Dental training pay 2026 — DFT, DCT & StR salaries (England)

Basic full-time salary by training stage, England, from 1 April 2026 — indicative; always verify with the employing trust.

Which pay year is this?

Dental training pay changes every April, and the figures above are the 2026/27 ones. This matters more than usual this year: the July 2026 circular rebuilt the nodal point structure, so check both the grade and nodal point against the current dentists’ table when comparing sources.

Figures for 2025/26 are not reproduced here: circular 2/2025 states the DFT payment is set separately through the GDS Statement of Financial Entitlements and was not carried in that circular, and the five-point structure it used does not map cleanly onto the ten-point 2026 rows. Rather than reconstruct them, this page gives the current year only.

DFT salary 2026 (foundation dentist)

The foundation dentist salary in England is £43,893 — about £3,658 a month before deductions. The rate applies to every scheme in England from 1 April 2026. The April pay year is separate from the September training-year start. The DFT payment is set through the General Dental Services Statement of Financial Entitlements Directions rather than the medical and dental pay scale, and is reproduced in the pay circular for information.

DCT1 and DCT2 salary 2026

DCT1 and DCT2 are paid the same. Both sit on nodal point 3 — DCT1 on 3a and DCT2 on 3b — at £55,355 basic, about £4,613 a month. On-call, nights and weekends are paid on top, and London weighting applies where relevant — so what you actually take home depends a lot on the rota, which is listed per post across the 665 DCT places in 130 named hospital and community-service entries.

DCT3 salary 2026

DCT3 is the step up: nodal point 4a, £67,325 basic — about £5,610 a month, before out-of-hours supplements and London weighting.

StR (specialty training) pay

Dentists enter specialty training at ST1 after dental core training rather than at ST3/ST4, so the pay circular places every dental StR from ST1 onwards on nodal point 4 or above. Dental ST1 therefore starts at £67,325 — not on the lower core-training points — rising to £77,348 by ST5. For doctors in Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery training programmes, the circular refers to the doctors’ scale, not the dentists’ table. Academic (ACF) trainees are paid on the clinical scale for their stage, with NIHR-funded research time. See the 17 specialty training centres and the 2026 DST vacancy numbers.

On top of basic pay

On-call and out-of-hours work attracts enhanced rates and availability supplements — the DCT post listings flag on-call, weekend and long-day patterns per post. London weighting applies where relevant.

TERS — Targeted Enhanced Recruitment Scheme

TERS means Targeted Enhanced Recruitment Scheme. The 11 May 2026 DCT workbook explicitly labels 10 listings as TERS; three have places, totalling five places, all in Cumbria. Seven are zero-place listings and remain hidden by default on the map. The badge reproduces the advertised scheme label; ask the employer to confirm the payment, conditions and funding for your cohort. The published North Cumbria scheme describes the September 2025 cohort and does not establish a 2026 payment.

Exam-fee reimbursement — England

The Academy’s interim guidance covers eligible resident doctors and dentists in training, and locally employed doctors and dentists, working towards CCT. It provides reimbursement for the first two paid sittings of in-scope exams taken after 1 April 2026. Attempts before that date do not count towards those two sittings. Payment before 1 April does not disqualify an otherwise eligible sitting taken after that date. At the 16 September check, the claims system and instructions were still forthcoming. Eligibility and claims guidance.

The 14 September exam list includes MFDS Parts 1 and 2; Dental Specialty Fellowship Examinations Parts 1 and 2 across ten specialties; Fellowship in Advanced Orthodontics; DDMFR; FRCPath Oral and Maxillofacial Pathology (dentist); and FRCS Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery. College-run MFDS final sittings are listed for spring 2027. Legacy dental exams have transition deadlines and, in some cases, DSFE progression conditions: check the list for your exact examination.

Eligibility note: the Academy says references to doctors also include eligible dentists. Its foundation-doctor FAQ does not separately explain DFT or DCT eligibility. Do not assume that an exam appearing on the list makes every trainee eligible; check the Academy’s criteria and your employer’s claims guidance.

Agreed changes from April 2027

The government agreement schedules a second phase of nodal-point reform for April 2027, alongside the separate 2027 DDRB process. Final dental salaries will be reproduced here only when the NHS Employers circular supplies them. The agreement also schedules mandatory royal college membership and portfolio-fee reimbursement, and an increase to the clinical academic flexible pay premium, from 1 April 2027. Government agreement and implementation timetable.

Academic premium eligibility: the current training contract includes dentists. For an integrated clinical academic pathway, Schedule 2 paragraph 36 requires completion of the specified higher degree and a return to the same training programme; paragraphs 39–41 cover other academic pathways. 2016 training contract, version 14, introduction and Schedule 2.

Interpretation: appointment to an ACF alone does not establish entitlement to this premium. Check the applicable contractual route with your employer.

Where these posts are

• Dental Foundation Training — all 72 UK schemes, with places, study days and competition history
• Dental Core Training — 665 places across 130 named hospital and community-service entries, DCT1 to DCT3, with rotation and on-call detail
• Specialty training (StR / DST) — 17 centres and the 2026 vacancy numbers by specialty
• Academic Clinical Fellowships — 22 NIHR posts with 25% protected research time

Recruitment opens at different points in the year for each — see the timelines page.

Sources & caveats

Figures: NHS Employers Pay and Conditions Circular (M&D) 1/2026 R2, published 24 July 2026 — Annex A, Section 1, “Dentists in training basic pay”, effective 1 April 2026. Taken from the circular itself: the dentists’ table is not reproduced on the BMA or NHS Health Careers pay pages, and mapping dental grades onto the doctors’ nodal points gives the wrong answer.

R2 restructured the nodal points from five to ten (3a/3b, 4a/4b/4c, 5a/5b/5c) following the agreement between the government and the BMA, and recalculated the on-call and weekend allowances with them. Earlier sources may use the superseded nodal structure; compare the grade and point with the current circular.

Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland set their own scales and do not align point-for-point with England — check the relevant national pay instrument and your employer. Pay changes every April, and this circular was itself revised twice between May and July 2026, so check the current version before relying on any figure.

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