Firefighter hourly rate UK 2026: £18.43 and the formula

The current firefighter hourly rate

From 1 July 2026 the nationally agreed basic hourly rate for a firefighter is £14.40 in development and £18.43 when competent. Crew Managers are on £19.59 (development) and £20.43 (competent). Watch Managers range from £20.87 to £22.85 and Station Managers from £23.76 to £26.21. Group and Area Managers have published hourly rates of £27.37 to £30.34 and £32.13 to £35.24. All of these come from NJC circular NJC/2/26, which applied a 3.8% award to the previous year's rates.

These are basic rates. They do not include CPD payments, flexible duty supplements or local allowances, and they are used for two things: calculating overtime and other enhanced payments, and paying on-call firefighters for work activity. A wholetime firefighter on a salary is not paid by the hour, so the hourly figure matters mainly when something is paid on top of the salary.

If you searched for this because you want the overall picture of pay, start with firefighter salary UK 2026. If you want a quick answer for a specific overtime shift, the overtime calculator will do the arithmetic for you.

How the NJC works out the hourly rate

The circular explains the method in one sentence: annual figures are rounded to the nearest pound first, then hourly rates are derived from the appropriate annual figure divided by 52.143 (rounded to the nearest penny) then by 42 (rounded to the nearest penny). The 52.143 is the number of weeks in a year (365 ÷ 7 = 52.142857, rounded), and the 42 is the average working week for a full-time employee set out in the Grey Book.

Worked through for a competent firefighter: £40,358 ÷ 52.143 = £773.99 a week (rounded from £773.9869). Then £773.99 ÷ 42 = £18.4283, which rounds to £18.43. For a development firefighter: £31,539 ÷ 52.143 = £604.86, and £604.86 ÷ 42 = £14.40. The intermediate rounding step matters: dividing £40,358 by 52.143 and 42 in one go gives £18.4283, which happens to round the same, but that is not guaranteed at every pay point, so use the weekly figure first.

London Fire Brigade's own scale confirms the method. Its policy states that its hourly rates reflect the national formula of dividing the annual rate by 52.143 and then by 42, so a London Competent Firefighter on £47,991 has an hourly rate of £21.91 (£47,991 ÷ 52.143 = £920.37; ÷ 42 = £21.91).

Hourly rates for every role, verified

The table shows the intermediate weekly figure that the formula produces, the published hourly rate, the published overtime rate (time and a half) and the double-time rate that applies to public holiday working. The overtime column is exactly as printed in the circular; the weekly and double-time columns are calculated. The double-time figure is the published hourly rate multiplied by two and is shown so you can see the size of the public holiday premium.

Overtime at time and a half is the hourly rate multiplied by 1.5, rounded to the nearest penny, with a half-penny rounded up. For a competent firefighter £18.43 × 1.5 = £27.645, published as £27.65. For Watch Manager Competent A, £21.45 × 1.5 = £32.175, published as £32.18. Group Managers and Area Managers have no nationally published overtime rate, because the Grey Book applies overtime to Watch Managers and below, and to Station Managers only for casual overtime when they are not on the flexible duty system.

What the Grey Book says about overtime and enhanced pay

Overtime payment applies to Watch Managers and below at time and a half, or double time on a public holiday. An employee who requests it may be granted time off in lieu at the enhanced rate instead of payment, subject to the exigencies of the service. The Grey Book separates two kinds of overtime. Pre-arranged overtime is voluntary and limited to no more than 24 hours a month averaged over a six-month period, and it cannot be used to make up a planned shortfall in staffing.

Casual overtime arises when you are required to stay on duty at an operational incident. Each period is treated separately. No payment is made for a period of under 15 minutes. A period of 15 minutes up to one hour is treated as one hour, and beyond an hour you are paid for complete periods of 15 minutes. That rounding rule is why a 40-minute stay-on at a competent firefighter's rate pays £27.65 and a 1 hour 20 minute stay-on pays 1 hour 15 minutes, £34.56.

Recall to duty for a serious incident is voluntary, paid for a minimum of three hours and paid at double time. For a competent firefighter three hours at £36.86 is £110.58. For the detail of how these apply in practice see the firefighter overtime rates guide, and for holiday working see bank holiday pay.

On-call hourly pay and call-out payments

For on-call (retained) firefighters, the hourly rate is used for work activity. All work activity is paid at the appropriate basic hourly rate, not at an enhanced rate. That covers drill nights and other prearranged duties as well as incident attendance. A competent on-call firefighter is therefore paid £18.43 for each hour of work activity, and £14.40 in development.

