The 2026 local government pay rise has now been agreed, with eligible NJC employees receiving a 3.3% increase backdated to 1 April 2026.
The national agreement was reached on 24 August 2026, but there is no single UK-wide date on which every council employee will receive the higher salary and arrears. Individual councils and payroll providers have to implement the revised rates locally.
Some councils have already confirmed when employees can expect the money.
Derbyshire has said back pay will be included in its September 2026 payroll, while Oxfordshire and Wandsworth have confirmed October 2026 implementation for relevant employees covered by their published payroll arrangements.
That means many workers should now be looking at their council’s September or October payroll notices rather than waiting for another national pay announcement.
The settlement confirms the position covered more broadly in the local government pay rise 2026/27, but the important question for employees now is when their individual employer will actually process it.
When Will the Local Government Pay Rise Be Paid?
There is no single national payment date for the local government pay rise.
The national agreement determines the new salary rates and the effective date, but each employer must update its payroll system, calculate arrears and decide which payroll run can accommodate the change.
This is why employees working for different councils can receive exactly the same national award in different months.
Confirmed Council Payment Dates
| Council or employer area | Confirmed payment timing | What employees can expect |
| Derbyshire | September 2026 payroll | New rates and back pay from 1 April 2026 |
| Oxfordshire | October 2026 payroll for the relevant support-staff arrangements | 3.3% award plus arrears |
| Wandsworth | October 2026 payroll for the relevant school workforce | New rates plus backdated pay in a lump sum |
These dates should not be treated as a national timetable. A council that has not yet processed the award may use a later payroll run.
Employees should therefore check their employer’s payroll communication rather than assuming that another council’s September or October date automatically applies to them.
What Has Actually Been Agreed for 2026/27?
The final NJC settlement increases the relevant national pay rates by 3.3% from 1 April 2026 to 31 March 2027.
The increase covers the main NJC pay spine and relevant nationally agreed allowances. Locally determined salary points above the national spine but below deputy chief officer level are also expected to receive the agreed percentage increase where covered by the national arrangements.
The settlement replaces the earlier position in which 3.3% was merely an employer offer.
For employees, that distinction is important. The question is no longer whether the 3.3% offer will be accepted. It has been agreed, and eligible employers now need to implement it.
Full NJC Pay Spine for 2026/27
The national NJC pay spine now runs from SCP 3 to SCP 43.
The following table shows the previous annual rate, the new annual salary from 1 April 2026 and the corresponding 2026/27 hourly rate based on the standard 37-hour calculation.
| SCP | 2025/26 salary | 2026/27 salary | 2026/27 hourly rate |
| 3 | £24,796 | £25,614 | £13.28 |
| 4 | £25,185 | £26,016 | £13.48 |
| 5 | £25,583 | £26,427 | £13.70 |
| 6 | £25,989 | £26,847 | £13.92 |
| 7 | £26,403 | £27,274 | £14.14 |
| 8 | £26,824 | £27,709 | £14.36 |
| 9 | £27,254 | £28,153 | £14.59 |
| 10 | £27,694 | £28,608 | £14.83 |
| 11 | £28,142 | £29,071 | £15.07 |
| 12 | £28,598 | £29,542 | £15.31 |
| 13 | £29,064 | £30,023 | £15.56 |
| 14 | £29,540 | £30,515 | £15.82 |
| 15 | £30,024 | £31,015 | £16.08 |
| 16 | £30,518 | £31,525 | £16.34 |
| 17 | £31,022 | £32,046 | £16.61 |
| 18 | £31,537 | £32,578 | £16.89 |
| 19 | £32,061 | £33,119 | £17.17 |
| 20 | £32,597 | £33,673 | £17.45 |
| 21 | £33,143 | £34,237 | £17.75 |
| 22 | £33,699 | £34,811 | £18.04 |
| 23 | £34,434 | £35,570 | £18.44 |
| 24 | £35,412 | £36,581 | £18.96 |
| 25 | £36,363 | £37,563 | £19.47 |
| 26 | £37,280 | £38,510 | £19.96 |
| 27 | £38,220 | £39,481 | £20.46 |
| 28 | £39,152 | £40,444 | £20.96 |
| 29 | £39,862 | £41,177 | £21.34 |
| 30 | £40,777 | £42,123 | £21.83 |
| 31 | £41,771 | £43,149 | £22.37 |
| 32 | £42,839 | £44,253 | £22.94 |
| 33 | £44,075 | £45,529 | £23.60 |
| 34 | £45,091 | £46,579 | £24.14 |
| 35 | £46,142 | £47,665 | £24.71 |
| 36 | £47,181 | £48,738 | £25.26 |
| 37 | £48,226 | £49,817 | £25.82 |
| 38 | £49,282 | £50,908 | £26.39 |
| 39 | £50,269 | £51,928 | £26.92 |
| 40 | £51,356 | £53,051 | £27.50 |
| 41 | £52,413 | £54,143 | £28.06 |
| 42 | £53,460 | £55,224 | £28.62 |
| 43 | £54,495 | £56,293 | £29.18 |
The new bottom rate of £13.28 an hour is only 57p above the £12.71 National Living Wage applying to workers aged 21 and over from April 2026.
