DSFRS Pay Scales 2026: Devon & Somerset Firefighter Pay

DSFRS pay scales from 1 July 2026 at a glance

DSFRS does not have a local pay scale for operational staff in the way London Fire Brigade does. Its pay rates page says uniformed pay is set by the National Joint Council for Local Authority Fire and Rescue Services, and the table it publishes for wholetime firefighters, headed as effective from 1 July 2026, is the national table line for line. The Authority's own pay policy statement says the same thing in formal terms: wholetime, on-call and uniformed control staff are on the Grey Book, and anything else is subject to local agreement.

For a firefighter that means two steps. A development firefighter earns £31,539 (£14.40 an hour) and a competent firefighter £40,358 (£18.43 an hour, £27.65 overtime). DSFRS's wholetime careers page quotes the same £31,539 and £40,358 and says competence usually comes after about two years of work and training. The 1 July 2026 rates follow the 3.8% NJC award confirmed in the FBU's settlement page and circular NJC/2/26; the full national context is in our firefighter pay scales 2026 guide and the 2026 pay rise guide.

So the honest answer to 'what are DSFRS pay scales?' is: the national scales, plus local terms for on-call staff. If you are comparing DSFRS with a neighbouring service, basic pay for the same role and stage will be identical. The differences are in on-call pay, allowances and any local arrangements, which the rest of this guide covers.

Every DSFRS role from firefighter to area manager

The DSFRS table runs from firefighter development to area manager competent B, with a basic annual salary, a basic hourly rate and an overtime rate for each line. As on the national table, there is no overtime rate for group and area managers, who are normally on the flexible duty system. The figures below are copied from DSFRS's page and checked against the site's national data from circular NJC/2/26; every line matches.

The gaps between steps tell you what promotion is worth before allowances. Firefighter competent to crew manager development is £2,534 a year, and to crew manager competent £4,384. Watch manager runs from £45,711 to £50,034 over three steps, station manager from £52,040 to £57,402, group manager from £59,937 to £66,445 and area manager from £70,368 to £77,186. Our promotion calculator and acting up pay guide show what those gaps look like after tax.

DSFRS's pay policy statement refers to 'flexible duty officers', which tells you that the flexible duty system is in use for officers. The national flexible duty allowance is explained in our flexi duty allowance guide. We did not find a DSFRS document stating its local flexible duty terms or rota, so we do not quote a DSFRS-specific supplement.

Apprentice, trainee and older figures on DSFRS pages

DSFRS's own pages do not all show the same year. The wholetime careers page lists an apprentice firefighter at £29,169, alongside the 2026 development (£31,539) and competent (£40,358) figures. The pay rates page does not list an apprentice or trainee rate at all. The national 'trainee' stage was removed from the NJC table from 1 July 2025, when its last value was £28,265 (the 1 July 2024 rate). We could not find a DSFRS document explaining how its £29,169 apprentice figure is set or from what date. Arithmetically it equals £28,265 plus 3.2%, but DSFRS does not say that, so treat the figure as DSFRS's advertised rate and ask the recruitment team which rate applies on the date you would start.

Two other DSFRS pages carry figures from a year earlier. The fire control operator page gives a trainee starting salary of £28,865, which is the national control development rate from 1 July 2025 (the 1 July 2026 figure on the pay rates page is £29,962). And, as the on-call section below explains, the on-call pay page shows retaining fees of £4,558 and £5,832, which are 15% of the 2025 development and competent rates. This matters if you are comparing offers: always use the figure on the pay rates page, which is the one headed with the July 2026 effective date.

If you are thinking about the apprenticeship route generally, our firefighter apprenticeship guide covers how services structure it, and the 2025 versus 2026 pay scales guide shows exactly which figures changed on 1 July 2026.

