Firefighter acting-up pay: temporary promotion rates & tax

Acting-up, temporary promotion and substantive promotion

Three different situations tend to get mixed up. A substantive promotion is a permanent appointment to a higher role, with new terms and a new contract. A temporary promotion is a defined-period appointment to the higher role, often to fill a vacancy, cover long-term absence or provide development. Acting-up is usually shorter and covers duties while the substantive holder is away. Services use the terms differently, so the letter or authorisation you receive matters more than the label.

Hampshire & Isle of Wight’s published allowance register describes the payment as one made to an employee who is required to assume the full duties of a higher rank or role for a defined period, paid at the appropriate rate for the role, with basic pay remaining unaltered and a monthly recurring payment set up. Nottinghamshire’s 2026 pay policy describes an allowance paid on a daily basis where employees temporarily undertake the duties of a higher graded role, at the rates for that role, and expects the employee to be qualified for it. Neither is a universal formula, so read your own service’s policy.

What the 2026 pay points mean in cash

The national scale from 1 July 2026 (NJC/2/26) lets you price a cover period quickly. A competent firefighter on £40,358 who covers as a crew manager on the development point (£42,892) would receive a difference of £2,534 a year, about £211 a month gross if the difference is paid evenly. Covering as a competent crew manager (£44,742) makes the gap £4,384, and covering as a watch manager on competent A (£46,980) makes it £6,622, or about £552 a month.

Those are gross annualised gaps for illustration. If you cover for 12 weeks rather than a year, you would receive roughly 12/52 of the annual difference, subject to how your service calculates the daily or weekly rate. Never assume a flat multiplier: the difference between the two rates is what usually matters, and services also differ on whether the higher role’s development point is used first.

How much of it you keep after tax

Extra income is taxed at the top of your marginal rate. Using 2026/27 rUK bands, a personal allowance of £12,570, the 12.59% FPS 2015 contribution on £40,358 and National Insurance at 8%, a competent firefighter who receives £2,534 of non-pensionable acting-up pay would take home about £30,337 a year against £28,513 without it, an increase of about £1,824 (72p in the pound). The £6,622 gap to watch manager competent A takes take-home to about £33,280, an increase of about £4,767.

The comparison assumes the extra pay is not pensionable, so no extra contribution is taken from it. If your payslip shows a bigger pension deduction after acting-up starts, the service may be treating the payment as pensionable, or your contribution band may have changed because the tiers depend on actual pensionable earnings. Ask payroll to explain any change. Our take-home pay calculator lets you test scenarios and see the marginal effect.

Is acting-up pay pensionable?

This is the question that catches people out. A 2026/27 FPS 2015 fact card from West Yorkshire Pension Fund says pensionable pay is actual pay and allowances received that are permanent in nature, and that overtime and acting-up are excluded. Hampshire’s payroll table records temporary promotion or acting-up payments as taxable, National Insurance-liable and non-pensionable under FPS 2015, and shows a flexible duty allowance linked to a temporary promotion as non-pensionable too, although the same allowance is pensionable when attached to a substantive role.

If you are on a legacy scheme or in the remedy period, other arrangements could apply, and the rules differ in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. Do not assume: ask your pension administrator whether the payment is pensionable for your scheme membership, and keep the answer. The pension consequences of acting-up for a long period can be larger than the pay consequences, so it may be worth asking whether a substantive appointment is possible. Our FPS 2015 guide explains how CARE accrual works.

Step-by-step: getting an acting-up arrangement right

A clean paper trail solves most disputes. Before you start covering a role, get the arrangement authorised by the right manager, in writing, and tied to a role and date range. Then check the first payslip after it starts. If you have covered the duties but see nothing, ask promptly; many services need a variation form before payroll can pay.