A call-out has its own minimums. An employee called to an emergency incident who forms part of the crew receives a minimum of one hour's pay, and if they remain on duty for more than one hour and fifteen minutes they receive two hours' pay, then complete periods of 15 minutes after two hours. Someone called out who does not form part of the crew receives a minimum of half an hour. Separately, a disturbance payment of £5.31 is paid per call-out for reporting promptly to the station.

So a 40-minute call for a competent crew member pays 1 hour at £18.43 plus the £5.31 disturbance, £23.74. A three-hour incident pays £18.43 × 3 = £55.29 plus £5.31 = £60.60. Overtime rates apply to on-call staff only when they work more than 42 hours in a seven-day period. The annual retainer is separate, and is covered in on-call firefighter pay and on-call annual earnings examples.

Why the hourly rate is not your take-home per hour

The 42 in the formula is the average weekly hours in the Grey Book, and those hours include three hours of meal breaks in every 24 hours on the shift system. So the hourly rate reflects paid time in a rostered 42-hour week, not hours of active work. Comparing £18.43 with an hourly wage in a job where breaks are unpaid is therefore not a like-for-like comparison, and firefighters are not paid extra because they are busy during a shift.

The rate is also a gross figure. Using the 2026/27 England tax model, a competent firefighter's basic pay of £40,358 leaves £28,512.50 after a 12.59% pension contribution, income tax and National Insurance. Divided by the 2,190 hours the formula assumes (52.143 × 42), that is £13.02 an hour after deductions. This is a useful sense-check, but individual results vary with tax code, pension band and allowances; see firefighter take-home pay 2026.

For part-time staff the hourly rate is unchanged, but the annual figure is pro-rated. A firefighter working 30 of 42 hours would earn 30/42 of the annual figure, £28,827.14 for a competent firefighter, at the same £18.43 hourly rate. The part-time firefighter pay guide and the part-time pay calculator handle that maths.

Common mistakes when converting salary to hourly pay

The most common error is using the private-sector convention of 52 weeks and 40 hours. £40,358 ÷ 52 ÷ 40 = £19.40, which is £0.97 an hour higher than the NJC's £18.43 (5.3% too high). It would overstate overtime by about £1.45 an hour at time and a half, so any calculator that uses 2,080 hours is not applying the Grey Book method.

The second error is using last year's rates. The competent hourly rate was £17.75 from 1 July 2025 and £17.20 from 1 July 2024, so a payslip that is behind on the 2026 award may still show the earlier rate until your service processes it. See firefighter pay rise back pay for how arrears are worked out. A third mistake is applying overtime to the wrong base: overtime is 1.5 times the basic hourly rate, not 1.5 times an hourly rate that already includes CPD or a flexible duty supplement, unless your service's terms say otherwise.

Finally, be careful with online tables that show a single 'firefighter hourly rate' without a date or stage. A page quoting £16.54 is showing the 2023 competent rate. Always match the rate to the effective date and to the development or competent stage on your payslip. The payslip checker lets you compare your payslip lines against the current national figures.

Local variations: London and other local scales

London Fire Brigade does not use the national table for its uniformed staff up to group commander. Its policy 558, reviewed on 24 July 2026, sets a Development Firefighter at £37,402 (£17.08 an hour), a Competent Firefighter at £47,991 (£21.91) and a Competent Plus rate of £49,223 (£22.48) after five years from sign-off. Overtime at time and a half is £32.87 for a Competent Firefighter and public holiday double time £43.82. The London firefighter salary guide has the full scale.

Other services generally apply the NJC table. Some agree local supplements, allowances and additional duty payments on top, and these are set locally. If you are in a service with its own local scale, the derivation method is the same but the annual figure is different, so replace £40,358 with your own annual salary and repeat the two-step calculation. The result should match the hourly rate on your service's own pay policy or pay policy statement.

Control room roles use a different table: a competent Firefighter (Control) is on £38,340 a year, £17.51 an hour and £26.27 overtime, which is 95% of the firefighting salary, as set out in the fire control pay guide.

Use the rate to check your payslip

To check a payslip, take the hourly rate from your role and stage, multiply by the hours or number of periods claimed and compare with the line on your payslip. For overtime, check that the multiplier is 1.5 for ordinary overtime and 2.0 for public holidays. If you have taken time off in lieu instead, the hours are banked at the enhanced rate rather than paid.

Keep in mind that overtime is paid in arrears in most services, often a month or one pay period later, so the payslip that shows your overtime may not match the month you worked. Ask your payroll team how many days of lag applies. For a full explanation of every line on the payslip see firefighter payslip explained, and for a personal written breakdown see the paid Personal Pay Report.