NHS HCAS Calculator 2026/27

Last updated: 15 October 2026 · Figures verified against the NHS Employers 2026/27 pay circular.

By the NHS Bands Pay editorial team

The calculator

How HCAS is calculated

The High Cost Area Supplement is the Agenda for Change payment that replaced the old London weighting in 2004. It compensates staff whose principal place of work is in or around London for the higher cost of living in the capital and its surrounding areas. Every Agenda for Change employee in the three zones receives it, and it is a permanent part of pay, not a temporary allowance.

The calculation has two stages. First, a straight percentage of basic salary: 20% for inner London, 15% for outer London and 5% for the fringe zone. Second, a minimum and maximum cash value for each zone. If the percentage works out below the minimum, you receive the minimum. If it works out above the maximum, you receive the maximum. If it falls between the two, you receive the exact percentage. That is the whole formula, and it is why two people on the same band can receive different HCAS: their zones differ, their pay steps differ, or one of them hits a floor or ceiling while the other does not.

The floors matter most for lower-banded staff. A straight 20% of a Band 2 or Band 3 salary would be a modest sum, so the inner London minimum of £5,794 guarantees a worthwhile supplement regardless of band. The ceilings matter most for senior staff. The inner London maximum of £8,746 bites from around Band 8a upwards, which means the effective percentage falls steadily as salaries rise beyond that point. For the full framework and the rules behind the arithmetic, see our London weighting (HCAS) guide.

Three things HCAS is not: it is not added before your unsocial-hours enhancements are worked out, it is not negotiable by role, and it is not the same thing as the HCA abbreviation for healthcare assistant, a confusion addressed in the section below.

The 2026/27 HCAS rates

The figures below are the confirmed 2026/27 values, uplifted by 3.3% from 1 April 2026 in line with the Agenda for Change pay award:

To see where the boundaries fall in salary terms: the inner London maximum starts to bite when 20% of your basic salary passes £8,746, which is at a salary of £43,730, around the middle of Band 6. The inner minimum stops mattering once 20% of basic exceeds £5,794, at a salary of £28,970, part way up Band 4. Most Band 5 to 7 staff in inner London receive the exact percentage, while Bands 2 and 3 typically receive the minimum and senior Bands 8a and above receive the maximum.

Inner, outer and fringe zones

Your zone is determined by your principal place of work, not by where you live. Inner London covers the central boroughs, including Westminster, Camden, Islington, Hackney, Tower Hamlets, Southwark, Lambeth, Wandsworth, Kensington and Chelsea, Hammersmith and Fulham, Brent, Haringey, Lewisham, Greenwich, Newham and Barking and Dagenham, plus the City of London. Most central London teaching hospitals sit in this zone.

Outer London covers the remaining Greater London boroughs, such as Croydon, Bromley, Barnet, Enfield, Hounslow, Bexley, Havering, Redbridge, Sutton, Merton, Kingston, Richmond, Hillingdon and Harrow. District general hospitals across Greater London typically fall here.

The fringe zone covers parts of the home counties bordering London, including parts of Essex, Hertfordshire, Buckinghamshire, Berkshire, Surrey and Kent, for example areas around Dartford, Watford, Slough, High Wycombe and Guildford. Boundaries can be extremely precise, with two neighbouring trusts sometimes in different zones, so confirm your zone with HR or your ESR record rather than guessing from the postcode.

Zone changes have immediate effect on pay. If you transfer from an outer London trust to an inner London trust, your HCAS moves from 15% to 20% from your start date in the new post, along with the higher minimum and maximum. If your post is split across zones, the zone of your principal base normally applies. For how London pay compares with the rest of the country once HCAS is included, see our London vs regional NHS pay comparison and living on Band 5 pay in London.

Worked examples

Every figure below matches the calculator's output for the same inputs. To verify, enter the salary shown and select the zone:

A few observations from the table. First, the minimum is a significant uplift for lower-paid staff: the Band 3 example receives £642 a year more than the straight percentage would give. Second, the caps bite hard at senior levels: the Band 8d example loses over £10,000 a year to the outer London maximum, receiving an effective 5.6% of basic rather than 15%. Third, part-time staff scale cleanly: HCAS is worked out on the full-time figure for the salary, then multiplied by the WTE fraction, which is exactly what the calculator's optional fraction field does.

Part-time staff

HCAS is pro-rated for part-time staff in the same way as basic salary. The order of operations matters: first calculate the full-time HCAS for your WTE basic salary, applying the minimum and maximum, then multiply by your WTE fraction. The minimum and maximum are applied before the pro-rating, not after, so a part-time employee never drops below the floor twice. Our part-time pay calculator handles the basic-salary side of the same calculation if you want to see the full picture together.

For example, a Band 5 nurse at the top of the band (£39,043) working 0.6 WTE in inner London gets £7,808.60 on the full-time figure, then 60% of that: £4,685.16 a year, or about £390.43 a month. A Band 6 at the top of the band (£48,117) working 0.5 WTE in the fringe zone would first hit the fringe maximum of £2,270 on the full-time figure, then halve it to £1,135 a year. Bank and agency shifts worked on top of a substantive post do not earn extra HCAS beyond the contracted arrangement.

HCAS on your payslip

On your payslip, HCAS usually appears as its own line, separate from basic pay. It is pensionable, which means it counts towards your NHS pension benefits, and it is subject to income tax and National Insurance in the same way as basic salary. If you are trying to reconcile your take-home pay, our NHS payslip guide walks through every line including HCAS.

What HCAS does not do is multiply other enhancements. Unsocial-hours payments under Agenda for Change Section 2 and overtime under Section 3 are calculated on basic salary alone; HCAS is then added on top. So a night-shift enhancement worth 30% of basic is not 30% of basic plus HCAS. During paid leave, HCAS continues at the rate you would normally receive, pro-rated in the same way as basic pay: occupational sick pay and paid maternity or paternity leave keep it flowing, while unpaid leave normally stops it. If your HCAS line looks wrong, the usual culprits are a wrong zone (common after a trust transfer) or the payment being calculated on the wrong basic salary figure.

HCAS is not HCA

One persistent source of confusion: HCAS and HCA are completely different things. HCAS is the High Cost Area Supplement, the London weighting payment described on this page. HCA is a healthcare assistant, the support-worker role usually paid at Bands 2 and 3. The two abbreviations differ by one letter, and forum and social media threads regularly mix them up, especially in phrases like "HCA pay in London", which almost always means a healthcare assistant working in London, not the London weighting supplement itself. If you are looking for the role, see our healthcare assistant salary guide; if you are looking for the payment, this page and the calculator are the right place.