Unsocial Hours Allowance for Prison Officers 2026 Explained

In shortUWH is a flat 20% of contracted hours, already inside the advertised salary: £29,107 base plus £5,821 gives £34,928 at Band 3 pay point 1.

• Base pay, pay point 1£29,10737 hours, national
• 20% UWH£5,821A year at pay point 1
• Advertised figure£34,928Base plus UWH

Prison officers are not paid a plain basic salary and then a separate payment for each night or weekend they work. Instead, the Fair and Sustainable pay structure that covers over 99% of the E&W remit group adds a flat percentage to contracted hours.

HMPPS describes it to the Pay Review Body as paid "in recognition that some staff are expected to regularly work unsocial hours as part of their rostered shift pattern", calculated at 20% of contracted hours worked, and pensionable.

That is why the HMPPS jobs page says all its published salary figures include a 20% unsocial hours allowance.

The rest of this guide covers who gets it, how it is built into 38, 39, 40 and 41-hour contracts, why it matters for your pension, and what is not published.

1. Take the 37-hour base pay figure.
2. Multiply by 1.2 to get the advertised figure.
3. At Band 3 pay point 3 on the national scale the base is £30,648 and 30,648 x 1.2 = £36,778 (rounded).
4. The difference, £6,130 a year, is the unsocial hours allowance. For a Band 3 officer on pay point 1 it is £5,821.

In shortBands 3 to 5 get 20%, Band 2 gets a temporary 25%, Bands 7 to 11 get an equivalent 20% RHA, and Band 12 is inclusive with no add-on.

• Bands 3 to 520%UWH, pensionable
• Band 2 OSG25%Temporary
• Bands 7 to 1120%Required Hours Addition, pensionable
• Band 12NoneSpot rate, inclusive

The allowance depends on band. The practical point for a new recruit is that you do not apply for the allowance or switch it on after a probation period.

It is part of the contract hours structure, and the salary you are offered already contains it. The detail of the grades is in prison officer pay bands and, for the pay-point mechanics, Band 3 prison officer pay.

Bands 3, 4 and 5

Prison Officer, Supervising or Specialist Officer, Custodial Manager. They receive UWH at 20% of contracted hours.

Band 2

Operational Support Grade. It receives UWH at 25%, because the 2025 PSPRB report temporarily raised it from 20% and the 2026 report, Recommendation 10, maintains that until the 2027 report is published.

Bands 7 to 11

They receive an equivalent Required Hours Addition (RHA) of 20% of base, which is also pensionable.

Band 12

The Prison Group Director spot rate is inclusive of everything and gets no add-on.

Band 6

It does not appear in the Fair and Sustainable pay scales the PSPRB publishes, so we cannot give any Band 6 figure and have not tried.

Older closed grades

Staff on the older closed grades have a different structure again; closed-grade pay rates for 2026/27 are published as 39-hour figures (for example £32,915 for the closed Prison Officer grade) and we do not apply the 20% to them here.

In shortEvery hours option is quoted including the 20%, so the allowance grows with contracted hours: £34,928 on 37 hours against £39,334 on 41 at pay point 1.

• 37 hours, pay point 1£34,928Including 20% UWH
• 41 hours, pay point 1£39,334Including 20% UWH
• Difference£4,406 a yearFor four extra hours a week

HMPPS says all trainee officers start on a 37-hour contract and, once training is complete, can choose to increase to 39 or 41 hours a week. The PSPRB's tables also publish 38 and 40-hour versions.

Every one of those figures is quoted including the 20% UWH, and the PSPRB notes that Additional Committed Hours (ACH) and the pensionable version (ACHP) also attract UWH. So the allowance is not a fixed sum: it grows when your contracted hours grow.

So the 20% is paid on a base that most officers have extended in some way. At 31 July 2025, the PSPRB's analysis of HMPPS data shows these Band 3 contracts:

• 45% on 37 hours.
• 29% on 39 hours with two ACH.
• 15% on 39 hours with two pensionable ACH (ACHP).
• 9% on 41 hours with four ACH.
• No more than 1% on one or three ACH.

In shortUWH is pensionable: at pay point 3 it adds roughly £142 a year of alpha pension, though it also moves you into the 5.45% contribution band.

• Pension built up, UWH included£853.252.32% of £36,778, pay point 3
• If UWH were not pensionable£711.032.32% of the £30,648 base
• Extra pension a yearAbout £142In today's money, before revaluation

UWH is pensionable, which is not true of everything on a prison officer's payslip. Payment Plus and market supplements are non-pensionable, so they add to your pay packet but not to your pension.

UWH is different: it counts as pensionable earnings in the Civil Service alpha scheme. The Civil Service Pension Scheme says you build up alpha pension by adding 2.32% of your actual pensionable earnings from each scheme year to your pension, with an annual CPI-linked revaluation.

