Pay Bodies To Recommend 5.5% Rise For Teachers And NHS Staff, Report Says

21st July 2024

Above inflation deal could lead to government having to find an extra £10bn in total across the public sector.

Independent pay review bodies representing teachers and NHS workers have reportedly recommended above-inflation pay rises that could require the government to raise up to £10bn, a leading economist has said.

The bodies are going to recommend a 5.5% rise for the 514,000 teachers and about 1.3 million NHS staff they represent, according to the Times, well above the figure the government is thought to have been preparing for. Such a move would present an early challenge to Rachel Reeves's fiscally rule-bound treasury.

Paul Johnson, the director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies, said he was "not terribly surprised" by the figure, which would be in line with pay rises across the economy, and would cost an extra £3bn for schools and the NHS alone.

He told the BBC's Today programme: "In terms of the cost, there isn't a specific number that is budgeted for schools, it's probably 1% or 2%, it's certainly nothing like 5.5%.

Read the full story in the Guardian

Scotland
Have Scottish teachers had a pay rise?
In 2022-23, teachers in Scotland took national strike action over pay for the first time since the mid-1980s, starting in November 2022. That ultimately led to a pay deal in March 2023, amounting to what the EIS teaching union highlighted as a 14.6 per cent increase in salary for most teachers by January 2024.
January 2024 sees the award of the final part of the staged teachers' pay award for 2022-24 with all teachers getting a 2% salary rise, capped for those earning £80,000pa or more.
It also sees the negotiating process begin for the next pay award, due from August 2024.

Is NHS Scotland getting a pay rise in 2024?
The NHS Pay Review Body have started to review both oral and written evidence before preparing their report for the UK Government. For Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland - see the details below. No decision has been made yet on a pay rise for NHS workers in the 2024/25 financial year.