That narrow gap helps explain the continuing pressure on the bottom of the NJC pay structure as statutory minimum wages rise.
What Happened to SCP 2?
SCP 2 was permanently removed from the national pay spine from 1 April 2026.
Its deletion follows the removal of SCP 1 from April 2023 and means SCP 3 is now the lowest national NJC pay point.
The change reflects a longer-term compression problem at the lower end of the pay spine. As the National Living Wage has risen, the gap between statutory minimum pay and the lowest NJC rates has narrowed considerably.
Even after the 2026/27 award, the new SCP 3 hourly rate of £13.28 is only 57p above the statutory National Living Wage.
That makes future reform of the lower pay spine an important issue for both employers and unions.
What Does the 3.3% Rise Mean for Real Council Jobs?
Generic salary examples can show the mathematics, but actual NJC pay points make the impact easier to understand.
For a local authority social worker role mapped to SCP 30, for example, the national salary rises from £40,777 to £42,123. That is an annual gross increase of £1,346, or approximately £112.17 a month before deductions.
A senior or lead practitioner-type role mapped locally to SCP 36 rises from £47,181 to £48,738. That represents £1,557 more a year, equivalent to approximately £129.75 extra per month gross.
| Example NJC position | Previous salary | New salary | Annual increase | Monthly gross increase |
| Role mapped to SCP 30, such as some social worker posts | £40,777 | £42,123 | £1,346 | £112.17 |
| Senior/lead practitioner-type role mapped to SCP 36 | £47,181 | £48,738 | £1,557 | £129.75 |
Job titles do not have one universal SCP across every council. Local authorities grade jobs through their own job-evaluation arrangements, so two people with similar job titles may sit on different points.
Employees should therefore use the SCP shown on their contract or payslip rather than assuming that a job title automatically corresponds to a particular national point.
How Much Local Government Back Pay Will Employees Receive?
Back pay covers the difference between the old and new salary from 1 April 2026 until the new rate is implemented.
The number of arrears months consequently depends on the payroll month.
An employer implementing the increase in September would generally need to deal with the difference for April through August before paying September at the revised rate. An October implementation could involve six months of arrears covering April through September.
Five-Month Back-Pay Example
Consider an employee on SCP 11.
The annual salary rises from £28,142 to £29,071.
The annual difference is:
£29,071 – £28,142 = £929
The approximate monthly increase is:
£929 ÷ 12 = £77.42
Five months of arrears would therefore be approximately:
£77.42 × 5 = £387.08 gross
If, purely for illustration, that payment were subject to a marginal 20% Income Tax rate and 8% employee National Insurance, with no pension, student-loan or other additional deduction included, the calculation would be approximately:
| Calculation | Amount |
| Five months’ gross arrears | £387.08 |
| Illustrative 20% Income Tax | -£77.42 |
| Illustrative 8% National Insurance | -£30.97 |
| Approximate amount after those two deductions | £278.69 |
This is why a worker expecting almost £400 of back pay should not necessarily expect almost £400 to reach their bank account.
The example is deliberately simplified. PAYE treatment depends on the employee’s tax code, earnings in that payroll period and other deductions. LGPS contributions can also materially change the result.
For the same SCP 11 employee receiving six months of arrears in an October payroll, the gross salary arrears would be approximately £464.50 before deductions.
Why Might the Pay Rise Look Smaller on a Payslip?
Income Tax and National Insurance are only part of the explanation.
For an employee in the Local Government Pension Scheme, the pay rise can move their pensionable salary into a higher employee-contribution band.
This matters because LGPS bands do not work like Income Tax bands. If the applicable employee contribution rate increases, that percentage can apply to the employee’s pensionable pay for that employment rather than only to the small amount above the threshold.
LGPS Employee Contribution Bands for 2026/27
| Actual pensionable pay | Main-section contribution rate |
| Up to £18,400 | 5.5% |
| £18,401 to £29,000 | 5.8% |
| £29,001 to £47,300 | 6.5% |
| £47,301 to £59,800 | 6.8% |
| £59,801 to £84,000 | 8.5% |
| £84,001 to £119,100 | 9.9% |
| £119,101 to £140,400 | 10.5% |
| £140,401 to £210,700 | 11.4% |
| £210,701 and above | 12.5% |
Employers allocate the appropriate contribution rate and can review it when pensionable pay changes.
