NHS Pension

2015 NHS Pension Scheme: What You Put In vs What You Get Out

By PensionCalc Team | | Updated: 22 November 2025

Use our pension calculator to estimate your retirement income.

If you’ve ever looked at your payslip and wondered where that pension deduction goes - and more importantly, what you’ll get back for it - you’re not alone. The NHS pension can feel like a black box.

Let’s open it up and see exactly what’s inside.

Use our NHS Pension Calculator to estimate your pension at retirement.

The quick version

Here’s the deal with the 2015 NHS Pension Scheme:

  • You pay: Between 5.1% and 14.5% of your salary (depends on how much you earn)
  • NHS pays: 20.68% of your salary on top
  • You get: 1/54th of your salary added to your pension pot every year
  • Your pot grows: By CPI inflation plus 1.5% each year while you’re working

That last point is crucial. Your pension isn’t just sitting there - it’s actively growing, even before you add another year’s worth of contributions.

What you actually pay: The contribution tiers

Your contribution rate depends on your annual pensionable pay. Here’s how it breaks down for 2024/25:

Your salaryYou pay
Up to £13,2465.1%
£13,247 - £16,8315.7%
£16,832 - £22,8786.1%
£22,879 - £23,9486.8%
£23,949 - £28,2237.7%
£28,224 - £29,1798.8%
£29,180 - £43,8059.8%
£43,806 - £49,24510.0%
£49,246 - £56,16311.6%
£56,164 - £72,03012.5%
£72,031 - £110,27313.5%
Over £110,27314.5%

Important: Your contribution rate is based on your TOTAL NHS pensionable pay, not just one job. If you have multiple NHS roles, they’re added together.

NHS pension contributions

What the NHS puts in (and why it matters)

Here’s the bit that makes this pension genuinely exceptional: your employer contributes 20.68% of your salary.

Let’s put that in perspective:

  • Private sector employers are legally required to contribute just 3%
  • Many private schemes offer around 5-8% employer contributions
  • The NHS gives you more than three times the legal minimum

For someone earning £35,000, that’s an extra £7,238 going into your pension every year - money you’d never see if you worked for most private companies.

How your pension actually builds up

The 2015 scheme is what’s called a “Career Average Revalued Earnings” (CARE) scheme. Don’t let the jargon put you off - it’s actually quite straightforward.

Every year you work, you earn a “pension slice”:

  • Take your pensionable pay that year
  • Divide by 54
  • That’s your pension slice for that year

Then that slice grows every year until you retire:

  • While you’re still working: grows by CPI + 1.5%
  • After you leave (but before retirement): grows by CPI only

A worked example

Let’s say you’re earning £36,000 this year:

  • Your pension slice for 2024: £36,000 ÷ 54 = £666.67 per year

If inflation runs at 2% and you keep working:

  • Growth rate: 2% + 1.5% = 3.5%
  • After 10 years, that £666.67 slice is worth about £940 per year

And you’ve been adding new slices every year too. They all stack up.

Building pension benefits

The tax relief bonus

Here’s something that makes pension contributions less painful than they look.

When you see £300 taken from your pay for pension contributions, you’re not actually £300 worse off. Because pension contributions come out before tax, you’re saving on:

  • Income tax (20%, 40%, or 45% depending on your bracket)
  • National Insurance (if you’re on a salary sacrifice arrangement)

Real cost for a basic rate taxpayer: That £300 contribution actually costs you about £240 after tax relief. For higher rate taxpayers, it’s even less - around £180.

What about early retirement?

The 2015 scheme links your Normal Pension Age to your State Pension Age - so for most people, that’s 67 or 68.

But you CAN take your pension from age 55 (rising to 57 in 2028). The catch? Your pension gets reduced to account for the extra years it’ll be paid.

Rough guide to early retirement reductions:

  • 1 year early: ~5% reduction
  • 5 years early: ~21% reduction
  • 10 years early: ~37% reduction

These reductions are permanent - they don’t stop once you reach your normal retirement age.

Is early retirement worth it? That depends on your circumstances. We’ve got a whole article on that.

Death benefits: The protection you might not know about

Nobody wants to think about this, but it’s important - especially if you have dependents.

If you die while working for the NHS:

  • Your family gets a lump sum of 2x your annual pensionable pay
  • Your spouse/civil partner gets a pension (37.5% of what your pension would have been)
  • Eligible children get pensions too

If you die after retiring:

  • Your spouse/partner gets a survivor’s pension for life
  • There may be a short-term lump sum depending on when you die

This built-in protection would cost a fortune to replicate with private insurance.

Can you boost your pension?

Yes, through Additional Voluntary Contributions (AVCs). These let you:

  • Top up your pension pot for a bigger retirement income
  • Build up a separate pot to take as cash at retirement
  • Get the same tax relief as your regular contributions

AVCs make sense if you’re on track for a comfortable pension but want a bit extra, or if you want to build up a larger tax-free lump sum.

Planning for retirement

The State Pension: Your other retirement income

Don’t forget - your NHS pension sits on top of the State Pension, not instead of it.

The full new State Pension (2024/25) is £221.20 per week - that’s £11,502 per year.

You need 35 qualifying years of National Insurance contributions to get the full amount. Most NHS workers will build this up automatically through their working life.

So if your NHS pension works out at £15,000 per year and you get the full State Pension, you’re actually looking at £26,500 per year in retirement (before any other savings or pensions).

The bottom line: Is it worth it?

Let’s do the maths on a typical example:

NHS Band 5 nurse, earning £32,000, working from age 25 to 67:

  • Total contributions over career: ~£125,000
  • Total employer contributions: ~£278,000
  • Estimated annual pension at 67: ~£25,000 per year for life
  • Plus State Pension: ~£11,500 per year
  • Total retirement income: ~£36,500 per year

For context, to buy an annuity paying £25,000 per year at age 67, you’d need a pension pot of roughly £500,000-600,000.

Your £125,000 in contributions is buying you something worth considerably more. That’s the power of the employer contribution and the defined benefit structure.

What to do next

  1. Check your Total Reward Statement to see your current pension projection
  2. Use our NHS Pension Calculator to model different scenarios
  3. Consider whether AVCs make sense if you want to boost your retirement income