Ministry of Defence Pay 2026/27: Salary by Grade and Take-Home
What the Ministry of Defence 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 Ministry of Defence pays by grade
The MoD employs civil servants alongside the armed forces, in equipment procurement, defence policy, intelligence, engineering and the estate that supports all of it.
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 Ministry of Defence sets its own ranges and no national scale exists to print.
| Grade | Ministry of Defence median | vs whole service | Rank of 9 |
|---|---|---|---|
| AA / AO | £29,030 | +£1,010 | 2nd |
| EO | £31,440 | -£700 | 7th |
| SEO / HEO | £45,550 | +£1,620 | 2nd |
| Grade 6 / 7 | £65,560 | -£270 | 3rd |
| Senior Civil Service | £98,380 | +£2,840 | 2nd |
Senior Executive Officer and Higher Executive Officer are published as one combined level, so there is no HEO-only median for the Ministry of Defence 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 | £29,030 | £1,335 (4.6%) | £3,025 | £1,317 | £23,353 | £1,946 |
| EO | £31,440 | £1,446 (4.6%) | £3,485 | £1,510 | £24,999 | £2,083 |
| SEO / HEO | £45,550 | £2,482 (5.45%) | £6,100 | £2,638 | £34,330 | £2,861 |
| Grade 6 / 7 | £65,560 | £4,819 (7.35%) | £11,729 | £3,322 | £45,691 | £3,808 |
| Senior Civil Service | £98,380 | £7,231 (7.35%) | £23,892 | £3,978 | £63,279 | £5,273 |
What the numbers actually say
The Ministry of Defence has the second-highest Senior Civil Service median of the nine, behind only the Cabinet Office, on an Executive Officer median in the bottom third. It has the second-widest distance between the top of the office workforce and its middle, and it is the only one of the nine whose civilians work alongside the armed forces, who are paid on a separate system entirely.
It is one of five departments here with a population whose grade the statistics do not record, published as a separate column, and at MoD that group’s median sits below the department’s all-grades median, as it does at the Ministry of Justice. Armed forces personnel are not in any of these figures: their pay is set by the government on the recommendation of the Armed Forces' Pay Review Body, separately from civil service pay. The department's agencies are included, among them Dstl, Defence Equipment and Support, the Submarine Delivery Agency and the UK Hydrographic Office, each with its own row in Table 25.
The departments nearest to it
The three departments closest to the Ministry of Defence 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ministry of Defence | £39,120 | £45,550 | £65,560 |
| Home Office | £39,000 | £46,270 | £68,320 |
| HMRC | £37,680 | £40,520 | £64,620 |
| Ministry of Justice | £35,530 | £43,840 | £65,330 |
The 2026/27 award at the Ministry of Defence
The Ministry of Defence 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
Do these figures include the armed forces?
No. Service personnel are paid on a separate system, set by the government on the recommendation of the Armed Forces' Pay Review Body. These figures are civil servants working for the department and its agencies.
What does Dstl pay?
The Defence Science and Technology Laboratory is an MoD agency and is included in the department figures above. Its own row in Table 25, as at 31 March 2026, gives medians of £58,600 at Grade 6/7, £45,550 at SEO/HEO, £29,550 at EO and £26,180 at AA/AO, and £54,710 across all grades; the SCS figure is suppressed.
Why is the MoD all-grades median higher than its EO median?
Grade mix. The all-grades column is a median of everyone, so a department with a large professional and senior population sits above its own operational grades.