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Fears of fresh strikes as teachers and NHS doctors get 4% pay rise Fears of fresh strikes as teachers and NHS doctors get 4% pay rise
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Nurses decry ‘grotesque’ award that gives them 3.6%, as teachers express anger that part of increase will come out of school budgetNurses decry ‘grotesque’ award that gives them 3.6%, as teachers express anger that part of increase will come out of school budget
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About 2 million NHS staff and teachers in England will get pay rises slightly above inflation this year in a move that could trigger renewed public-sector strikes. Ministers are bracing themselves for a potential wave of NHS strikes in England after doctors denounced their pay rises of up to 5.4% this year as “derisory” and threatened to take action in protest.
Doctors and teachers will receive an extra 4%, nurses and other health staff 3.6%, and resident (formerly junior) doctors 5.4%, ministers announced. Inflation was 3.5% last month. Teaching unions, after teachers were handed a 4% increase, also responded angrily at the government’s refusal to fully fund the deal and warned that it would damage the quality of education that pupils received. The largest union plans to take the first step towards possible industrial action.
Wes Streeting, the health secretary, and Bridget Phillipson, his education counterpart, both sought to promote the increases by highlighting that Labour has now given public sector workers rises above inflation twice in the 11 months since it won power last July. The decision to award 1.4 million NHS staff including nurses, midwives and ambulance workers a smaller rise – 3.6% – also provoked criticism. The Royal College of Nursing (RCN) said it was “grotesque” to hand doctors a bigger uplift than nurses who earn less than them.
Ministers will be watching closely to see how trade unions react to the sums offered, and if any reject the award and ballot their membership about strikes. Wes Streeting, the health secretary, and Bridget Phillipson, his education counterpart, sought to promote the rises they unveiled by highlighting that they represented the second time public sector personnel had received above-inflation pay rises since Labour took power last July.
Nurses angrily denounced a “grotesque” award that gave doctors a bigger rise than them. Teaching unions and school leaders said that the government’s failure to fully fund the rise would inevitably force schools to cut spending on pupils. Inflation rose sharply from 2.6% in March to 3.5% in April – the highest level since January 2024.
Ministers accepted the recommendations of the independent pay review bodies, which advise them on the size of salary increses and have gone beyond the 2.8% they initially insisted was the affordable maximum. The uplifts are bigger than the 2.8% which ministers had previously maintained was the most they could afford for 2025-26, given the challenging state of public finances confronting them. They are broadly the amounts recommended by the independent public sector pay review bodies.
Ministers are relying on schools and the NHS funding part of the settlements from their own resources through improved efficiency and productivity, which could involve painful decisions. But the British Medical Association said increases of 4% for consultants, GPs, specialists and speciality doctors and 4% plus £750 for resident (formerly known as junior) doctors were “woefully inadequate” and showed ministers’ “lack of commitment to restoring doctors’ lost pay”.
Prof Nicola Ranger, the leader of the Royal College of Nursing, said: “It is a grotesque decision to again favour doctor colleagues for higher increases than nursing and the rest of the NHS.” The BMA told Streeting that he needed to open talks and explain how he would end the significant erosion in the real-terms value of salaries that doctors have experienced since 2010.
She said last week that nurses could strike again – as they did in late 2022 and early 2023 – if this year’s pay offer did not help them address the 25% erosion in the value of their salaries since 2010. “The health secretary can avert strike action by negotiating with us and agreeing a route to full pay restoration,” said Prof Philip Banfield, the union’s chair of council.
Resident doctors in England decided earlier this month to hold a strike ballot even before the government disclosed its pay offer. The ballot, which opens next Tuesday, could give the British Medical Association a legal mandate to stage strikes for six months starting in July and resume the stoppages they undertook in 2023 and 2024. The 4% plus £750 deal offered to the BMA’s estimated 55,000 resident doctor members was inadequate because it did too little to reverse historic pay erosion, the union added. The BMA recently initiated a ballot of resident doctors on their willingness to strike for better pay, even before they received details of the offer.
Streeting said recently that resident doctors’ leaders were seeking a rise of 10% this year, on top of the 22% they received for 2023-24 and 2024-25, as part of their campaign to win “full pay restoration” – restoring the real-terms value of their pay by 2027 to what it was in 2008. Sources close to Streeting pointed out that resident doctors’ leaders had recently said 5% was the minimum rise for this year they would find acceptable, but were rejecting one that equated to a 5.4% rise. He was frustrated that they were “moving the goalposts” with their public comments, they said.
The British Dental Association also criticised the deal and said the 4% dentists had been offered was too little to “halt the exodus from NHS dentistry”. The Hospital Consultants and Specialists Association said the 4% for medics was “a real-terms pay cut for senior doctors compared to inflation”. It will now hold a consultative ballot to assess its members’ readiness to take industrial action over their salaries, as will the RCN and GMB unions.
Phillipson’s department earlier this year had recommended a pay award of 2.8%, in line with Treasury demands. The National Education Union warned that it would “register a dispute” with the government unless it agreed to fully fund the award for teachers. As things stand schools in England will have to find £400m of savings from their existing budgets, with Phillipson providing £615m extra to cover the bulk of the cost.
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Daniel Kebede, the general secretary of the National Education Union, said it was “testament to the strength of feeling in the profession” that the government had now offered an above-inflation increase. But, he added, leaving schools to part-fund the award was “a false economy” that could spell trouble later this year, including possible strikes. Luke Sibieta, a research fellow at the Institute for Fiscal Studies, said the £400m equated to about 1% of schools’ budgets. “This is a bit less than was assumed a few months ago in the government’s proposals to the pay review body, which will probably come as a slight relief to schools,” he added.
Kebede said: “Unless the government commits to fully funding the pay rise then it is likely that the NEU will register a dispute with the government on the issue of funding, and campaign to ensure every parent understands the impact of a cut in the money available to schools, and that every politician understands this too.” Daniel Kebede, the NEU’s general secretary, said in many schools the 1% would result in “cuts in service provision to children and young people, job losses, and additional workloads for an already overstretched profession”.
Pepe Di’Iasio, the general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, welcomed the 4% increase and the earlier timing of the announcement, but also criticised the failure to fund the award. “Unless the government commits to fully funding the pay rise then it is likely the NEU will register a dispute with the government on the issue of funding, and campaign to ensure every parent understands the impact of a cut in the money available to schools, and that every politician understands this too,” he added.
“If the government really thinks it will be possible to bridge this funding gap through ‘improved productivity and smarter spending’ then it is mistaken. Schools have already spent many years cutting costs to the bone and beyond,” Di’Iasio said. But Phillipson defended forcing schools to part-fund the award, saying that the government was “taking tough decisions” on spending and value for money.
Streeting said: “Despite the difficult financial situation the nation faces, we are backing our health workers with above-inflation pay rises for the second year in a row. “School leaders must meet the challenge too. That’s why we are asking schools to fund the first 1% of the pay rise through improved productivity and smarter spending,” she said. “We know this is achievable. There are schools already driving down their costs and making the savings needed.”
“This government was never going to be able to fully reverse a decade and a half of neglect in under a year. But this year’s pay increases – and last year’s – represent significant progress in making sure that NHS staff are properly recognised for the outstanding work they do.” Pepe Di’Iasio, the general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, welcomed the 4% increase and fact that the award had been announced earlier than in previous years. But he also criticised the failure to fund it.
“If the government really thinks it will be possible to bridge this funding gap through ‘improved productivity and smarter spending’ then it is mistaken. Schools have already spent many years cutting costs to the bone and beyond,” he said.