1. Ask for the written authorisation: role covered, start date, end date or review date, and who authorised it.
2. Confirm the pay point the service will use (for example the development or a competent point of the higher role).
3. Ask whether the payment is a daily rate, weekly rate or monthly recurring payment.
4. Ask whether the payment is pensionable and whether any flexible duty allowance attaches to the role covered.
5. Keep the roster and any evidence of duties actually performed, including incident command records where relevant.
6. Check the first payslip against the gross difference you expected, then check tax, NI and pension deductions.
7. If the arrangement ends, confirm in writing when the payment stops and whether your basic pay changes.

Overtime, flexible duty and other knock-on effects

Acting up into a management role can change how other pay is calculated. Station managers and below have national overtime rates (for example £27.65 for a competent firefighter and £39.32 for a station manager on competent B), but the national table shows no overtime rate for group and area managers. Officers on flexible duty are paid a supplement of 20% of basic pay instead of overtime for duty-officer cover. If you act up into a flexi role, ask whether the supplement is paid for the acting period.

Other rules, such as public-holiday working, are tied to role. South Wales’ wholetime procedure, for example, differentiates station manager or below not on flexible duty (paid for the hours, non-pensionable, plus a day’s leave in lieu) from flexi-duty station managers (one and a half days in lieu) and group or area managers (a day in lieu). See our firefighter bank holiday pay guide and overtime rates guide for how the rules interact.

Using acting-up as a route to promotion

Temporary responsibility is often the best evidence you can put in front of a promotion board because it shows you can already operate at the next level. Ask for structured feedback, maintain a log of situations where you led, and check whether the higher role’s qualifications (such as incident command certification) are met. Competence in your current role does not automatically appoint you to the next one; promotion processes are service-led.

If you are weighing a move, compare the whole package rather than the headline rate: duty system, location, overtime eligibility, flexi-duty expectations and pensionable additions. Our ranks and career progression guide shows the national sequence and pay points, and the paid Promotion Prep programme helps candidates build their evidence for assessments and interviews.

Common problems and how to resolve them

The most common issues are late starts, wrong point and unclear end dates. Payment may begin only once the variation form is processed, so make sure back pay is requested if you started covering earlier. The wrong point is usually a development versus competent mix-up; check the letter against the NJC table. An unclear end date creates risk: if you keep covering after an authorisation has expired, you may be unpaid for that time, so ask for extensions in writing.

Where a dispute cannot be resolved locally, you can raise it through your service’s grievance procedure and take advice from your union representative. Keep copies of everything, including messages that show you were asked to cover. Our payslip checker is a useful first sense-check of gross, pension, tax and NI, but only the contract and payroll records establish entitlement.

Worked example: a 16-week cover as crew manager

Suppose a competent firefighter on £40,358 is authorised to act as a crew manager on the development point (£42,892) for 16 weeks while a colleague is on long-term absence. The annual gap is £2,534. Pro-rated over 16 of 52 weeks, that is roughly £780 gross, or about £49 a week. If payroll instead pays a daily rate for each day covered, the total can differ, especially if the cover is spread across a rota with rest days.

After tax and National Insurance at a marginal 28% for this band (20% income tax plus 8% NI, assuming the payment is non-pensionable), the take-home effect is about £560. That is a useful cross-check: if your payslip shows a figure far from this, ask payroll to show the calculation. Extra hours worked while acting up are separate. Overtime for a crew manager is paid at the overtime rate for that role only where the terms allow it. See the overtime after tax guide for how extra pay is taxed.

Acting-up in different services and nations

The NJC scale is the reference in England and much of Wales, but the payment mechanics differ. Some fire authorities pay the difference to the higher point, some pay the full higher salary for the period, and some require a minimum period before payment starts. Scottish and Northern Ireland arrangements are negotiated separately, so use the local policy and the service’s HR portal as the primary source.

If you move between services, do not assume your previous arrangement carries over. Our transfer between fire services guide explains why terms need to be confirmed in writing. For a wider view of how the roles stack up, see the full pay scales table.