Firefighter Salary UK 2026
The short answer
A competent wholetime firefighter takes home £22,261 to £27,502 a year — £1,855.08 to £2,291.82 a month — after income tax, National Insurance and pension contributions.
Firefighter Pay (Wholetime, NJC Grey Book)
| Pay Point | Annual | Monthly |
|---|---|---|
| Development | £30,384 | £2,532.00 |
| Competent | £38,881 | £3,240.08 |
Firefighter Pay (Wholetime, NJC Grey Book)
| Pay Point | Gross | Pension | Tax | NI | Net | Monthly |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Development | £30,384 | £3,920 | £2,779 | £1,425 | £22,261 | £1,855.08 |
| Competent | £38,881 | £5,016 | £4,259 | £2,104 | £27,502 | £2,291.82 |
Competent is the substantive rate, reached after the development period. Figures are national NJC wholetime basic pay and exclude CPD, which varies by service from about £385 to £1,297 a year, and any PAO overtime.
Check your own figure
A competent wholetime firefighter in England and Wales earns £38,881 basic under the NJC Grey Book. Competent is the substantive rate, reached after a development period that normally runs two to three years from the trainee rate of £30,384.
The working week is 42 hours, not 40. The 2-2-4 shift pattern averages 42 hours over the rota, which is why firefighter hourly rates look lower than a straight division of salary by a standard week would suggest. At the competent rate that works out at about £17.75 an hour.
Basic pay is not the whole picture. Continuing Professional Development payments are made by most services and vary substantially — Cornwall pays around £385 a year, South Yorkshire £1,297, London £1,181 — and Pre-Arranged Overtime is paid at time and a half. Neither is included below, because both depend on which service you work for and what you are rostered to do.
One thing worth understanding before comparing firefighter pay with other roles: the NJC pay year runs from 1 July, not April. Pay awards therefore land three months into the tax year, which means a rise shows up as a part-year adjustment rather than a clean annual figure, and any comparison drawn in spring is using scales that are about to change.