To ask what a consultant surgeon typically earns in the UK?

[Pottedpalm]

Just that really;there are published pay scales but I don’t know how much ‘overtime’ is typical.
Also, if a consultant sets up
in private practice in addition to nhs work, is the sky the limit?

Perhaps all these consultants giving out their ‘private’ number are actually giving the number of a mobile they keep for that purpose, and not the one they use for contacting their family and friends.

Most consultants I know are keen to stay at or under 10 PAs (40 hr week equivalent).

Marginal taxation from £100-125K is brutal and not worth the loss of family time. In some cases people end up paying more tax than the extra they earn.

60% tax and 3.25% NI
9% student loan
Cliff-edge loss of tax free childcare
Unpredictable annual allowance pension tax

Agreed. You can easily google NHS Consultant salaries @Pottedpalm .
Most Consultants in the UK don't do private practice or only a very small amount. A small minority (often London based) will do a huge amount and earn £££. The Consultants you have apparently met with stay at home partners are the exception to the rule. In my experience of hundreds of doctors nearly all have working partners, very often fellow doctors. Most are very comfortably off after years of studying and working very long hours but by no means wealthy unless they are older or have inherited from wealthy families.

Puts GP pay into perspective doesn’t it. I’m a salaried GP with 20 years experience and I get paid less than a consultant just starting out…I’d earn at least 30-40k more as a consultant and would actually have the ability to say my clinic list is full for that day. Not to mention the additional income if I did private practice. Yet strangely it’s always GP pay under scrutiny in the media

Is there a big discrepancy in what GPs earn? I know 2 who work part time & they earn well.

I'm an NHS consultant (non surgical). I have no reason to believe though that my surgical colleagues are getting paid a truck load more.

I get paid less than 100K/ annum. I do no private work.

My trust (central London) is starting to have recruitment and retention issues amongst senior medical staff due to the cost of housing.

The ones with kids in private school and flashy houses either have: inherited family wealthy or a high earning spouse.

There is a huge difference between colleagues at the beginning of their consultant years in terms of housing and those who are currently retiring. This is because the cost of housing has gone up dramatically and doctors pay has fallen in real terms by 1/3rd over the past decade.

I'm gearing up to strike. If you want healthcare you need to pay us properly it's a really difficult job and very stressful.

Issues with pension tax are mostly due to our defined benefit scheme apparently growing (which we have not control over). The government need to fix this. I"m going to get clobbered next year for tax and am currently modelling reducing my hours to avoid it.

I am patient facing in GP 3.5 days a week, similar to the PP describing their PAs earlier. I do my admin and other Primary Care Network work in my 'time off'. I'm officially 'part time' but do the same patient facing work as a full time consultant. I wish it was recognised that 'part time' in GP is not that. I'd love to change how we work in GP with adequate admin time and recognition of the other work we do.

There is a huge difference between colleagues at the beginning of their consultant years in terms of housing and those who are currently retiring. This is because the cost of housing has gone up dramatically and doctors pay has fallen in real terms by 1/3rd over the past decade.

tbf this is true in most sectors isn't it. There is huge inter generational inequality. I'm in the public sector & all my colleagues are far better off then I will ever be at their age.

I have my private gynae's mobile number that I can contact at any time throughout pregnancy.

This thread is eye opening. They deserve to be paid more!

Possibly, but so what? They are providing a number they can be contacted on 24/7, does it matter if it is a different number to the one their Mum uses?

Sorry -why is everyone saying over 100K.
You get 114k after 15 years as a consultant. Starting salary is £84K and you get stuck on same scale for 5 years at a time.

Bloody hell they deserve a lot more. Why as a society do we not value our people doing the most essential jobs

I have been a consultant for nearly 15 years. Love my job and could do extra hours to tackle waiting times but will get penalised heavily with tax if I do, not worth it.
A lot of my colleagues have cut down their sessions for exactly the same reason. We cannot recruit and retain consultants in certain specialities like mine, but we can't work more even if we want to!
Junior doctors are not treated well and their pay scale needs to be addressed. I will
fully support them if they go on strike. A lot of the newly qualified doctors do not want to do heavy lifting acute specialities like acute medicine, a and e, paediatrics and who could blame them. Unless their working conditions and pay are improved, this trend will not be reversed and we will face acute shortage in certain specialties in future.