On-call pay at DSFRS: Pay for Availability and the traditional contract

DSFRS runs two on-call pay systems. The traditional Grey Book contract pays an annual retaining fee, monthly, plus pay for incidents, drill nights and training. Pay for Availability (P4A) replaces the retaining fee with an hourly payment for every hour you commit to be available, between 30 and 120 hours a week, and DSFRS says hours between 8am and 6pm generally attract a higher rate. Its on-call careers page says most stations are moving to P4A and that, until it is rolled out across the service, pay and contracted hours depend on the station you join.

The background is in two 2022 Community Safety Committee reports. They say P4A was designed to improve recruitment and retention, that a collective agreement was reached with the Fire and Rescue Services Association but the FBU was not in a position to agree in 2020, and that DSFRS therefore offered it station by station on a voluntary basis, with 100% of staff at a station having to agree. The first stations moved on 1 October 2020, and by 1 December 2021 69 of 79 eligible stations (87%) were on P4A.

That is not the end of the story. In December 2025 the Local Democracy Reporting Service reported that six stations had not moved, that DSFRS had found it needed to change the P4A terms because of affordability concerns, and that new negotiations with the unions were expected in January 2026, aimed at one collective agreement for all on-call staff. We could not find a published outcome of those talks, so we do not say whether P4A terms have changed since. The rates below are the ones DSFRS publishes as at 1 July 2026.

Worked on-call examples: P4A against the traditional retainer

DSFRS publishes two P4A examples for a competent firefighter at July 2026 rates. Committing 100 hours a week, 40 of them between 8am and 6pm and 60 overnight, pays 40 x £3.72 plus 60 x £1.77, which is £255.00 a week for availability. Committing 35 hours a week, all in the daytime, pays £130.20 a week. Incidents, drill nights and training are paid on top at the basic hourly rate, £18.43 for a competent firefighter.

The table below turns those into annual figures and sets them against the traditional retainer, so you can see the scale. We have multiplied weekly availability pay by 52, which assumes the same commitment every week; we have not seen how DSFRS treats annual leave under P4A, so the real figure may differ. We have assumed 6 hours a week of paid activity (a 2-hour drill night plus about two call-outs of 2 hours, consistent with DSFRS's statement that on-call firefighters are paged on average two to three times a week for a couple of hours). The traditional row adds the national £5.31 disturbance payment per call-out from DSFRS's pay rates page; we could not confirm whether P4A pays a disturbance payment, so the P4A rows leave it out.

The comparison is not like for like, because the commitments differ: the traditional full retainer requires 120 hours a week. The point is that P4A pays for the availability itself, so a firefighter giving a lot of daytime cover can earn much more from availability than from a 15% retainer, while someone giving mainly overnight cover earns less per hour committed. Our on-call firefighter pay guide explains the national retainer bands and the annual earnings examples guide shows more national scenarios.

Fire control pay at DSFRS

DSFRS's control room staff on control-specific roles are on 95% of the operational rate, the national rule explained in our fire control pay guide. The pay rates page lists control rates from 1 July 2026 from £29,962 (firefighter development, control) to £63,123 (group manager competent B, control), with £38,340 for a competent control firefighter. The control careers page gives a fully competent salary of £38,340, consistent with that, but a trainee starting salary of £28,865, which is the 2025 development figure.

Control vacancies at the time we checked were internal promotions: on 11 October 2026 the vacancies page listed several Crew Manager posts in fire control at Exeter Clyst St George, closing 18 October 2026. For how people join, see our fire control operator guide.

What a DSFRS firefighter takes home

Because DSFRS pays the national scale, wholetime take-home is the same as anywhere else in England on the same assumptions. The figures below use the site's 2026/27 model: England income tax with a 1257L code, employee National Insurance at 8% between £12,570 and £50,270 and 2% above, and Firefighters' Pension Scheme 2015 contributions by pay band (11.09% up to £36,130, 12.59% to £45,407, 14.09% to £66,908). Pension comes off before tax. There is no student loan, overtime, CPD or allowance in these figures.

