Prison Officer Overtime Rate 2026: £23 an Hour Explained

In shortBands 3 to 5 get a flat £23.00 an hour Payment Plus; Band 2 OSGs get 1.33 or 1.75 times base plus £5 an hour; Bands 7 to 12 have no overtime-type payment we could find.

For the officer grades in England and Wales, Bands 3, 4 and 5, there is a single overtime-type payment called Payment Plus, and from 1 April 2026 it pays £23.00 an hour.

It is a flat figure, not a multiple of your salary, and it is paid only for specific operational duties worked on a non-working day or outside the hours of your scheduled shift pattern for that day.

For Band 2 Operational Support Grades, overtime is paid at 1.33 times the standard hourly base rate on weekdays and 1.75 times at weekends and on public or bank holidays, plus a permanent extra £5 an hour added to the multiplier. Those rates are non-pensionable.

For Bands 7 to 12 (Heads of Function, Deputy Governors and Governors, and the Prison Group Director) we found no overtime-type payment described in the sources we read, so we do not state one.

In shortPayment Plus is a pay-for-duty system: one flat rate for particular duties outside your scheduled pattern, not a multiple of your hourly pay.

• Band 3, top of scaleAbout 1.45 times basicOur arithmetic for 2026/27; about 1.21 times including the 20% UWH
• Band 5, top of scaleBelow normal rate£23 is slightly less than your normal hourly rate with unsocial hours (about £24.39)

In the prison service the expectation of a multiple holds for Band 2 support staff, but not for officers. Payment Plus replaced a patchwork of separate payments in July 2008 and, as the PSPRB puts it, was never intended to be an all-encompassing overtime payment.

The PSPRB acknowledged that some Band 4 and 5 staff doing Payment Plus duties are therefore paid less than their normal hourly rate, and said it considers that reasonable because the duties are Band 3 duties. If you are a Custodial Manager wondering why an extra hour feels poorly paid, this is why.

• The POA calculated that the old £22 rate was roughly time and two-fifths for a Band 3 officer on 2025 pay.
• Time and a third for Band 4, and time and a tenth for Band 5.

In shortA non-consolidated, non-pensionable flat payment for qualifying duties, paid only on a non-working day or outside your scheduled shift; the list of duties is not published.

It was introduced in July 2008 and, apart from a £1 increase on 1 April 2026, the rate was unchanged from £22 since 2016. It is paid to officer grades "for specific operational duties", and the PSPRB says bedwatch and constant watch are paid at the same rate.

The PSPRB's own example is a shift ending at 17:00: hours after 17:00 only count if you are doing a qualifying duty. The reverse is also true: a duty that would qualify on a rest day does not earn Payment Plus during your rostered hours.

We cover the rule step by step in our Payment Plus explained guide, including a checklist for payslips.

In shortBand 2 overtime is a multiplier system: about £22.52 an hour on weekdays and £28.05 at weekends on our estimate, non-pensionable, and above Band 3 Payment Plus at weekends.

• Weekday overtimeAbout £22.52Our estimate: £13.17 x 1.33 plus £5
• Weekend or bank holidayAbout £28.05Our estimate: £13.17 x 1.75 plus £5
• Band 2 spot rate£25,409National, from 1 April 2026; £28,841 Outer London, £30,627 Inner London

The PSPRB describes 1.33 times the standard hourly base rate for weekday time and 1.75 times for weekend time, where the weekend runs from midnight Friday to midnight Sunday or covers a public or bank holiday.

A permanent extra £5 an hour is added to the multiplier, which on 2025 base rates produced effective multipliers of 1.72 on weekdays and 2.14 at weekends.

Overtime is non-pensionable. Time off in lieu is single time only. It can be used to cover vacancies, sickness or training where the establishment has budget, and the PSPRB scheduled it for review in the 2028 Report.

On 1 April 2026 the Band 2 spot rate rose after the 3.5% award on top of the National Living Wage uplift. Using our hourly convention (annual pay divided by 1,929.29 hours), the national base hourly rate is about £13.17.

Those are our estimates from the published method, not an HMPPS rate card, so check your payslip.

In shortChoosing a 39 or 41 hour contract after training adds about £1,160 a year gross per extra weekly hour: guaranteed, rostered and with the 20% UWH included.

HMPPS says all trainees start on a 37 hour contract, and once training is complete you can choose to increase to 39 or 41 hours a week. The published pay tables include 38, 39, 40 and 41 hour options.