If a surgeon is conducting a lengthy and complicated procedure in theatre ( such as my sister’s recent nine hour brain surgery), I doubt they are answering their mobile. I would hope not anyway.

A good friend of mine is a consultant (different discipline). He does no private work at all (too overworked in his NHS job) and earns £130k.

In my professional life (solicitor) I have handled several disputes for private partnerships of doctors. Orthopaedic surgeons mainly. They earn several hundred thousand a year. As a PP has said, I think it's about being in an area where NHS waits are long and those who can pay, will. Knee replacements, cataracts, dermatology, gynaecology etc.

In my professional life (solicitor) I have handled several disputes for private partnerships of doctors. Orthopaedic surgeons mainly. They earn several hundred thousand a year.

Yes, extrapolating the fees charged for appointments and surgery for my orthopaedic surgeon must total around £400-600k for his 3 days of private work for 48 odd weeks a year (he's fortunate enough to have no shortage of patients). Plus NHS work on top.

Though he'll have to pay private secretaries etc from that.

I suppose this is more the sort of figure I was expecting to hear; one consultant I see ( not orthopaedic) is a Professor and very high in his field. He runs private clinics in two locations ; at one appointments are very early in the morning (and it is made clear by his secretary that if you are late they simply can’t see you as he has to go to his nhs location), the other is a Saturday morning. He is very busy at both clinics and performs surgeries there too ( I don’t know whether this is every week but my surgery was scheduled six days after my first consultation. He clearly earn a lot of money but he puts in the hours.

You get 114k after 15 years as a consultant. Starting salary is £84K and you get stuck on same scale for 5 years at a time

DH is on £128k for 12 PA’s a week, management responsibilities (clinical director) and some teaching. He’s been a consultant for about 7 or 8 years so I don’t think the scale is set in stone.

Your DH is on 12 PAs though, not 10 and may be getting an on call supplement as well.

There are also some complex rules about whether you have to start on the starting salary eg if you have been part time as a trainee you go in higher.

It is set in stone.
After 7-8 years he will be on £107k-ish for 10PAs.
An additional 2PAs, i.e 20% extra work, will be an extra 20% on top of his full time salary.

Yes that scale staring at 84k for 40 hour week is set in stone

Okay, so I guess the scale does not take into account uplift for on-call and teaching? He also definitely got a raise when he was made a CD. (He wouldn’t line manage for free - he says it’s a nightmare!)

@Deguster presuming you're in England (the figures I quoted above were for Scotland and I confess I hadn't realised the contracts were different)
Then at year 8 he will be at pay point 5. Presuming he wasn't LTFT during training (which would mean he enters the pay scale at a higher pay point) that puts him on 95,144 for 10PA (full time)

If he was then working 12PA that's 114,172. If he gets a % uplift for low intensity OOH on top of his 12 sessions that could explain the salary bump. Here we get an availability supplement ranging from 1 to 8% based on frequency and intensity, if the on call work isn't factored into PAs.

In Scotland at year 5 consultants can start applying for discretionary points, which are financial awards for going over and above in areas like research. I don't know if they exist in England.

@caoraich @Deguster yes you can apply for clinical excellence points in England which attract extra salary.

I think it would be unlikely that someone doing a Clinical Director hadn't got some points.

The scale is based on full time (10PA) job and is pro-rata for part time.
1 PA = 4 hours of per week between 7am-7pm.
Oncall supplements are categorised by frequency and intensity - broadly speaking how available you need to be, if on-site/off-site and how frequent you are oncall. Supplements are between 1-8% top up on your salary.

It’s not a raise per se but pay for doing the extra role as CD in addition to his full time work.
Alternatively, he could drop 2 PAs of which usual work and do his CD work in that time but usually that impacts delivery of clinical care.
Once he stops being CD he will lose the pay for that.

Teaching junior drs and medical students is usually done on the job and you are not paid extra for it. He may be teaching under a different set up e.g part of a university.