Put numbers to that. These calculations are our arithmetic from the published rules and tables, not a pension quote.

• At Band 3 pay point 3 on the National scale, pensionable earnings including UWH are £36,778 and 2.32% of that is £853.25 of annual pension built up for that year.
• If the 20% were not pensionable, 2.32% of the £30,648 base would be £711.03. The pensionable allowance therefore adds roughly £142 of yearly pension for every year you work at that level, in today's money, before revaluation.
• It also pushes you into a higher member contribution band sooner: the 2026/27 alpha rate is 4.6% up to £36,199 of pensionable earnings and 5.45% from £36,200, so a pay-point-3 officer pays 5.45%.
• The employer contribution rate is 28.97% for 1 April 2024 to 31 March 2027, falling to 22.32% from 1 April 2027 (CSPS employer notices EPN743 and EPN749); it does not come out of your pay.

In shortIt is a flat percentage of contracted hours, not a rate per night or weekend, and we found no published rule that varies it by shifts worked.

This is the question most searchers actually have, and the answer from the published sources is: it is a flat percentage of contracted hours, not a rate per unsocial shift.

The HMPPS evidence says it is paid to staff who are "expected to regularly work" unsocial hours as part of a rostered pattern, and the PSPRB's pay tables show the allowance as part of the annual figure.

If your role is day-only, ask your establishment's HR or the POA how your contract treats UWH before assuming.

In shortAt Band 3 pay point 3 the allowance adds £3.18 an hour and roughly £118 a week, gross.

• Base per hour (pay point 3)£15.89Annual / 52.143 / 37
• UWH per hour£3.18Pay point 3
• Hourly incl. UWH£19.06Contracted hourly figure
• UWH per weekAbout £118£6,130 / 52.143, gross

A percentage is abstract; per hour it is concrete. Our convention is to divide annual figures by 52.143 weeks and by 37 hours, since HMPPS does not publish a formula in the sources we read.

• Band 3 pay point 3: base £15.89 an hour, and the UWH adds £3.18 an hour, taking the contracted hourly figure to £19.06.
• Band 3 pay point 1: base £15.09 an hour, and the UWH adds £3.02.
• Band 4 Supervising Officer: UWH adds about £3.57 an hour.
• Band 2 OSG at 25%: about £3.29 an hour.
• Weekly, UWH is worth roughly £118 a week at Band 3 pay point 3 (£6,130 / 52.143) and about £112 at pay point 1.

In shortUWH is the only one of the four that is both automatic and pensionable; Payment Plus, market supplements and overtime are separate.

Four different things get confused in search results and forums. The distinction matters for take-home: a rostered night does not trigger Payment Plus, and a Payment Plus hour does not increase your pension.

The overall effect on advertised pay is visible in the HMPPS tables: a Band 3 pay point 1 officer at Bullingdon sees £38,428 on the 37-hour contract, which is the £34,928 UWH-inclusive figure plus a £3,500 market supplement.

The jobs page includes that supplement in the quoted figure for supplement prisons, so check which of the two numbers you are reading.

UWH

The 20% built into your contract hours.

Payment Plus

A flat £23 an hour from 1 April 2026 for specified duties such as bedwatch and constant watch, paid only outside your normal shift for that day or on a non-working day; it is non-consolidated and non-pensionable. See Payment Plus.

Market supplements

£1,500 to £3,500 a year paid at 18 named prisons, non-pensionable and not part of base. See market supplements.

Overtime

In the conventional sense it exists only for Band 2 OSGs (see prison officer overtime).

In shortUWH for most bands is due for review in the PSPRB's 2027 report and Band 2's 25% is explicitly temporary; no outcome of the night working review is published.

The PSPRB's rolling programme says UWH for Bands 2 to 5 and 7 to 11 will be reviewed in its 2027 report. HMPPS is separately reviewing night working in prisons with the POA, according to the PSPRB's executive summary.

We have not found the terms of that review or any outcome, so we cannot say whether it will change how night work is paid.

We did not find a published timetable or evidence deadlines. Our 2027/28 pay rise guide and the living pay rise page track what is confirmed.

In shortThe costliest error is adding 20% to a figure that already includes it; use the checklist below with every offer, contract change or payslip query.

The errors we see most often are listed below. The first is the most expensive, because it inflates mortgage and budget plans by thousands of pounds.

Use the checklist the next time you receive an offer, a contract change or a payslip query. Where the answer is not in your paperwork, ask HR in writing; where it is a contract interpretation, the POA is the proper route.

• Adding 20% to a figure that already includes it.
• Treating UWH as a per-night rate.
• Assuming it is non-pensionable like Payment Plus.
• Comparing a 37-hour offer with a 41-hour one without adjusting for hours.