My Earnings as a Midwife

The past 4 financial years, I have been working as a Qualified Midwife. I always find it interesting to know how much people make, earn, spend on things and general cost. I don't understand why people are so secretive about finances and I think it should be a social norm to be more open and honest. I thought it would be interesting to compare my earnings since working as a midwife over the years. 

So I qualified as a midwife in January 2021. I started the first week of work as a Band 3 Pre-Pin Midwife whilst waiting for my Pin number to come through and then worked as a Band 5 until the end of the financial year, working full time hours of 37.5 hours. For that period I earnt, £5897.58. 

The next year, I was again working full-time at 37.5 hours a week, with the majority paid as a Band 5. I got my Band 6 towards the end of February so just less than 2 months were Band 6 pay. For that year, I earnt £34,841.65. At that point, Band 5 basic pay was £25,655 and Band 6 basic pay was £32,306. 

My first complete year as a Band 6 followed. I earnt £40,097.32. I also started my Masters degree in September 2022 so as this point I dropped my hours from 37.5 hours contracted to 29 hours contracted a week. Having said that, I generally picked up a couple of extra shifts a week to make up full time hours. The Band 6 basic pay at this point was £33,706. 

Last year, I was again a Band 6, but in my mid-point pay scheme so the basic pay is £37,350, again working 29 hours contracted for the entire year duration. Again, I did a lot of extra shifts and overtime over this period, so I ended up earning £49,153.42. 

At present, there's been no announced changes to the increase of pay for the new financial year which is of course a little bit of a shame. I did a lot of overtime and extra shifts last year, averaging 2 a month, but sometimes doing much more, for example in April I did 10 extra shifts, before the NHSP bank shift pay rates changed. I think last year was a peak in earnings for a good few years. Whilst I am now doing a Band 7 job for 7.5 hours a month and I am increasing my hours back to full time as of September as my Masters degree will be finishing, I don't currently plan to do any extra shifts for the rest of the year for two reasons...one the NHSP bank shift rates aren't anywhere near as desirable, and I have a busy personal life schedule with weddings and hen parties etc so for work-life balance, I need some days off. 

I always find it interesting to see how much more I've earnt than the expected rate, because all unsocial hours are then paid over that amount. I currently mainly do nights and weekends, therefore the majority of my shifts are paid more. Plus, we've had a few extra payments over the years which has also affected the annual pay.