SCP 11 Is a Particularly Useful Example
SCP 11 moves from £28,142 to £29,071.
Before the rise, that salary is within the 5.8% LGPS contribution band. The new salary is £71 above the £29,000 boundary and therefore enters the 6.5% band if the employer reassesses the contribution rate accordingly.
A simplified annual comparison would look like this:
| Detail | Before award | After award |
| Salary | £28,142 | £29,071 |
| Relevant LGPS band | 5.8% | 6.5% |
| Approximate annual contribution | £1,632 | £1,890 |
| Increase in gross salary | £929 | |
| Approximate increase in pension contribution | £257 |
The employee still benefits from the salary increase, but a larger pension deduction can make the improvement in monthly take-home pay considerably less than the headline 3.3%.
How a £463 Gross Increase Can Become About £149?
A separate simplified example illustrates the contribution-band effect even more clearly.
Imagine pensionable pay rising from exactly £29,000 to £29,463. This £463 example is not the 3.3% NJC award itself; it simply demonstrates what can happen at an LGPS boundary.
At £29,000, a 5.8% contribution is approximately £1,682 a year. At £29,463, a 6.5% contribution is approximately £1,915.
The higher contribution therefore consumes roughly £233 of the £463 gross increase.
After allowing illustratively for 20% Income Tax on the remaining taxable increase and 8% National Insurance on the additional earnings, the take-home improvement can be only around £147 to £149 a year before any other deductions.
This is one reason employees sometimes see a substantially smaller increase than they expected after a pay award.
Actual treatment will depend on the employer’s LGPS assessment, tax code, pension section, working pattern and other payroll deductions.
Could Back Pay Affect Universal Credit?
It can.
A large arrears payment arriving in a single payroll period can increase the earnings recorded during the employee’s Universal Credit assessment period.
Oxfordshire specifically warned affected employees about this issue when explaining its October implementation.
For some claimants, the lump sum could reduce that month’s Universal Credit award and, depending on their circumstances and earnings, could temporarily reduce it substantially.
That does not mean every employee receiving arrears will lose the same amount of Universal Credit. The effect depends on individual earnings, the assessment period, work allowances and other circumstances.
Anyone receiving Universal Credit should therefore pay particular attention to the assessment period in which their back pay appears and keep the relevant payslip.
What If Someone Left Their Council Job After 1 April 2026?
Leaving employment after the effective date does not necessarily mean losing the arrears relating to eligible service already worked.
The national settlement provides for former employees who left after 1 April 2026 to request the pay arrears due for their eligible period of employment.
Former staff should therefore contact their previous council or payroll team if they worked after 1 April but left before the new rates were implemented.
They should not assume that the payment will necessarily be generated automatically, particularly if their former employer requires ex-employees to make a request.
Does the Award Cover Teaching Assistants and School Support Staff?
Many teaching assistants, administrative staff, caretakers and other school support workers employed on NJC Green Book terms are included in the local government settlement.
Classroom teachers are different.
Teachers have a separate national pay framework and are not paid through the NJC Green Book spine. The confirmed arrangements are covered separately in the teacher pay rise 2026/27.
This distinction matters particularly in schools where teachers and support staff can work alongside each other while having different pay-award percentages, effective dates and payroll arrangements.
Who Else Is Covered by the NJC Settlement?
The main NJC agreement applies to a wide range of employees working for participating local authorities in England, Wales and Northern Ireland.
Depending on the employer and local grading arrangements, that can include administrative employees, social care staff, housing employees, refuse and environmental-service workers, planning staff, customer-service employees and many school support workers.
The agreement does not automatically cover every person working for a council. Different negotiating arrangements can apply to firefighters, craftworkers, chief officers, chief executives and other groups.
Local government pay in Scotland is also negotiated separately and should not be confused with the NJC agreement covered here.
Have Chief Officers and Chief Executives Also Settled Their 2026 Pay?
Yes, but they are covered by separate national negotiating arrangements.
The Chief Officers pay agreement was reached separately in June 2026 and provides a 3.3% increase from 1 April 2026.
A separate agreement for Chief Executives was also subsequently reached in August 2026, with the settlement providing a 3.3% increase to basic salary from 1 April 2026.
These settlements should not be confused with the main NJC Green Book agreement even though the headline percentage is the same.
Individual councils still need to process the relevant increases through payroll.
How Does the 3.3% Pay Rise Compare With Inflation?
Inflation provides useful context for assessing what the pay award may mean for purchasing power.
When the NJC agreement was reached on 24 August, the latest available annual CPI figure was 2.9% for July 2026.
The position subsequently changed. The August 2026 CPI figure, published in September, rose to 3.1%.
That leaves the 3.3% NJC award only 0.2 percentage points above the latest annual CPI reading.
