10-07-2025
Junior doctors' pay demands would fund 30,000 nurses
Junior doctors' pay demands would fund an 31,000 extra nurses, Telegraph analysis shows.
The medics, who are now known as resident doctors, want a 29.2 per cent pay rise and have announced a five-day strike starting on July 25.
But the pay rise would cost the Government at least £1.1 billion, the Telegraph can reveal, even before employer National Insurance or pension contributions.
This would be equivalent to hiring an extra 31,000 nurses for the NHS, based on their average salary of £36,559 a year, figures from NHS Digital show.
The NHS had outlined an ambition to hire 190,000 more nurses by 2036 in its long-term workforce plan, published in 2023, although this is set to be updated later this year.
The money could also fund one of the brand new, state-of-the-art hospitals planned by the Government.
Wes Streeting, the Health Secretary, has refused to negotiate on doctors' pay for this year after they received an average 5.4 per cent pay rise – the highest in the public sector for the second year in a row – having agreed a 22.3 per cent increase with the Government in September.
He also said the planned walkout in just two weeks' time is 'completely unreasonable' and was leaving the 'NHS recovery hanging by a thread'.
'No trade union in British history has seen its members receive a 28.9 per cent pay rise only to immediately respond with strikes, and the majority of BMA resident doctors didn't vote to strike,' he said.
The British Medical Association (BMA) has said it would reverse the real-terms cuts to wages since 2008.
The demanded pay rise comes as the Government deals with major setbacks with its tax and spending policy, which have been exacerbated by recent rowbacks on welfare reforms. Analysis suggests that any significant pay rises, which have not been budgeted, would swallow up the savings from these changes.
A £1.1 billion pay rise would be twice as much as the £450 million the Government now expects to save from its watered-down Winter Fuel Payment cut.
The proposed figure would also wipe out half of the £2 billion the Government expected to save through last week's cuts to disability welfare, which divided the Labour Party and highlighted the Treasury's inability to make meaningful spending cuts in the public sector.
Pay in line with inflation
Between March 2023 and March 2025, the average base pay for junior doctors increased by up to 23 per cent, according to figures from NHS Digital.
The pay rise, equivalent to almost £10,000 for the most senior staff, was double the 11 per cent increase seen by nurses and ambulance staff's 10 per cent over the same period.
Currently, junior doctors are in line for a further 5.4 per cent increase in the current financial year, to be backdated in August.
However, the BMA is instead calling for a rise of around 15 per cent this year and a similar increase next year to reverse what they say has been over a decade's worth of real-term cuts.
The union says that since 2008, doctors have seen a 20.9 per cent cut to wages, when inflation is accounted for. However, the BMA uses the Retail Price Index (RPI) method of inflation to calculate this sum, which is no longer used by the Office for National Statistics (ONS).
Using the ONS's preferred measure of inflation, the Consumer Price Index (CPI), base pay for junior doctors has remained broadly in line with inflation since 2010, when NHS Digital started producing average pay figures.
A 29.2 per cent increase in pay would take a first-year doctor's pay from £33,968 per year to £43,819, a £9,851 pay rise that would make it more than ten per cent higher than the average national full-time wage.
For speciality registrars, the most senior role, it would take their average base pay to £72,668 – a pay increase of £16,336.
This is before overtime, geographic adjustments and on-call payments are accounted for, which can represent up to 25 per cent of final pay.
Additionally, resident doctors are given a generous 'defined benefit' pension scheme worth up to 75 per cent of their salaries in retirement.
Regardless, resident doctors have spoken about their profession being a 'crucial crossroads'.
'Doctors don't take industrial action lightly – but they know it is preferable to watching their profession wither away,' the BMA's representative for junior doctors said in response to the strike.
Similar to nurses, the NHS's long-term workforce plan says an additional 74,000 doctors are needed over the next decade.
Downing Street has stated they will not reopen negotiations on pay, stating 'that they can't be more generous than we already have this year'.
Last week, a major parliamentary rebellion fuelled another reversal on disability-related benefits, wiping £3 billion from potential savings.
Meanwhile, the Government has handed out inflation-busting pay rises to public sector employees in their first year of power which have eclipsed those savings.
In July 2024, shortly after the election, they handed out pay increases of between 4.75 per cent and 6 per cent for the 2024-2025 year, costing an additional £9.4 billion to the Treasury.
This year, pay rises of between 4 per cent and 5.4 per cent were handed out to staff.
Economists estimate that the Chancellor Rachel Reeves is facing a £20 billion black hole in government spending, with warnings that increased taxation would be needed to help fuel the pay rises and weakened welfare cuts.
