NHS Staff Earnings Estimates, March 2022, Provisional Statistics

Within the publication following four measures are calculated by using 12 months of data in order to improve the accuracy of each measure:

• Mean annual basic pay per FTE – is the mean amount of basic pay paid per 1 full-time equivalent post in a 12-month period.
• Mean annual earnings per person – is the mean amount paid to an individual in a 12-month period, regardless of the contracted FTE.
• Mean annual basic pay per person – is the mean amount of basic pay paid to an individual in a 12-month period, regardless of the contracted FTE.
• Mean annual non-basic pay per person – is the mean amount, over and above basic pay, paid to an individual in a 12 month period, regardless of the contracted FTE (this is further split into ten separate measures – see Appendix A for a list and descriptions)

Information from across a range of fields such as occupation code, grade code and job role is used to make assumptions to fill in incomplete records which would have originally been excluded from the earnings estimates. For example, the job role field is used to determine the grade of doctors that are on a local payscale and also resolves issues such as non-medical staff having medical occupation codes and vice versa or non-medical staff having an occupation code that contradicts the level of their Agenda for Change (AfC) band.

A process is then applied to select the most appropriate FTE value for each pay record. FTE is a crucial field in the creation and estimation of full time basic pay figures. The old methodology used the worked FTE field from ESR and any unrealistically high or low figures were excluded from the final statistics. In the new methodology full time basic pay is calculated using both worked FTE and contracted FTE. Very often these produce the same figures, but where there is a difference the figure which corresponds most closely to the criteria for each grade as set out below is chosen.

• For staff on AfC terms and conditions the annualised full-time basic pay figure which is closest to an increment point for the grade given decides whether worked or contracted FTE is used.
• Staff on AfC grades whose pay is less than 60% of the minimum of the pay for their grade and staff with pay greater than 150% of the maximum of the pay for their grade are excluded from the calculation of earnings statistics.
• For consultant doctors the annualised full-time basic pay figure should be between £62,000 and £400,000 (inclusive). For associate specialists the annualised full time basic pay figure should be between £38,000 and £350,000 (inclusive).
• For foundation doctor Year 1 and 2 staff the annualised full-time basic pay figure should be between £20,000 and £46,000 (inclusive). For specialty doctors the annualised full- time basic pay figure should be between £35,000 and £300,000 (inclusive). For staff grade doctors the annualised full-time basic pay figure should be between £34,000 and £110,000 (inclusive).
• For core training the annualised full-time basic pay figure should be between £20,000 and £100,000 (inclusive).
• For HPCA doctors the annualised full-time basic pay figure should be between £45,000 and £350,000 (inclusive).
• For other doctors the annualised full-time basic pay figure should be between £20,000 and £400,000 (inclusive).
• For non AfC non-medical staff the annualised full-time basic pay figure should be between £13,600 and £300,000 (inclusive). (This category of staff can catch from the lowest paid to senior executive level. There is no definitive reference table that gives guidance on what is the appropriate pay range for a staff group. The limits quoted here only exclude the worst outliers.)

Records that do not meet these conditions are excluded from the earnings calculations. The limits are based on the national pay circulars issued by NHS Employers and these limits will be reviewed annually to ensure they remain consistent with national guidance.

The latest pay circulars are available at:

http://www.nhsemployers.org/your-workforce/pay-and-reward/pay