The Bank of England’s summer projections also indicated CPI could be around 3.2% in the fourth quarter of 2026, with higher energy costs associated with conflict and disruption in the Middle East contributing to near-term inflation pressure.
A 3.3% nominal salary increase should therefore not automatically be interpreted as a 3.3% improvement in living standards. Real purchasing power depends on inflation over the relevant period as well as household-specific costs.
What Are the Unions Saying Now That the Deal Is Agreed?
The industrial dispute has moved on from whether the 3.3% offer will be accepted.
UNISON ultimately accepted the settlement reluctantly after its industrial-action ballots did not achieve the necessary turnout thresholds across enough employers to continue the dispute nationally.
The union has continued to argue that repeated below-inflation settlements have damaged the real value of local government pay and contributed to recruitment and retention problems.
Attention is consequently moving to the 2027/28 pay claim rather than reopening the agreed 2026/27 award.
Union work on the next claim is expected to focus again on restoring pay, addressing the compressed lower end of the NJC spine and securing a stronger settlement for council employees.
For workers, this means the 3.3% award should now be treated as the settled 2026/27 position, while any campaign for a larger increase belongs to the next pay round.
Why Is the Bottom of the NJC Pay Spine Becoming an Issue?
The deletion of SCP 2 highlights a structural issue that extends beyond one year’s pay award.
The National Living Wage has risen rapidly enough to move increasingly close to the lowest NJC rates. If statutory minimum pay continues rising faster than the bottom of the council pay structure, the difference between entry-level NJC points becomes increasingly compressed.
SCP 1 was removed in 2023. SCP 2 has now disappeared from April 2026. SCP 3 starts at £13.28 an hour, leaving only a 57p margin over the £12.71 National Living Wage.
That creates challenges for maintaining meaningful pay differentials between jobs carrying different levels of responsibility, experience and skill.
It is therefore likely that reform of the lower pay spine will remain an important part of future local government pay discussions.
What Should Council Employees Check on Their Payslip?
Employees should compare their new SCP and annual salary with the confirmed 2026/27 scale, check how many months of arrears have been included, look for revised allowances where applicable, review any change in LGPS contribution rate and confirm whether tax or other deductions have materially changed.
Anyone whose salary sits close to an LGPS contribution threshold should pay particular attention to the pension deduction.
Employees receiving Universal Credit should also retain their payslip and note which assessment period contains the arrears payment.
Where figures do not appear to match the national award, the first point of contact will normally be the employer’s payroll or HR team because implementation details are handled locally.
FAQs
Has the 2026 local government pay rise been agreed?
Yes. The NJC settlement was reached on 24 August 2026 and provides a 3.3% increase effective from 1 April 2026.
When will council workers receive the 2026 pay rise?
There is no single national payday. Each employer processes the settlement through its own payroll. Derbyshire has confirmed September 2026, while Oxfordshire and Wandsworth have published October implementation dates for relevant employees.
Will the local government pay rise be backdated?
Yes. The national award is effective from 1 April 2026, so eligible employees should receive the salary difference for the period between 1 April and local implementation.
How much is the 2026 local government pay rise?
The main NJC increase is 3.3%.
What is the lowest NJC salary in 2026/27?
SCP 3 is now the bottom of the national pay spine at £25,614 a year, equivalent to approximately £13.28 an hour on the standard 37-hour calculation.
Has SCP 2 been removed?
Yes. SCP 2 was deleted from the national pay spine from 1 April 2026. SCP 1 had previously been removed from April 2023.
Can the pay rise increase LGPS pension deductions?
Yes. If the new pensionable salary moves an employee into a higher LGPS contribution band and the employer applies the higher rate, the increased pension deduction can make the improvement in take-home pay smaller than expected.
Why might back pay be less than expected?
Back pay is quoted gross. Income Tax, National Insurance, LGPS contributions, student-loan repayments and other payroll deductions can reduce the amount reaching the employee’s bank account.
Can local government back pay affect Universal Credit?
Potentially. Arrears paid as a lump sum can increase earnings recorded in a particular Universal Credit assessment period and may reduce that period’s award depending on the claimant’s circumstances.
Do former council employees get the 2026 back pay?
A former employee who left after 1 April 2026 may be entitled to arrears covering eligible service after the effective date. They may need to contact their former employer to request payment.
Are teaching assistants included?
Teaching assistants and other school support workers employed on NJC Green Book terms can be covered. Classroom teachers use a separate teacher-pay framework.
Are chief officers and chief executives included in the same NJC deal?
No. They have separate negotiating arrangements. Separate 2026 settlements have nevertheless also confirmed 3.3% increases for Chief Officers and Chief Executives from 1 April 2026.
Does the NJC agreement cover Scotland?
No. This NJC settlement relates to England, Wales and Northern Ireland. Scottish local government pay is negotiated separately.