Prison Officer Overtime After Tax 2026/27: Worked Examples

In shortA Payment Plus hour is worth £16.56 net to a basic-rate taxpayer and about £13.34 in the higher-rate band: roughly 72% or 58% of £23.

• Basic-rate taxpayer£16.5672% of £23.00
• Higher-rate taxpayer£13.3458% of £23.00

Payment Plus is £23.00 an hour from 1 April 2026. Income tax at 20% takes £4.60, employee National Insurance at 8% takes £1.84, and the pension deduction is zero because Payment Plus is non-pensionable. £23.00 less £6.44 is £16.56.

That 72% figure is the rule of thumb to carry in your head. The extra is taxed at your marginal rate, not at some punishing combined rate.

It applies equally to a Band 3 officer on £34,928 and to a Band 4 Supervising Officer on £43,562, because both are below the £50,270 threshold even with a few hundred extra hours.

In shortEngland, Wales and Northern Ireland tax bands, 8% and 2% NI, and Alpha pension rates of 4.6% to 8.05%, with two assumptions flagged.

All the figures below use these rules, which we checked on GOV.UK and the Civil Service Pension Scheme website on 3 October 2026. Employee Class 1 National Insurance is charged on gross pay, before pension.

Personal Allowance

£12,570.

Income tax, England, Wales and Northern Ireland

Taxable income from £12,571 to £50,270 is taxed at 20%, from £50,271 to £125,140 at 40%, and above that at 45%.

Employee Class 1 National Insurance

8% on earnings between £12,570 and £50,270 a year and 2% above £50,270.

Alpha pension contributions

4.6% for pensionable earnings up to £36,199, 5.45% from £36,200 to £56,000, 7.35% from £56,001 to £150,000 and 8.05% above that. We apply the rate for the band your annual pensionable pay falls in to all your pensionable pay, and we treat the contribution as deducted before income tax, which is how Civil Service pension contributions work for tax. Confirm on your own payslip how your contribution is calculated.

In shortAnnual take-home before any overtime runs from about £27,382 for a Band 3 starter to £40,675 for an Inner London Band 5; the 72% rule fits most of them.

To show the whole picture we start with annual take-home before any overtime for five pay levels taken from the 2026/27 tables. Pension at 4.6% or 5.45% is a small deduction but not trivial.

The Inner London Custodial Manager's pension band jumps to 7.35% because pensionable earnings pass £56,000, and their income tax includes some at 40%.

Remember that the pay figures include the 20% unsocial hours allowance, which is part of annual pay and already reflected here. Anything you earn on top as Payment Plus, a market supplement or a London-area allowance is extra.

• A Band 3 starter on 37 hours on the national scale.
• A Band 3 officer at the top of the scale on 39 hours with 2 pensionable ACH.
• A Band 3 officer on a 41 hour contract at the top of the scale.
• A Band 5 Custodial Manager at the top of the national scale on 39 hours.
• The same grade and point in Inner London.

In short100 hours adds £2,300 gross: £1,656 net for Band 3 officers, £1,754 for the national Band 5 and £1,334 for the Inner London manager.

• Band 3 officers+£1,65672% of £2,300
• Band 5 National+£1,75476%: gross crosses £50,270 part-way through the year
• Band 5 Inner London+£1,33458%: already above £50,270

The Band 3 officers all gain £1,656, exactly 72% of £2,300. The Band 5 National Custodial Manager gains £1,754, because their gross pay crosses £50,270 part-way through the year and the part above it only pays 2% NI rather than 8%.

The Inner London Custodial Manager's taxable income after pension is already above £50,270, so every extra pound is taxed at 40% and NI is 2%. For the same 100 hours, they keep £322 less than the Band 3 officer because of the higher-rate band, even though they earn more overall.

This is the whole mechanism in miniature. Nothing about earning more makes you worse off; the share you keep from the next pound is simply a function of where your taxable income sits relative to £50,270. For almost all Band 3 and Band 4 officers it is 72%.

In shortThe 40% rate starts above £50,270 of taxable income, which is rare below Band 5; even then you still keep £13.34 of each £23 hour.

In England, Wales and Northern Ireland the 40% rate starts when taxable income, meaning gross pay less pension contributions and other deductions before tax, exceeds £50,270. That is rare below Band 5. Governors and managers in Bands 8 and above are above it from the start of their scale.

A higher-rate band does not mean all your pay is taxed at 40%. Only the slice above the threshold is. The effect of a long overtime run is that the later hours are worth less to you than the earlier ones, which is mildly demotivating but not a reason to avoid them.

At 40% tax and 2% NI you still keep £13.34 of each £23 hour, which is 58%.

Band 5 National, top point, 39 hours

£49,600 gross, £46,897 taxable: below the threshold.

Band 5 Inner London, top of scale

£56,200 gross, £52,069 taxable: above it.

Outer London Band 5, 39 hours, top of scale

£53,941 gross: close to or above it.

