All scheme members pay contributions from their salary into the NHS Pension Scheme to build membership. The level of contributions vary depending on the amount of salary an individual member earns and whether or not their work is classified as ‘manual’. The real cost of your contribution rate is less than the percentage figure suggests because:
- you get tax relief on your contributions; and
- you pay a lower rate of National Insurance contributions because you are contracted out of the State Second Pension Scheme (S2P).
- The benefits of the NHS Scheme are valuable. Actuaries have assessed them as being worth around 20% of overall pay.
Your employer pays the extra required to meet the total cost of the benefits.
You will find factsheets on the links below for the years 2008/09 and 2009/10 contribution rates. When referring to these year it is the pensions year not the calendar year. For example the 2009/10 pensions year is from 1 April 2009 to 31 March 2010.
The rules in respect of tiered contributions apply to members of both the 1995 Section and the 2008 Section of the NHS Pension Scheme.