HMRC Pay 2026/27: Salary by Grade and Take-Home
What HMRC 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 HMRC pays by grade
HMRC collects tax, pays tax credits and Child Benefit and runs customs, with a workforce split between large operational sites and a substantial professional core of tax specialists, lawyers and analysts.
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 HM Revenue and Customs sets its own ranges and no national scale exists to print.
| Grade | HMRC median | vs whole service | Rank of 9 |
|---|---|---|---|
| AA / AO | £28,020 | level | 4 |
| EO | £32,230 | +£90 | 4 |
| SEO / HEO | £40,520 | -£3,410 | 7 |
| Grade 6 / 7 | £64,620 | -£1,210 | 6 |
| Senior Civil Service | £92,930 | -£2,610 | 4 |
Senior Executive Officer and Higher Executive Officer are published as one combined level, so there is no HEO-only median for HMRC 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 | £28,020 | £1,289 (4.6%) | £2,832 | £1,236 | £22,663 | £1,889 |
| EO | £32,230 | £1,483 (4.6%) | £3,635 | £1,573 | £25,539 | £2,128 |
| SEO / HEO | £40,520 | £2,208 (5.45%) | £5,148 | £2,236 | £30,927 | £2,577 |
| Grade 6 / 7 | £64,620 | £4,750 (7.35%) | £11,380 | £3,303 | £45,187 | £3,766 |
| Senior Civil Service | £92,930 | £6,830 (7.35%) | £21,872 | £3,869 | £60,359 | £5,030 |
What the numbers actually say
HMRC is the closest thing the Civil Service has to an average department. Its all-grades median sits within a few hundred pounds of the whole-service median, closer than any other department in the table.
That is more interesting than it sounds. HMRC is not a small policy department and not a pure processing operation: it runs contact centres and compliance caseworkers alongside tax professionals, solicitors and statisticians, and the grade mix that produces lands almost exactly on the national middle. If you want a single department to stand in for "the Civil Service" when comparing against private-sector pay, this is the defensible one.
The departments nearest to it
The three departments closest to HMRC 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| HMRC | £37,680 | £40,520 | £64,620 |
| Home Office | £39,000 | £46,270 | £68,320 |
| Ministry of Defence | £39,120 | £45,550 | £65,560 |
| Ministry of Justice | £35,530 | £43,840 | £65,330 |
The 2026/27 award at HMRC
HM Revenue and Customs 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
What is an HMRC HEO salary?
The published statistics combine Senior Executive Officer and Higher Executive Officer into one level, so there is no HEO-only median to quote. The combined SEO/HEO figure for HMRC is in the table above.
Does HMRC pay more than DWP?
At most grades the two are close, and both sit below the departments that are mainly policy or professional. The visible gap in the all-grades column mostly reflects HMRC having proportionally more staff above EO.
What does a tax specialist earn at HMRC?
The Tax Specialist Programme leads to Grade 7, so the Grade 6/7 row is the destination figure rather than the entry one. Trainee pay during the programme is set separately and advertised with the scheme.