Hand-checking one line: a competent firefighter on £40,358 pays 12.59% pension, £5,081.07. Taxable pay after pension is £35,276.93; less the £12,570 allowance leaves £22,706.93, taxed at 20% to give £4,541.39. National Insurance is (£40,358 minus £12,570) x 8%, £2,223.04. Take-home is £28,512.50 a year, or £2,376.04 a month. The apprentice line uses DSFRS's advertised £29,169 and the same assumptions; check whether an apprentice contract changes anything for you.

On-call earnings are taxed as employment income too, but they are usually a second income, so the tax code matters more than the rate: see the on-call availability guide and the take-home pay guide. The free pay calculator takes any salary and overtime.

Senior officer pay: what the pay policy statement says

Every English fire authority has to publish an annual pay policy statement under the Localism Act 2011. The most recent DSFRS one we could open is the 2025-26 statement, Appendix A to report DSFRA/25/6. We searched the Authority's committee papers for a 2026-27 statement and did not find one, so the figures below are 2025-26 and may have been uprated since.

The 2025-26 statement says the Chief Fire Officer salary was set at £124,800 for 2007 when Devon and Somerset combined, and that national pay awards and a 2015 review have since increased it to £179,676. It gives the Deputy Chief Fire Officer as £149,130 and an Assistant Chief Fire Officer as £134,754, notes that the Authority is in Gold Book population band 4 with a national minimum CFO salary of £144,337, and says uniformed brigade managers' salaries include a 20% enhancement for standby on the brigade manager rota. The statement records a pay multiple of 4.96 to 1 between the CFO and median basic pay (£36,226), and 14.4 to 1 against the lowest pay point (£25,992), with a policy target of 5 to 1 against the median. It also commits that any CFO rise above the national Gold Book award will be no greater than a firefighter's percentage rise, unless for performance or restructuring.

DSFRS's separate senior manager salaries page, which shows pay bands from 6 April 2025, puts the Chief Fire Officer in the £185,000 to £190,000 band, the Deputy in £155,000 to £160,000, and two Assistant Chief Fire Officer directors in £140,000 to £145,000. Those bands are higher than the pay policy statement figures, which were prepared earlier in 2025; we have not verified what changed between the two documents. Below brigade manager, group and area managers are on the Grey Book table above.

Is DSFRS recruiting, and how to check your payslip

When we checked on 11 October 2026, DSFRS's wholetime careers page said applications to become a wholetime firefighter were closed, and the vacancies page listed no wholetime firefighter or transfer posts. It did say the service is looking for on-call firefighters at stations across Devon and Somerset, with an on-call crew manager vacancy at Nether Stowey (internal) closing 22 October 2026. Wholetime recruits train on a 12-week residential core skills course at Severn Park in Avonmouth, Bristol, and DSFRS says you cannot choose your station. For how the process works, see how to become an on-call firefighter and transferring between fire services.

To check a DSFRS payslip, match your role and stage to the pay rates table and confirm the July 2026 rate has been applied; the national award took effect on 1 July 2026, and back pay should follow if your service implemented it later (see firefighter back pay). On-call staff should check which contract they are on, whether availability hours are split correctly between the 8am-6pm and 6pm-8am rates, and, if on the traditional contract, whether the retaining fee is the £6,054 national figure or the older £5,832.

The site has a service page for DSFRS that pre-fills the national rates: the Devon & Somerset payslip checker. If you want everything written up, the pay report below gives a free take-home breakdown, and the optional Personal Pay Report adds a year-ahead scenario table and a payslip checklist with your own expected figures.

• Basic pay matches the 1 July 2026 line for your role and stage on DSFRS's pay rates page.
• On-call: your contract type (P4A or traditional) and contracted availability hours.
• P4A: day and night availability hours paid at the right rate for your role.
• Traditional: retaining fee band (5% to 15%) and whether it uses the 2026 basic.
• Activity hours (incidents, drills, courses) paid at your basic hourly rate.
• Pension band and tax code, especially if on-call is a second job.