What does a Royal Navy Able Rating take home in 2026/27?

On the £27,282 starting rate, take-home is about £23,163 a year or £1,930 a month, after £2,942 Income Tax and £1,177 National Insurance. There is no pension deduction, because the Armed Forces Pension Scheme 2015 is non-contributory. At the £41,164 top of the range it is about £33,158 a year, or £2,763 a month.

Why do two Able Ratings on the same increment get different pay?

Trade supplement. The MOD puts every trade on one of four supplements, and at the top increment the difference between supplement 1 and supplement 4 is £2,611 a year - £38,553 against £41,164. It is not a performance award and nothing you do in the rank moves you between supplements.

What is the next rank up from Able Rating?

Leading Rate, which is OR-4 on the pay tables. The Royal Navy has no rank at OR-3, the level the Army and the RAF fill with a Lance Corporal, so a rating skips a step the other two services take. The OR-4 scale runs £40,989 to £48,497 across its increments and the four trade supplements.

Is Royal Navy pay different from Army pay at the same rank?

Not in the tables. The Armed Forces Pay Review Body publishes one set of scales for all three services, so an Able Rating, an Army Private and an RAF Senior Aircraftman on the same increment and the same trade supplement are paid the same money. What differs is the structure around it - the Navy has nothing at OR-3, so the ladder above Able Rating starts at Leading Rate.

Royal Navy Able Rating Salary 2026/27: OR-2 Take-Home

Able Rating is the entry rank for a Royal Navy rating, OR-2 on the NATO scale the Armed Forces pay tables are built on. Pay in 2026/27 runs from £27,282 to £41,164: the bottom is the first increment on any of the four trade supplements, the top is the tenth increment on supplement 4. The figures already include X-Factor and carry the 3.6% award the Government accepted in full on 9 June 2026, backdated to 1 April 2026.

Typical pay & take-home

OR2-07, supplement 1: £33,823
Increments 1 to 10, trade supplements 1 to 4: £27,282–£41,164
Take-home at median: £27,872 England, no pension applied — use the salary calculator for your scheme.

At the median for this profession, you earn 13% below the UK full-time median (£39,039), placing you in the bottom 37% of UK earners.

See exact take-home for £33,823 →

What influences royal navy able rating (or-2) pay

The £27,282 to £41,164 span is two different things at once and only one of them is progression. Ten increment levels move a rating up the scale with service; four trade supplements, set by the MOD according to the trade, move two ratings on the same increment apart from each other. At the top increment supplement 1 pays £38,553 and supplement 4 pays £41,164, and no amount of service closes that £2,611 gap - the supplement follows the trade, not the person.

The Royal Navy has no rank at OR-3. The pay tables run a rank level between OR-2 and OR-4 that the Army and the RAF fill with a Lance Corporal and the Navy does not fill at all, so an Able Rating’s first promotion is straight to Leading Rate on the OR-4 scale. That is worth more than the Army equivalent, because OR-3 shares its published pay points with the top of OR-2 - an Army Lance Corporal on increment 1 is paid exactly what a Private on increment 8 is paid - while OR-4 opens at £40,989 on supplement 1, £2,436 above the highest OR-2 point on the same supplement.

The first years are flatter than a ten-increment scale sounds. The published table shows Initial Pay and increment 1 at the same £27,282, and increments 2 and 3 both at £28,001, so two of the first four steps up the table carry no rise at all. Trade supplement is worth nothing over that stretch either: all four supplements pay identically until increment 4, which is £29,764 on supplement 1. The scale only starts to spread with service.

X-Factor is already inside every figure above. It is the addition that recognises the conditions of Service life against civilian employment, and because the tables are published including it, treating a published rate as basic pay and adding X-Factor on top overstates gross. The Armed Forces Pension Scheme 2015 is non-contributory, so nothing comes off pay for the pension: take-home is gross less Income Tax and National Insurance and nothing else.

Career progression

Able Rating (OR-2): £27,282 to £41,164.
Leading Rate (OR-4): £40,989 to £48,497.
Petty Officer (OR-6): £46,022 to £56,611.
Chief Petty Officer (OR-7): £51,615 to £65,249.
Warrant Officer Class 2 (OR-8): £56,024 to £65,249.
Warrant Officer Class 1 (OR-9): £64,704 to £68,982.

Frequently asked questions

What does a Royal Navy Able Rating take home in 2026/27?: On the £27,282 starting rate, take-home is about £23,163 a year or £1,930 a month, after £2,942 Income Tax and £1,177 National Insurance. There is no pension deduction, because the Armed Forces Pension Scheme 2015 is non-contributory. At the £41,164 top of the range it is about £33,158 a year, or £2,763 a month.
Why do two Able Ratings on the same increment get different pay?: Trade supplement. The MOD puts every trade on one of four supplements, and at the top increment the difference between supplement 1 and supplement 4 is £2,611 a year - £38,553 against £41,164. It is not a performance award and nothing you do in the rank moves you between supplements.
What is the next rank up from Able Rating?: Leading Rate, which is OR-4 on the pay tables. The Royal Navy has no rank at OR-3, the level the Army and the RAF fill with a Lance Corporal, so a rating skips a step the other two services take. The OR-4 scale runs £40,989 to £48,497 across its increments and the four trade supplements.
Is Royal Navy pay different from Army pay at the same rank?: Not in the tables. The Armed Forces Pay Review Body publishes one set of scales for all three services, so an Able Rating, an Army Private and an RAF Senior Aircraftman on the same increment and the same trade supplement are paid the same money. What differs is the structure around it - the Navy has nothing at OR-3, so the ladder above Able Rating starts at Leading Rate.

All UK professions →