Department for Transport Pay 2026/27: Salary by Grade and Take-Home
What the Department for Transport pays at each Civil Service grade - published medians as at 31 March 2026, with 2026/27 take-home after tax, NI and the alpha pension.
What the 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. Table 20 of Civil Service Statistics 2026 counts 16,610 staff in DfT overall, of whom 3,385 are in the core department and the rest in its agencies.
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 | 9th |
| EO | £30,960 | -£1,180 | 9th |
| SEO / HEO | £41,940 | -£1,990 | 6th |
| Grade 6 / 7 | £63,640 | -£2,190 | 7th |
| Senior Civil Service | £92,550 | -£2,990 | 6th |
Senior Executive Officer and Higher Executive Officer are published as one combined level, so there is no HEO-only median for the 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. In Table 20, DVLA (based in Swansea) accounts for 3,890 of DfT’s 5,380 AA/AO staff, and DVSA (head office in Nottingham) for 2,845 of its 4,205 EOs. The published "Overall" figure covers the whole family, so the low all-grades median is a grade-mix effect: Table 25 gives the core department alone an all-grades median of £57,520, against £26,610 for DVLA. Its Grade 6/7 median is seventh of the nine, so the policy core is not richly paid either, but in proportion it sits closer to the top of that column than it does at the entry grades.
The departments nearest to it
The three departments closest to the 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 the 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?
Yes. The figures are the "Department for Transport Overall" row, which includes its executive agencies. DVLA has 3,890 of the department’s 5,380 AA/AO staff in Table 20, and its own all-grades median in Table 25 is £26,610.
Why is the DfT all-grades median the lowest of the nine departments here?
Grade mix. Most DfT staff work in its agencies, which are weighted to administrative and operational grades; the core department on its own has an all-grades median of £57,520 in Table 25.
What does a DfT policy job pay?
Policy roles are typically at HEO and above, so the SEO/HEO and Grade 6/7 rows are the relevant ones. They sit sixth and seventh of the nine respectively, well above where the department’s all-grades median would lead you to expect.