This year's local government pay settlement for staff in England, Wales and Northern Ireland has been agreed after two of the three unions gave their backing to employers' offer.
The deal, endorsed by UNISON and GMB, but not Unite, means staff will receive an uplift of 3.2% for 2025-26, backdated to April 2025. Given the makeup of negotiating body the National Joint Council for Local Government Services (NJC)*, it is sufficient for UNISON and one of the other two unions to agree a deal for it to go through.
The outcome comes despite members of all three unions rejecting the offer from the employers' side of the NJC in consultative ballots concluded recently.
Those results left unions with the choice of whether or not to ballot members on taking industrial action, a process that would extend into the autumn, deferring this year's pay rise, with no guarantee that it would result in an improved offer. In each of the two previous years, the unions have held strike ballots without seeing a resulting improvement in the pay offer.
What the deal is worth to social workers
This year's settlement was confirmed in a letter from GMB, UNISON and the national employers to local authority chief executives, issued today.
For a social worker working outside of London on the bottom of pay point 30, the deal would see their salary increase from £39,513 to £40,777 a year.
Meanwhile, a senior practitioner on the bottom of pay point 36, also working outside of the capital, would be paid £47,181, up from £45,718, annually.
Comparison with inflation and other public sector settlements
The 3.2% pay rise is lower than the current rate of inflation, according to the government's preferred consumer prices index (CPI), which was 3.6% in the year to June 2025.
It is also below the settlements received by the majority of other public sector staff, including NHS social workers, whose pay has risen by 3.4% this year, and local authority employees in Scotland, who are receiving a 4% uplift.
Following the announcement of the settlement, UNISON head of local government Mike Short said council staff would need significantly better pay rises in future years.
'Workers will be disappointed' - UNISON
"Although a 3.2% rise for this year is not to be sniffed at, workers will be disappointed," he said. "Far more will be required in future to ensure local government salaries don’t fall further behind other parts of the economy."
“Otherwise, the recruitment crisis in local authorities and schools will worsen. Next year’s settlement needs to tackle the continuing cost of living crisis. Ministers must also provide the funding to make a decent wage increase possible.”
Short added that the priority now was "to get the money into everyone’s wage packets as soon as possible".
Backpay arrangements
The letter from the national employers, UNISON and GMB said local authorities "were encouraged to implement [the] pay award as swiftly as possible".
It also recommended that authorities provide backpay to employees who have left their organisations since 1 April 2025 if requested to do so, in line with previous practice.
*The NJC covers most, but not all, councils in England, Wales and Northern Ireland
