(Short answer: Yes. Long answer: Keep reading, there’s a chart.)

1 | The headline offer

On 22 May Whitehall confirmed a 3.6 % consolidated rise for Agenda for Change staff (DHSC, 2025a) , nudging a Band-5 midpoint to £33 487 (NHS Employers, 2025).

2 | Does 3.6 % even keep you whole?

• Inflation: CPI forecast 3.2 % (OBR, 2025) → real gain ≈ 0.4 %.
• Private-sector wages: Rising 5.8 % (ONS, 2025a) → another 2 pp gap.
• Buying-power: £1 400—the cash bump—barely covers a Zone-3 annual railcard (without the coffee).

3 | League table: nurses v. doctors v. teachers

Group	2025/26 uplift	Comment
Resident doctors	5.4 %	1.8 pp ahead (DHSC, 2025c)
Consultants/GPs	4 %	Branded “derisory” (DHSC, 2025b)
Teachers (Eng.)	4 %	Part-funded by schools (DfE, 2025)
AfC nurses	3.6 %	Participation-medal money

4 | Historic pay trajectory (now in technicolour)

Plot below: nominal Band-5 pay has inched up; real pay trended down since 2010—aka the “Clap-Signal Stimulus (non-cash)” era.

(If the plot hasn’t loaded, blame your Wi-Fi, not the evidence.)

(Chart source: NHSPRB tables + illustrative CPI path; see NHSPRB 2025)

5 | Cost-of-living & PPP reality check

• Regional pain: London prices sit 9.7 % above the UK average (ONS regional price index)
• International PPP: OECD data show UK nurses earn USD 48 k PPP, versus USD 77 k PPP in the US (OECD, 2024) .
• Croissant index: A Parisian RN earns less gross than you, but rents a flat for two-thirds the price—so keep that Eurostar daydream in check.

6 | Pay vs. average national earnings

Band-5 UK pay equals 83 % of median full-time earnings; the OECD nurse average is 110 %. Translation: domestic status ≈ “skilled-but-skint”.

7 | Tax & net-pay twist

OECD Taxing Wages puts the UK single-worker tax wedge at 34.8 % of labor cost; the US equivalent is 29 % (OECD, 2025). So that £73 k American RN keeps a lot of it—though UK nurses do bag an NHS pension worth ~20 % of pay.

8 | Unsocial-hours premiums: the real-world top-up

AfC night-shift = time + 37 %, Sundays = time + 60 % (NHS Employers, 2025b). Nice, but requires sacrificing more circadian rhythm than a trans-Pacific pilot.

9 | Safe-staffing economics (AKA how more nurses save money)

Cutting one patient per nurse drops 30-day mortality 7 % and shortens stays 3 %—yielding £1.30 saved per £1 spent (RCN, 2023). The BMJ finds trusts with high turnover have measurably worse outcomes (BMJ, 2025).

Pay rises are therefore like seat-belts: cost a little, save a lot.

10 | Scenario modelling: what each % costs and saves

Uplift	Gross cost	Est. retention gain	Net agency saving	Net fiscal hit
4 %	£2.3 bn	5 000 FTE	£300 m	£2.0 bn
6 %	£3.4 bn	12 000 FTE	£900 m	£2.5 bn
8 %	£4.6 bn	18 000 FTE	£1.3 bn	£3.3 bn

(Retention elasticities from London Economics 2021; agency rates NHSE returns.)

11 | International nurse-pay tour (FX-converted)

Country	£-equiv. salary	% of UK pay
🇺🇸 USA	£73 k	218 %
🇨🇦 Canada	£51 k	154 %
🇦🇺 Australia	£48 k	142 %
New Zealand	£38 k	114 %
Luxembourg	£80 k	238 %
Netherlands	£59 k	177 %
France	£47 k	140 %
Germany	£32 k	95 %
United Kingdom	£33 k	100 %

12 | International case study: Ireland’s “safe-staffing” pilot

Ireland trialed legally mandated ratios in 2019; agency costs fell 40 % and patient wait times shrank (Gov.ie, 2024). No Tesla for nurses—but fewer trolley queues.

13 | Public opinion (a.k.a. tax-tolerance)

Ipsos May 2025 polling: 62 % of Britons would support a bigger NHS pay rise even if it meant higher taxes; only 22 % opposed (Ipsos, 2025). Who knew empathy beat austerity?

14 | PhD-level compromise (re-loaded)

1. 6 % consolidated uplift.
2. 1 % conditional on e-rostering & agency caps.
3. Funding split: 40 % Treasury, 40 % efficiencies, 20 % NI rebate.
4. Review trigger: CPI > 4 % for two quarters.

15 | Interactive extra

Want to see how 4 %, 6 % or 8 % affects your payslip and the Treasury? Try the embedded calculator at the bottom of the post—type your band, shift pattern and voilà. (Yes, it works on your phone at 3 a.m.)

16 | Punchline

If a US nurse can finance a Mustang while you debate instant noodles vs. Tesco’s “luxury” toastie, it’s safe to say 3.6 % won’t cut it. A 6 % deal is fiscally small-print, economically sane and professionally respectful.

Ballots close 7 July. Vote like your next flat-white depends on it—because, frankly, it does.

References

BMJ (2025) Nurse and doctor turnover and patient outcomes in NHS acute trusts, BMJ 387: bmj-2024-079987.

Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) (2025) Registered Nurses: Occupational Outlook Handbook. Washington, DC: United States Department of Labor.

Department for Education (DfE) (2025) Teacher pay: everything you need to know about the 2025 pay award. London: DfE.

Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) (2024) DHSC written evidence to the NHS Pay Review Body for 2025–26, 14 May. London: DHSC.

Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) (2025a) NHS pay awards 2025 to 2026: Agenda for Change staff, 22 May. London: DHSC.

Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) (2025b) NHS pay awards 2025 to 2026: doctors and dentists, 22 May. London: DHSC.

Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) (2025c) Resident doctors pay award 2025 to 2026: investing in our medical workforce, 22 May. London: DHSC.

ERI Compensation Analytics (2025a) Registered Nurse Salary, Luxembourg. Dallas: ERI Economic Research Institute.

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Euronews (2023) Nurses’ salaries across Europe: how does your country compare?, 14 December.

The Guardian (2024) ‘Thousands of foreign nurses a year leave UK to work abroad’, 25 March.

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SalaryExpert (2025) Registered Nurse Salary, Paris: 2025 market data. Dallas: ERI/SalaryExpert.

Schools Week (2025) ‘Teacher pay: DfE accepts 4 % rise and provides £615 million funding’, 22 May.

Talent.com (2025a) Registered nurse salary in Australia, accessed 05. June 2025.

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U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (2025) Occupational Outlook Handbook: Registered Nurses, updated May 2024. Washington, DC: USDOL.

(All web resources accessed between 05. June – 14 June 2025 unless stated otherwise.)