Your payslip explained – Personal Finance for Junior Doctors

It’s really important to understand your payslip, so you can make sure you’re being paid and taxed correctly.

Unfortunately, they can be extremely tricky to interpret as they use a lot of jargon, acronyms and other terms that seem strange to someone without a background in finance or accounting.

We’ve included a sample payslip below. You can hover your cursor over various areas to find out more about what each part means.

Please note this page works best on a desktop or laptop computer, rather than on a mobile device.

Assignment number

This is your unique employee number used by the hospital trust and payroll. You might need to refer to it if calling your payroll department with a query.

Name

Your name!

Location

This might be your department, hospital or employing trust.

Department

Your local area of work.

Job Title

This is your official job title or grade.

Payscale description

This links with your job title, and reflects your pay rate outlined on the national junior doctors’ contract.

Salary/wage

This is the basic rate of pay based on your grade. It’s the standard pay for 40 hours per week (if you work full time), with no weekends or unsocial hours and no other supplements.

Basic pay in 2020-21 ranges from:

£28,243 for an FY1,
£32,691 for an FY2,
£38,693 for a core or specialty trainee (CT1-2/ST1-2), to
£49,036 for a registrar/SpR (at third or higher specialty training year or ST3+).

Click on this area to read more about how this fits in with your overall salary.

Standard hours

The standard number of hours per week used to calculate your basic pay. If you work full time, this will be 40 hours per week. It will be less if you work Less Than Full Time (LTFT).

Part time salary/wage

This represents an adjusted salary if you work Less Than Full Time (LTFT). Calculated as:

Basic pay x % of full time work, or

Basic pay x Standard hours / 40.

Tax code

Tax codes are used to help your employer work out how much income tax should be deducted from your salary.

The number in the tax code tells your employer how much tax-free Personal Allowance you are allowed.

The letters that follow the numbers usually reflect any situation which changes your Personal Allowance.

You can click this area to learn more about tax codes.

NI number

Your NI number is a unique identifier used by HMRC to track information about your tax and national insurance, so they can tax you the correct amount. It never changes, so should be the same on all of your payslips.

Basic pay

Basic pay is the standard pay for 40 hours per week, no weekends or unsocial hours, no other supplements.

Basic pay in 2020-21 ranges from:

£28,243 for an FY1,
£32,691 for an FY2,
£38,693 for a core or specialty trainee (CT1-2/ST1-2), to
£49,036 for a registrar/SpR (at third or higher specialty training year or ST3+).

Click on this area to read more about how this fits in with your overall salary.

London zone

Employees in London receive an additional £2,162 annually, to compensate for increased costs of living.

Additional hours

This is extra pay for the number of hours actually worked per week, rather than just 40 hours accounted for by the basic amount. This is paid at the rate of basic pay.

For example, a doctor working 48 hours per week on average will have an additional 8 hours’ worth at the basic pay rate.

Click on this area to read more about how this fits in with your overall salary.

Night duty, also known as enhanced rate hours

This is an extra enhanced rate for any hours that are deemed “unsocial”. The pay rate for these hours is increased by 37%.

The main hours which qualify are:

Hours worked between 21:00 and 07:00 for each day of the week.
Any hours worked during a shift that starts between 20:00 and 23:59.
Any hours worked during a shift that finishes at 10:00 or earlier and is at least 8 hours long.

Click on this area to read more about how this fits in with your overall salary.

Weekend duty

This is a fixed allowance/bonus to compensate for working on weekends. The amount of the bonus is determined by how often weekend working is required.

Click on this area to read more about how this fits in with your overall salary.

Pay as You Earn (PAYE)

PAYE is another expression for Income Tax. It is a method for taking income tax directly from your salary, across the year as you earn it.

You can click on this area to read more about PAYE and income tax.

National Insurance (NI)

National Insurance is a form of compulsory tax paid by employees and their employers. Payment of NI is used to determine whether or not you qualify for state benefits like the State Pension.

Rates of NI vary depending on how much you earn. For NHS junior doctors, NI will be automatically deducted from your salary.

Click on this area to read more about national insurance.

NHS Pension

This item outlines your contributions to the NHS Pension. The cost of paying into the NHS pension is fixed as a percentage of your pensionable salary.

The percentage fee varies based on how much you earn, ranging from 5.0% to 14.5%.

Click on this area to read more about the NHS Pension.

Other deductions

Other deductions are usually outlined here, like mess fees, car parking and student loans.

Hours worked

The number of hours worked, per month, in each category. For example, if you work full time, the hours worked under “Basic pay” will be 173.81 hours (40 hours per week, expressed in monthly terms).

Hours paid/due

The number of hours for which your pay is calculated. This should equal the hours worked, except for the 37% enhanced rate hours – in which case this should be equal to 37% of the hours worked at this rate.

Rate

The hourly rate of pay for each section of your salary.

Amount

Equal to hours paid x rate.

NI letter

National Insurance (NI) category. The letters refer to different rates of pay. In most circumstances, this should be A.

If this letter is not A, click this area to find out more about different NI categories.

Pensionable pay

This is the part of your salary which is used to calculate your pension contributions, and which adds toward your benefit at retirement.

Your pensionable salary is currently defined as your basic pay, for doctors in training.

Click this area to read more about the NHS Pension.

Taxable pay

This is the part of your salary on which income tax is calculated. It will include all earned salary, but exclude reimbursements e.g. study leave payments.

This will not yet take into account your tax-free Personal Allowance.

Click this area to read more about income tax.

Non-taxable pay

This is the part of your salary not included in income tax calculations. This will represent all non-earned income, such as study leave reimbursements.

Click this area to read more about income tax.

Net pay

This is your salary after all deductions, also known as your “take-home pay”.

Gross pay – Deductions = Net pay.

Balance carried forward

This is any remaining money to be repaid or refunded, for each category.

This might be used, for example, if you have a change in circumstances that mean you are refunded £400 in extra tax, but this is spread over several pay periods.

Gross pay

The total amount earned, before deductions like income tax, national insurance and pension contributions.

Gross pay – Deductions = Net pay.

Pension contributions

The total value of pension contributions paid for this tax year so far, for this employer. This value might be reset if you change hospital trusts.

Messages for employer

Any extra messages from the payroll department will go here, for example:

Details of any extra payments or refunds
Changes to pay dates
Changes to rates of pay
Other important messages from your employer

Year-to-date balances

Any amounts shown in this section will reflect total amounts since the start of the tax year (the prior April), for this employer only. This value might be reset if you change hospital trusts.

National Insurance (NI) pay/contributions

The NI pay section reflects the amount of pay, since the start of the tax year, upon which NI contributions are calculated. The NI contributions section reflects how much NI you have paid for the tax year so far. This value might be reset if you change hospital trusts.

Click on this area to read more about National Insurance.

Tax period

This is the period of time you’ve been taxed for. It is usually shown as the month number since the start of the tax year (in April).

Pay method

This is how you are paid your salary. BACS is most common – meaning it is paid directly into your bank account.

SD reference number

This is your unique identifier for the NHS Pension scheme. You might need to quote this number if contacting them.

This period summary

All values in this section are for the period outlined in the payslip – usually the preceding week or month.

Other links you might find interesting are our post explaining how a junior doctor’s salary is calculated, and how deductions are calculated like income tax, national insurance and pensions.

Understanding the Junior Doctor’s Payslip

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