Next steps for SAS doctors in Northern Ireland

2026/2027 DDRB pay recommendation and progress on non-pay asks

The recommendation from the Doctors’ and Dentists’ Pay Review Body (DDRB) of a 3.5% pay uplift is unacceptable to SAS doctors in Northern Ireland. It fails to meaningfully address the scale of real terms pay erosion our members have experienced over many years and falls well short of what is needed to stabilise the medical workforce.

This announcement comes after the 2025/2026 DDRB recommended pay uplift was finally paid to doctors working in Northern Ireland at the end of February, months after our colleagues elsewhere in the UK received their uplift in full.

In addition to the annual pay uplift, BMA’s Northern Ireland SAS committee (NISASC) secured a  number of non-pay asks as part of the pay agreement secured in December 2024. Unfortunately, despite continued lobbying of the Department of Health, delivery of the non-pay elements of the pay deal has been delayed.

We will now be consulting members on our next steps. SAS doctors have been clear that their patience has been exhausted and that stronger action is now required to secure fair pay and protect the future of patient care.

Read the full statement.

Pay erosion for SAS doctors in Northern Ireland

The graphs below clearly illustrate pay deterioration faced by SAS doctors in Northern Ireland as successive pay uplifts have not kept up with inflation.

Pay erosion for SAS Doctors (closed contract) from 2008/09 to 2025/26

Pay erosion for SAS Doctors (open contract) from 2008/09 to 2025/26

SAS vacancies in Northern Ireland

Whist the number of SAS doctors in Northern Ireland is growing, so too are the number of vacant posts. This suggests that growth is not sufficient to keep up with service demands.  

According to data obtained via BMA Northern Ireland freedom of information requests, as of September 2021, vacant SAS posts in Northern Ireland as a proportion of the overall establishment (vacancy rate) was 25.4%. In September 2023, the vacancy rate was 31.8%.   

However, when looking exclusively at the number of SAS vacancies reported by the Department of Health, the rate is significantly less – just 8.3% in 2021 and 7.71% in 2023.   

This suggests that the Department of Health are significantly underreporting the true extent of SAS vacancies in Northern Ireland due to the narrow scope of its definition of a vacancy. This inevitably leads to an inability to make effective workforce plans and enables huge staffing pressures to go unchecked.    

Now more than ever we need to restore pay back to the level it should be at in order to retain and attract to the SAS workforce and protect the integrity of our profession. 

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