NHS Pension Scheme 2026/27: what locum GPs actually need to know

The pension scheme year that started on 1 April 2026 runs to 31 March 2027. The bands have moved. The rates have not. The forms, the deadlines, and the allowances are mostly unchanged. Here is what is different, what is the same, and where most sessional GPs trip up.

This guide is for freelance and salaried GPs in the 2015 NHS Pension Scheme. The framework also applies to NHS pharmacists, dentists, and other practitioners who pay into the NHSPS, with the practitioner-specific bits flagged where they matter.

What changes for 2026/27

The headline change is small but real: the salary thresholds that decide which tier you sit in have been uplifted by 3.8 per cent, in line with the September 2025 CPI figure used for annual indexation.

The 2026/27 Agenda for Change pay award in England came in at 3.3 per cent, lower than CPI, so the thresholds were not bumped further. The "better of CPI or AfC" rule that has applied since April 2024 simply produced CPI this year.

What has not changed:

• The six contribution percentages (5.2 per cent up to 12.5 per cent).
• The employer contribution a locum collects, 14.38 per cent of pensionable pay in England and Wales, inside an overall employer rate of 23.78 per cent.
• The bottom tier ceiling of £13,259, which is frozen because it is linked to the personal allowance.
• The Annual Allowance of £60,000.
• The Lump Sum Allowance of £268,275 and Lump Sum and Death Benefit Allowance of £1,073,100.
• The 2015 CARE scheme as the only active accrual route since 1 April 2022.

Pension scheme year vs tax year

This trips people up every April. The two clocks do not line up.

• NHS Pension scheme year: 1 April to 31 March.
• Income tax year: 6 April to 5 April.

Your 2026/27 NHS pensionable pay is your pensionable income from 1 April 2026 to 31 March 2027. Your Annual Allowance and self-assessment, however, sit on the income tax year.

If you draft your own management accounts as a locum, run a separate scheme-year column. It saves a painful reconciliation each February.

Tier bands and contributions

Here is the 2026/27 member contribution table, effective from 1 April 2026.

For comparison, the 2025/26 bands (still relevant if you are reconciling work performed before 1 April 2026) were 6.5 per cent up to £27,797, 8.3 per cent up to £33,868, 9.8 per cent up to £50,845, 10.7 per cent up to £65,190, and 12.5 per cent above that.

The contribution rate is applied to your actual annual pensionable pay, not your full-time-equivalent. As a freelance locum, that is the tier of your real earnings.

Pensionable pay for a freelance locum is 90 per cent of your gross fee. The 10 per cent flat deduction is in lieu of expenses and has been the rule since 2014. So a £500 session is £450 of pensionable pay.

Employer contributions:

In England and Wales the employer contribution a freelance locum collects with the fee is 14.38 per cent of pensionable pay, including the 0.08 per cent administration levy. That is the figure that goes in box (h) of Form B. The overall employer rate is 23.78 per cent, but HM Treasury funds the difference centrally, so 14.38 per cent is what you invoice and 23.78 per cent is not. Source: NHSBSA GP locum Form A and Form B, 1 April 2026 to 31 March 2027.

Scotland (SPPA) and Northern Ireland (HSC) are separate schemes with their own rates and their own locum arrangements. Check SPPA or HSC directly rather than reading the England and Wales figure across.

If you are a freelance locum doing a £500 session and you are in the 9.8 per cent tier, your payment to PCSE is £450 x (9.8% + 14.38%) = £108.81: £44.10 of member contribution and £64.71 of employer contribution.

Form A and Form B reminder

The two-form process for freelance locums has not changed.

• Form A (GP Locum A): completed by you, then signed by the organisation that engaged you, or by NHS England for appraisal work. Confirms the work and the fee.
• Form B (GP Locum B): your monthly summary of all Form As, generates the unique identifying reference, and is what PCSE matches the contributions against.

Both go through PCSE Online.

Two deadlines to live by, and they are not the same date:

• 10 weeks. NHS Pensions Regulations are explicit. You cannot pension a period of locum work that ended more than 10 weeks ago. The clock runs from the end of the period of work, not from the end of the month and not from when the fee was paid. Forms received after 10 weeks are rejected and the accrual is lost.
• The 7th of the following month. Both the employee and the employer contributions are due to PCSE no later than the 7th day of the month after the month in which you received the fee. A fee received in June is due by 7 July.

Source: PCSE, "Submit Locum A and B forms".

A clean rule of thumb: invoices in this week, Form A in this week, Form B and contributions by the 7th of next month, and you never have to think about the 10-week cliff.

Annual Allowance, Lump Sum Allowance, and the LTA aftermath

The Lifetime Allowance was abolished from 6 April 2024. It has been replaced by two new allowances that govern tax-free lump sums, not total pension wealth.

For 2026/27 (the tax year):

• Annual Allowance: £60,000.
• Money Purchase Annual Allowance: £10,000 (only relevant if you have flexibly accessed a defined-contribution pension).
• Tapered Annual Allowance: kicks in if threshold income exceeds £200,000 and adjusted income exceeds £260,000. The minimum tapered AA is £10,000, hit at adjusted income of £360,000 or more.
• Lump Sum Allowance (LSA): £268,275.
• Lump Sum and Death Benefit Allowance (LSDBA): £1,073,100.

What this means in practice for a high-earning locum: the tapered AA is the live risk, not the LSA. Once locum profits, salaried sessions, partnership shares, and any private work push your total threshold income past £200,000, you need a serious conversation with a specialist medical accountant.

Out-of-hours work

OOH sessions are pensionable, and the rules are different from regular practice work.

• The GP SOLO form is completed jointly. The commissioning body completes Part 1 and sends it to you with your payment; you complete Part 2 and return it; the body then forwards the form and both contributions. If Part 2 never goes back, the work does not pension.
• You cannot opt out of pensioning your OOH income if you are an active scheme member.

Retire and return, McCloud

• Retire and return: the 16-hour limit on hours worked in the first month after retirement was permanently removed on 1 April 2023.
• McCloud remedy: only the 2015 CARE scheme has been open for active accrual since 1 April 2022.

FAQ

Did the employer rate change for 2026/27? No. In England and Wales the locum collects 14.38 per cent of pensionable pay with the fee, inside an overall employer rate of 23.78 per cent that HM Treasury tops up centrally. Scotland and Northern Ireland run their own schemes; check SPPA or HSC for their current figures.

My 2025/26 sessions were below the new 2026/27 band 2 ceiling. Do I get a refund? No. The band that applies is the band in force during the scheme year the work was done.

Is OOH work optional for pension purposes? No. If you are an active NHSPS member, all NHS practitioner work is pensioned, including OOH.

What if I miss the 10-week Form A deadline? The work cannot be pensioned. The 10 weeks run from the end of the period of work, so a session on 12 March 2026 has to be with PCSE by 21 May 2026. Submit on time or lose the accrual.

Has the LTA come back? No. Abolished from 6 April 2024 and replaced by the LSA and LSDBA, which are unchanged for 2026/27.

Sources

• NHSBSA: NHS Pension Scheme employer contribution rates 2026/27
• NHSBSA: NHS Pensions contribution rates for 2025/26
• NHS Employers: NHS Pension Scheme member contributions
• Report on uplifts to member contribution tier thresholds (gov.uk)
• HMRC: pension schemes rates and allowances
• PCSE: GP Locum A and B pension contributions
• SPPA: NHS Scotland member contributions
• BMA: NHS pension scheme as a sessional GP