 nurse, your NHS Band 5 take-home pay is shaped by four things: the Agenda for Change pay point you sit on, the usual income tax and National Insurance, your NHS Pension contribution, and the extras for unsocial hours and London. The headline salary and the figure in your account are quite different, so this guide works through all of it for 2026/27, with real numbers.
A newly qualified Band 5 on the £32,073 entry point takes home about £2,040 a month in 2026/27 from base pay, after income tax, National Insurance, and the 8.3% NHS Pension contribution. At the top of Band 5, £39,043, take-home is roughly £2,381 a month. Unsocial hours enhancements and any London weighting are added on top of these figures.
The gap between the salary and the take-home is wider for NHS staff than for many jobs, because the NHS Pension takes a meaningful slice. That contribution is not lost, though, it buys one of the most valuable pensions available, which is part of the real reward of the role.
Under Agenda for Change, Band 5 in England for 2026/27 runs from £32,073 at the entry point to £39,043 at the top of the band. You start at the bottom as a newly qualified nurse and progress up over a set number of years, subject to meeting the requirements for each step. These are the basic figures, before unsocial hours and before any High Cost Area Supplement for working in or around London.
Three things come off your gross pay: income tax, National Insurance, and your NHS Pension contribution. For 2026/27 your tax-free personal allowance is £12,570 (tax code 1257L), income above that is taxed at 20% up to £50,270, and National Insurance is 8% on earnings between £12,570 and £50,270.
The NHS Pension is tiered by salary, and the contribution is taken from your gross pay before income tax is worked out, so you get tax relief on it automatically. A Band 5 on base pay sits in the 8.3% contribution tier. Once unsocial hours push your full-year pensionable pay above roughly £33,000, you move into the 9.8% tier.
Take a Band 5 on the £32,073 entry point, paid monthly on tax code 1257L.
At the top of Band 5, £39,043, the pension moves to the 9.8% tier and take-home works out at roughly £2,381 a month on base pay. For how Band 5 compares with Band 6 progression, see our guide to nurse take-home pay.
Base pay is only part of a real Band 5 wage, because most ward nurses work unsocial hours. Under Section 2 of Agenda for Change, your hourly rate is enhanced by 30% for weeknights and Saturdays, and by 60% for Sundays and bank holidays.
These enhancements are taxed and National-Insured exactly like normal pay, so there is no special higher tax on them, but every extra pound is taxed at your marginal rate. For most Band 5 nurses that is 20% income tax plus 8% National Insurance, so roughly 65p of each uplifted pound reaches your account. As a rough guide, a typical rota of several 12-hour nights plus a Sunday each month adds in the region of £260 to £300 a month to take-home, lifting a newly qualified Band 5 from about £2,040 to around £2,300 a month.
If you work in or near London, a High Cost Area Supplement is added to your basic pay. It is 20% in Inner London, 15% in Outer London, and 5% in the Fringe, and each comes with a minimum and a maximum cash amount, so the percentage does not run away at the top of the band. The supplement is added to your salary and taxed and National-Insured in the normal way. It can make a sizeable difference: an Inner London Band 5 earns thousands more a year than the same nurse outside the capital, though the higher cost of living is the reason it exists.
Base pay alone undersells what most ward-based Band 5 nurses actually earn, because the rota usually includes nights and weekends. Picture a newly qualified Band 5 on £32,073 who works, in a typical month, seven 12-hour night shifts on weeknights and one Sunday day shift.
The weeknight nights attract the 30% enhancement and the Sunday attracts 60%, all on top of the basic hourly rate. Across the month that adds roughly £400 in gross enhancements, of which about £260 reaches the account after 20% tax and 8% National Insurance. So the base take-home of about £2,040 a month becomes closer to £2,300. Pick up an extra bank holiday shift at 60% and it climbs again. This is why the salary line and the payslip can feel so different for nurses: a large, variable chunk of real pay comes from when you work, not just how much.
Many Band 5 nurses look at moving to Band 6, and the take-home difference is smaller than people assume at the boundary. The top of Band 5 is £39,043 and the entry to Band 6 is a little above it, so on base pay alone the monthly difference at the changeover is modest once tax, National Insurance, and the slightly higher pension tier are taken out.
Where Band 6 pulls ahead is over time, because the band tops out higher, and each unsocial hour is enhanced from a higher base rate, so the same rota pays more. Band 6 also usually brings more responsibility and sometimes a less anti-social pattern, so the real question is whether the role fits, not just whether the headline number is bigger. Our guide to nurse take-home pay lays the two bands side by side.
The Agenda for Change pay points for Band 5 are set nationally and apply across NHS England for 2026/27. The tax thresholds are frozen: the personal allowance stays at £12,570 and the higher-rate threshold at £50,270, both held until at least April 2028. Because pay has risen while those thresholds stand still, a top-of-band Band 5 with lots of unsocial hours can edge closer to the higher-rate line, so it is worth checking your tax code each April. National Insurance remains 8% on earnings between £12,570 and £50,270. The same tax and National Insurance treatment applies across the public sector, as our breakdown of teacher take-home pay shows.
Many newly qualified nurses have a student loan, and it is worth knowing how it interacts with Band 5 pay. Repayments are a percentage of earnings above your plan’s threshold, taken automatically through payroll, and they sit on top of the deductions above. On a Band 5 salary you would typically be repaying a modest amount each month, more once unsocial hours lift your earnings, since repayments are based on what you actually earn including enhancements. The repayment is not part of tax or National Insurance, so it shows as its own line on the payslip. It does not change the tax and pension figures in this guide, but it does mean your final take-home is a little lower than the base examples if you are repaying a loan, so factor it in when you budget.
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A newly qualified Band 5 on the £32,073 entry point takes home about £2,040 a month in 2026/27 from base pay alone, after income tax, National Insurance, and an 8.3% NHS Pension contribution. At the top of Band 5, £39,043, take-home is roughly £2,381 a month. Unsocial hours and London weighting add to both.
For 2026/27 the Band 5 pay range in England runs from £32,073 at the entry point to £39,043 at the top of the band, under Agenda for Change. Progression up the band takes a set number of years. These figures are before unsocial hours enhancements and any High Cost Area Supplement for London.
Under Section 2 of Agenda for Change, unsocial hours add 30% to your hourly rate for weeknights and Saturdays, and 60% for Sundays and bank holidays. These enhancements are taxed and National-Insured like normal pay, so you keep roughly 65p of each extra pound at Band 5.
London and the surrounding area carry a High Cost Area Supplement on top of basic pay: 20% in Inner London, 15% in Outer London, and 5% in the Fringe, each with a minimum and maximum cash amount. It is added to your salary and taxed in the normal way.
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A note on financial advice: NetPay UK calculates take-home pay based on official HMRC tax rules. This article reflects rules in force at the time of publication (15 June 2026). Tax rules change. For complex situations, consult a qualified UK accountant or visit gov.uk/income-tax.
