Leadership Pay Scale 2026/27

What the leadership pay range actually is

The leadership group pay range covers every post above classroom teaching: assistant headteachers, deputy headteachers, headteachers and executive heads. It is a single 43-point spine, usually written L1 to L43, and every leadership post in a maintained school is paid somewhere on it.

The critical thing to understand — and the thing most pay guides skip — is that nobody is paid on the full spine. The spine is a national framework. Your governing body carves a seven-point slice out of it for your specific job, and you progress within that slice. That slice is called the individual school range, or ISR.

This is quite different from the main pay range, where M1 to M6 means the same salary in every school in the country. Two deputy heads in neighbouring schools can be on very different money while doing broadly similar jobs, entirely legitimately.

Leadership pay scale 2026/27 — full L1 to L43 table

These government-accepted 2026/27 advisory figures reflect the 3.5% award from 1 September 2026. The point values below follow the published joint-union pay-scale table; your school's pay policy determines which seven-point individual school range applies to your post.

How individual school ranges (ISRs) work

When a governing body creates or reviews a leadership post, it must set a pay range for that post. The STPCD requires that range to be seven consecutive points on the leadership spine — no more, no less, other than in limited transitional situations.

So a deputy headteacher post might have an ISR of L12 to L18. In the rest of England for 2026/27 that means a range of roughly £70,275 to £81,457. The postholder starts somewhere in that range on appointment and progresses upwards through it as performance is reviewed.

How the range gets set

For a headteacher, the starting point is the school group size, which is a function of pupil numbers weighted by key stage. Governors then consider the specific demands of the role — a school in special measures, a split-site school, or a head with a system-leadership brief may justify a higher range.

For deputies and assistant heads, the range is set with reference to the headteacher's ISR and the relative responsibility of the post. There is far more local discretion here, which is precisely why comparable jobs pay so differently between schools.

The overlap rule

The STPCD expects that the pay ranges for deputy and assistant headteachers should not normally overlap with the headteacher's ISR. In practice this creates a clear hierarchy: assistant heads sit lowest, deputies above them, the head above both. Governing bodies can depart from this where there is a good reason, but they need to be able to justify it.

Where each leadership role typically sits

There is no statutory mapping of job titles to spine points — that is the whole point of the ISR system. But there are strong patterns across the sector, and knowing them helps you judge whether an advertised range is reasonable.

These are observed patterns rather than rules. For a detailed breakdown by school size see the headteacher salary guide, and for the two most common stepping-stone roles see deputy head pay and assistant head pay.

Leadership pay compared with the upper pay range

The most common career question at this stage is whether stepping into leadership is worth it financially. The honest answer is that the first step is often smaller than people expect.

Moving from U3 to L1 is a gross increase of £750 a year, which after tax and a higher pension tier is worth roughly £30 a month. That is the reality of the bottom of the spine, and it is why very few leadership posts are actually advertised at L1. A teacher at the top of the upper pay range who also holds a TLR 1 may well be earning more than an assistant head on a low ISR.

London weighting on the leadership scale

London weighting on the leadership spine works the same way as on the classroom scales: it is baked into a higher spine rather than paid as a separate allowance. The premium is proportionally largest at the bottom of the spine.

In cash terms the inner London premium stays fairly flat at around £10,000 to £11,000 across the spine. As a percentage it falls sharply, from nearly 19% at L1 to under 7% at L43. Senior leaders in London therefore see much less relative benefit from weighting than classroom teachers do.

Pension implications of leadership pay

Every point you move up the leadership spine increases your Teachers' Pension in two ways. You build 1/57th of a larger salary each year, and — because the scheme is career average rather than final salary — those higher-paid years count fully and permanently.

The catch is the contribution tier. Leadership salaries push you into the higher tiers quickly, and the tier jumps are not gradual.

Crossing £76,572.99 moves a member from the 10.5% tier to 11.6%. Check the point and rate together before comparing offers: the tier applies to the whole pensionable salary, not only the amount above the threshold.

Senior and school leadership pay scale variations

Searches for a senior leadership pay scale or a school leadership pay scale usually mean the same spine. Senior leadership team posts — assistant heads, deputies, the head and any executive or trust-level roles — are all paid on this single 43-point framework, with the differences coming from where each governing body sets the ISR. There is no separate senior leader scale in England.

Two genuine exceptions are worth knowing. In Wales, maintained-school leaders follow an IWPRB-negotiated advisory scale, currently £54,524 at L1 to £151,434 at L43 for 2026/27, rather than England's spine. And in academies, the trust can depart from the spine entirely — many use it as a reference, but some set their own leadership bands, particularly for multi-school executives.

Common mistakes with leadership pay

• Assuming L-points mean the same everywhere. They are national spine values, but which points apply to your job is a local decision.
• Comparing your L-point with someone in another school. Without knowing both ISRs the comparison is meaningless.
• Expecting annual progression. Leadership progression requires sustained high performance, not just a satisfactory year.
• Forgetting the pension tier jump. A promotion that crosses a tier boundary delivers less net gain than the gross figure suggests.
• Giving up a large TLR for a low leadership point. Run both packages through a calculator before accepting.
• Not checking the ISR before applying. A job advert quoting a wide range may only fund the bottom two points in practice.
• Ignoring the overlap rule. If a deputy post overlaps the head's ISR, ask why — it may signal an unusual structure.

Reviewing your own leadership pay

Governing bodies must review leadership pay annually, normally by 31 December, and must have a published pay policy setting out how decisions are made. If you believe your ISR no longer reflects the job, the route is a formal pay review request rather than an informal conversation.

Grounds that carry weight include a significant and permanent change in the size or complexity of the school, a substantial expansion of your remit, taking on system leadership across a trust, or a demonstrable market recruitment problem. Practical steps are set out in the guide to moving up the leadership pay scale.