Salaried GP Sessional Rate Calculator

Salaried GP posts are advertised at a rate “per session”, and that rate is a year’s pay for one weekly session, not a payment for each session you work. Multiply it by the number of sessions a week and you have the annual salary. A post at £12,000 a session on 4 sessions a week pays £48,000 a year.

The convention comes from the BMA model salaried GP contract, which defines full time as 37.5 hours a week made up of 9 nominal sessions of 4 hours 10 minutes. The full-time salary divided by 9 is the rate per session, and part-time posts are a number of those sessions.

A locum rate is the opposite: what you are paid for turning up once. That is why the two can’t be compared directly. To compare a salaried offer with locum work, use the salaried vs locum calculator.

Each year the DDRB recommends a pay range for salaried GPs, and the BMA publishes it. For 2026/27, as a full-time salary and as a rate per session:

It is a recommended range, not a legal minimum. Your own contract sets your pay, and the model contract entitles salaried GPs to the yearly uplift that follows the DDRB, so check yours for the uplift clause. Scotland and Northern Ireland are not covered here.

£12,000 a session, 4 sessions a week, on the model contract’s leave:

• Salary: £12,000 × 4 = £48,000 a year, £4,000.00 a month.
• Full-time equivalent: the same rate at 9 sessions is £108,000.
• Per session actually worked: the salary is paid every week, but 8 of the 52 weeks are paid leave. 4 sessions × 44 weeks is 176 sessions, so each one worked earns £272.73, or £65.45 an hour.
• Cost to the practice: £6,902 employer pension at 14.38% and £6,450 employer National Insurance makes £61,352 a year, £5,113 a month, or £348.59 for each session worked.

The BMA model contract gives a full-time salaried GP 30 working days’ annual leave, the public and bank holidays, and two “NHS days”, all pro rata for part-time. With the eight bank holidays in England and Wales that is 40 working days, or 8 weeks a year, paid but not worked. Dividing the salary by the sessions actually worked, rather than by 52 weeks, is what makes a salaried rate comparable with a day rate or a locum session.

Study leave, sick pay and parental pay add further value that is not in these figures. If your contract gives different leave, change the leave weeks in the calculator.

On top of the salary a practice pays the NHS Pension Scheme employer contribution of 14.38% (the headline rate is 23.7%, and the rest is funded centrally) and employer National Insurance of 15% on pay above £5,000 a year in 2026/27. The calculator shows the total a year, a month and per session worked, and how many months of the post a budget pays for.

It does not deduct Employment Allowance, which many practices can set against their whole employer National Insurance bill rather than against one post. Covering a GP’s absence has its own rules: see locum cover insurance and the SFE reimbursements.