Hours above 37 are paid as Additional Committed Hours (ACH), with the 20% unsocial hours allowance applied, and some 39 hour contracts use Pensionable Additional Committed Hours (ACHP).

At the top of Band 3 on the national scale, 37 hours with UWH is £36,778, 39 hours with 2 ACH is £39,097 (or £38,766 with 2 ACHP), and 41 hours with 4 ACH is £41,417.

Each extra weekly hour on ACH therefore adds about £1,160 a year, which is roughly £22.24 per hour actually worked, before tax. That is slightly under £23 Payment Plus, but it is guaranteed, rostered, and attracts UWH as part of the structure.

In shortFor Bands 3 to 5, unsocial hours are covered by a flat 20% pensionable allowance already in your salary, not an hourly premium you can claim.

• Unsocial working hours allowance20%Of contracted hours; pensionable; already in the published Band 3 figures
• Band 3, pay point 3, 37 hours£36,778£30,648 base with UWH added
• POA asked for33%Last year; the PSPRB made no change

HMPPS describes the allowance as paid in recognition that some staff are expected to regularly work unsocial hours as part of their rostered shift pattern.

We found no separate night, weekend or bank holiday premium for Bands 3 to 5 beyond that 20% allowance, and the PSPRB has said it will review UWH for Bands 2 to 5 in the 2027 Report.

HMPPS is also reviewing night working with the POA. For Band 2, UWH is temporarily 25% of base pay on all contracted hours until the 2027 Report.

In shortA basic-rate officer keeps about £16.56 of each £23 hour, and about £13.34 in the higher-rate band; there is no pension deduction.

Overtime is taxed in the normal way. For 2026/27 in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, income tax is 20% on taxable income between £12,571 and £50,270 and 40% above, and employee National Insurance is 8% between £12,570 and £50,270 and 2% above that.

Because Payment Plus and Band 2 overtime are non-pensionable, there is no pension contribution taken from them.

A basic-rate officer keeps about £16.56 of each £23 hour; a Band 2 weekend overtime hour of about £28.05 gross is worth about £20.20 after tax and NI at the same rates.

Most officers are basic-rate taxpayers on their normal pay. A Band 5 Custodial Manager on the top national point on 39 hours (£49,600) is just under the threshold after the 5.45% pension deduction. Their first £3,370 or so of extra pay remains at 20% tax.

At Inner London rates the same grade (£56,200) is already partly in the higher-rate band and keeps only about £13.34 of each Payment Plus hour.

In shortMost frustrations come from assumptions: not every extra hour is paid, there is no weekend premium on Payment Plus, and Payment Plus is not reliable income.

The first assumption is that any hour beyond the end of your shift is paid. For officer grades it is paid only for a qualifying duty. The second is that a Sunday or bank holiday earns a premium on top of Payment Plus.

We found no such multiplier for officers: the flat 20% UWH allowance covers unsocial working, and Payment Plus is a flat £23 regardless of day.

The third is time off in lieu. For Band 2 overtime the PSPRB says time off in lieu is single time only. We found no published rule for officer grades, so we do not state one: ask your establishment whether you can take time instead of money for extra hours and on what terms.

The fourth is treating Payment Plus as reliable income when mortgage lenders and pension schemes may not: it is non-pensionable and non-consolidated, so it can disappear if the rules or the demand change.

In shortUse contracted pay for commitments and Payment Plus for extras: a 41 hour contract adds £4,639 gross at the top of Band 3, against £1,150 for fifty Payment Plus hours.

The honest planning rule is that contracted pay is for commitments and Payment Plus is for extras. Contracted pay, including ACH and the 20% UWH, is the figure lenders and pension schemes can rely on. Payment Plus hours come and go with demand and policy.

If you want a predictable income step, a 39 or 41 hour contract is the structural lever; if you want flexibility, Payment Plus offers it but at the price of uncertainty.

In shortThe rate and scope of Payment Plus are on the PSPRB's 2027 review list, but no timetable or outcome has been published.

No timetable for evidence or the report has been published, and we have not seen the outcome of HMPPS's reviews. HMPPS proposed £25 and the POA £30 for Payment Plus in the last round; the PSPRB recommended £23 as an interim step.

It is therefore realistic to expect the rate and scope to be examined in 2027, but we cannot say what the result will be. Anything we publish about it will be dated and sourced, and the pay rise page is where we track it.