In shortPAYE works cumulatively, so a big Payment Plus month normally still comes out at your marginal rate; odd results usually trace to the tax code, back pay or a student loan.

PAYE works on a cumulative basis: each payslip compares your pay to date with your allowances and bands to date. If you do a lot of Payment Plus in one month the tax on it is calculated against the cumulative position and normally comes out at your marginal rate, so the 72% rule holds.

The 2026/27 pay award was backdated to 1 April 2026 and paid through June salaries, according to HMPPS as reported by the POA. If you received a lump sum of arrears, that month's pay was unusually high and the tax on it will have been calculated in the same cumulative way.

It does not mean you were taxed at a penal rate on the lump sum.

• A tax code that is not yours (an emergency code after a job change, or a code including an unrelated benefit).
• A back-pay adjustment landing in the same month.
• A student loan deduction kicking in.

1. Find your year-to-date gross pay and year-to-date tax on the latest payslip.
2. Divide year-to-date tax by year-to-date taxable pay (gross less pension). For most officers it should be below 20%, because the Personal Allowance is free of tax.
3. Check your tax code in your payslip header. 1257L is the standard code for a Personal Allowance of £12,570; others are explained on GOV.UK.
4. If the maths is off, ask payroll to confirm the code, then HMRC if unresolved.
5. Keep your own log of overtime hours and compare the Payment Plus line with hours multiplied by £23.

In shortScottish bands, student loans and salary sacrifice all change the net value of Payment Plus; Scottish tax is about £42 more at £37,682 and £231 more at £44,248 on our arithmetic.

If you are a Scottish taxpayer the income tax bands differ. National Insurance is the same UK-wide.

Our arithmetic for an officer on a salary equal to the Scottish Prison Service starting pay of £37,682 (before pension) is about £42 more tax than under the England, Wales and Northern Ireland rules, and at £44,248 (the three-year Residential Officer rate) about £231 more.

The 42% band begins at £43,663, so a Scottish officer on a higher salary reaches a higher marginal rate on extra pay sooner than an English one.

• Student loan repayments are collected through payroll on top of tax and NI and reduce the net value of Payment Plus further. The repayment percentage and threshold depend on your plan, and we have not reproduced them here: check the current figures on GOV.UK.
• Salary sacrifice schemes such as cycle to work, if your employer offers them, reduce gross pay for tax and NI purposes.
• Market supplements and other non-pensionable allowances behave like Payment Plus for tax; see our market supplements guide.
• If your extra hours are part of a pensionable contract (ACHP), your contribution is deducted and the extra pension builds. If they are Payment Plus, they are not pensionable. Our Alpha pension calculator shows the effect of pensionable pay on your benefits.

In shortBand 2 overtime and market supplements are non-pensionable like Payment Plus: about £16.21 and £20.20 net per OSG overtime hour, and £1,080 to £2,520 a year net for a supplement.

Two other non-pensionable payments behave in the same way as Payment Plus for tax, and officers often ask about them. Both are best treated as extras on top of a baseline that does not depend on them.

That is the discipline the calculators encourage: set a no-extras take-home, then add each payment separately with its own tax treatment, so that one change in rules or demand does not unsettle the whole plan.

Band 2 OSG overtime

On our estimate from the PSPRB's method, a National-rate OSG earns about £22.52 gross for a weekday overtime hour and about £28.05 for a weekend or bank holiday hour in 2026/27. At 20% tax and 8% National Insurance with no pension deduction, those are worth about £16.21 and £20.20 net. An OSG on £31,761 (the 37 hour National rate with the temporary 25% unsocial hours allowance) takes home roughly £25,200 a year before overtime on our assumptions, so a basic-rate overtime hour is the right way to think about every extra shift.

Market supplement

The £1,500 to £3,500 a year paid to Band 3 officers at 18 named prisons in monthly instalments. It is non-pensionable, so there is no pension deduction, but it is taxed and attracts National Insurance. Because it is not pensionable it does not build pension and should not be counted when you work out your pension band, although you should check how your lender treats it for a mortgage. Our market supplements guide lists the prisons and the rules.

In shortA £5,000 deposit top-up is about 302 Payment Plus hours, while a 41 hour contract adds roughly 200 hours' net pay that is guaranteed.

• £5,000 deposit top-upAbout 302 hoursAt £16.56 net an hour: roughly six hours a week for a year
• 37 to 41 hours, top of Band 3+£4,639 grossAbout £3,340 after tax and NI; roughly 200 Payment Plus hours' net pay

Once you know that an hour of Payment Plus is worth £16.56 net, you can turn it into a plan.

Six hours a week for a year is probably more than most establishments will offer in qualifying duties, so a realistic plan combines overtime with a change of contract or a market supplement rather than relying on one source.

The structural alternative is a 39 or 41 hour contract, minus a small amount of pension if the extra hours are pensionable. It is guaranteed. Lenders will typically look harder at non-guaranteed income such as overtime than at contracted salary, so for a mortgage, contracted pay is usually the safer basis; check with the lender.