Department for Transport Pay 2026/27: Salary by Grade and Take-Home
What Department for Transport pays at each Civil Service grade in 2026/27, from the published Cabinet Office medians as at 31 March 2026, with take-home after Income Tax, National Insurance and the alpha pension.
What Department for Transport pays by grade
DfT sets transport policy and oversees a family of agencies - DVLA, DVSA, the Maritime and Coastguard Agency and others - which is where most of its headcount sits.
Cabinet Office publishes a median salary for each responsibility level in each organisation, as at 31 March 2026. That is what people were actually paid on the day, not a band anyone is placed on: pay below the Senior Civil Service is delegated, so the Department for Transport sets its own ranges and no national scale exists to print.
| Grade | Department for Transport median | vs whole service | Rank of 9 |
|---|---|---|---|
| AA / AO | £26,610 | -£1,410 | 9 |
| EO | £30,960 | -£1,180 | 9 |
| SEO / HEO | £41,940 | -£1,990 | 6 |
| Grade 6 / 7 | £63,640 | -£2,190 | 7 |
| Senior Civil Service | £92,550 | -£2,990 | 6 |
Senior Executive Officer and Higher Executive Officer are published as one combined level, so there is no HEO-only median for Department for Transport or for anywhere else. Grade 6 and Grade 7 are combined the same way.
Take-home on those medians
Each median netted through Income Tax, employee National Insurance and the alpha pension contribution due at that salary. alpha is a net pay arrangement: the contribution reduces taxable pay, so it gets full relief at your marginal rate, but National Insurance is charged on the whole gross regardless.
| Grade | Median | alpha | Income Tax | NI | Take-home | Monthly |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| AA / AO | £26,610 | £1,224 (4.6%) | £2,563 | £1,123 | £21,700 | £1,808 |
| EO | £30,960 | £1,424 (4.6%) | £3,393 | £1,471 | £24,671 | £2,056 |
| SEO / HEO | £41,940 | £2,286 (5.45%) | £5,417 | £2,350 | £31,888 | £2,657 |
| Grade 6 / 7 | £63,640 | £4,678 (7.35%) | £11,017 | £3,283 | £44,662 | £3,722 |
| Senior Civil Service | £92,550 | £6,802 (7.35%) | £21,731 | £3,862 | £60,155 | £5,013 |
What the numbers actually say
The Department for Transport pays the lowest AA/AO median and the lowest all-grades median of the nine departments here. Both come from the same cause, and it is not the policy department in Whitehall.
DfT is a small core with large executive agencies attached, and those agencies are where the volume administrative grades are: licensing, testing, registration and enforcement work concentrated in Swansea, Nottingham and other regional sites rather than in London. The published figure covers the whole family, so what looks like a low-paying department is largely a location and grade-mix effect. Its Grade 6/7 median is seventh of the nine, so the policy core is not richly paid either, but the distance between DfT and the top of that column is a fraction of the distance at the entry grades.
The departments nearest to it
The three departments closest to Department for Transport on the all-grades median. The full nine-department comparison, and the whole-service medians, are on the Civil Service pay page.
| Department | All grades | SEO / HEO | Grade 6 / 7 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Department for Transport | £31,600 | £41,940 | £63,640 |
| DWP | £32,140 | £39,600 | £62,970 |
| Ministry of Justice | £35,530 | £43,840 | £65,330 |
| HMRC | £37,680 | £40,520 | £64,620 |
The 2026/27 award at Department for Transport
The Department for Transport sets its own pay award for grades below the Senior Civil Service, inside a Cabinet Office control of 3.5% for 2026/27. That control is a cap on the growth of the department's total remuneration cost, and the guidance is explicit that it "does not confirm the amount that an individual in a department will receive": a department can spread it evenly or target the grades it struggles to fill, and going above it needs HM Treasury ministers to agree.
The medians above are a snapshot taken on 31 March 2026. They already contain whatever this department had paid by that date and nothing after it, and they have deliberately not been uprated by the cap - that would produce our number rather than the published one.
Related
- Civil Service pay 2026/27: every grade, the SCS ranges and all nine departments
- By grade: AO, EO, HEO, SEO, Grade 7, Grade 6
- Civil servant pay and take-home
- Salary calculator for any figure not on this page
Frequently asked questions
Does DVLA pay count in these figures?
The figures are for the department overall, which includes its executive agencies. DVLA is a large part of the AA/AO and EO population and sits in Swansea, where departmental pay ranges are national rather than London.
Why is the DfT all-grades median the lowest of the big departments?
Grade mix and geography, not a lower rate for the same job. The agency workforce is weighted to administrative and operational grades outside London.
What does a DfT policy job pay?
Policy roles concentrate at HEO and above, so the SEO/HEO and Grade 6/7 rows are the relevant ones. Both sit sixth and seventh of the nine, well above where the department’s all-grades median would lead you to expect.