The Welsh Leadership Pay Spine (L1–L43) Explained
Wales kept the 43-point leadership spine England abolished in 2014 — published here in full, with the seven starred group maxima, the unit-total formula that sizes a school, and the paragraph that makes Welsh leadership progression a default yes.
Independent guidance, not affiliated with the DfE, Teachers' Pensions or any teaching union.
Short answer
Which figures here are statutory and which are ours
Our Wales pay scales guide deliberately declined to publish the full Welsh leadership spine. That was the right call at the time: the only complete point-by-point table then in circulation was the IWPRB's recommended 4.25% version, which was never awarded, and reproducing it would have handed readers a table of numbers that no Welsh teacher was ever paid. The statutory document has since caught up. The STPC(W)D 2025/26 as revised in March 2026 publishes the complete spine, the starred points, the unit formula and the group ranges, and it is a genuinely confirmed statutory instrument rather than a recommendation. So this page publishes what the other one held back.
It is worth saying why any of this is interesting, because "Wales has a pay spine" sounds like the driest possible sentence. The interest is in what a spine does to the balance of power in a pay conversation. England spent the decade after 2013 systematically converting teacher and leader pay from entitlement into discretion: the leadership spine went, automatic progression went, pay portability went, and what replaced them was a series of wide ranges inside which a governing body or trust board decides. Wales, governing a school system of broadly similar shape under broadly similar financial pressure, went the other way on almost every one of those questions. This page is about the leadership half of that divergence, and it contains one provision that is, to our knowledge, barely discussed outside the document itself.
What the Welsh leadership spine is
A pay spine is a fixed ladder of cash values. You are on a rung; you know what the rung pays; the rung above pays a defined amount more. Everybody on the ladder in every school in the country is on the same numbered rungs, so two deputy heads in different counties can compare positions directly and meaningfully.
A pay range is the opposite idea. It defines only a floor and a ceiling and leaves the employer to choose a spot value inside it. Two people doing near-identical jobs can be tens of thousands of pounds apart without anyone having departed from the national framework, because the national framework is enormous and the specific number is a local decision.
England ran a leadership spine of exactly this kind until 2014, when it was abolished in favour of a single broad leadership pay range plus eight headteacher group ranges. Wales inherited that structure at devolution in 2018 and has kept the spine. Paragraph 4.4(e) of the current Welsh document contains the table in full, and paragraphs 4.4(a) to (d) direct that a headteacher, a deputy headteacher, an assistant headteacher and — since March 2026 — an ALN coordinator "must be paid such salary based upon the leadership group pay spine set out in sub-paragraph 4.4e".
Wales: a numbered spine
Fifty rows in one statutory table, running L1 to L43 with seven starred sub-points. Every Welsh leadership salary is one of these fifty numbers. A job advert quoting 'L12 to L16' tells you precisely what the post pays now and what it will pay after each increment, and paragraph 11.2(b) makes those increments a default rather than a hope.
England: broad ranges
One leadership pay range with a national minimum and maximum, plus eight headteacher group ranges. Individual pay ranges are set by the governing body or trust board within those, and progression is a discretionary performance decision each year. Two deputies in comparable schools can be £20,000 apart with neither school having done anything irregular.
The full L1–L43 spine
Below is the complete table from paragraph 4.4(e), in the order the statutory document prints it. Note the ordering carefully, because it is the thing most people get wrong when they try to reconstruct this table from memory: the starred point comes before the ordinary point of the same number, and pays slightly less. Point 18* (£79,288 in 2025) sits below point 18 (£80,080). That is not a typo in the document and it is not a typo here.
| Point | From 1 Sept 2024 (statutory) | From 1 Sept 2025 (statutory) | From 1 Sept 2026 (derived, 3.5%) | Group maximum |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| L1 | £50,653 | £52,680 | £54,524 | |
| L2 | £51,920 | £53,997 | £55,887 | |
| L3 | £53,216 | £55,345 | £57,282 | |
| L4 | £54,541 | £56,723 | £58,708 | |
| L5 | £55,900 | £58,136 | £60,171 | |
| L6 | £57,304 | £59,597 | £61,683 | |
| L7 | £58,844 | £61,198 | £63,340 | |
| L8 | £60,203 | £62,612 | £64,803 | |
| L9 | £61,705 | £64,174 | £66,420 | |
| L10 | £63,290 | £65,822 | £68,126 | |
| L11 | £64,933 | £67,531 | £69,895 | |
| L12 | £66,430 | £69,088 | £71,506 | |
| L13 | £68,090 | £70,814 | £73,292 | |
| L14 | £69,787 | £72,579 | £75,119 | |
| L15 | £71,523 | £74,384 | £76,987 | |
| L16 | £73,426 | £76,364 | £79,037 | |
| L17 | £75,111 | £78,116 | £80,850 | |
| L18* | £76,238 | £79,288 | £82,063 | Group 1 max |
| L18 | £77,000 | £80,080 | £82,883 | |
| L19 | £78,910 | £82,067 | £84,939 | |
| L20 | £80,865 | £84,100 | £87,044 | |
| L21* | £82,047 | £85,329 | £88,316 | Group 2 max |
| L21 | £82,868 | £86,183 | £89,199 | |
| L22 | £84,925 | £88,322 | £91,413 | |
| L23 | £87,027 | £90,509 | £93,677 | |
| L24* | £88,303 | £91,836 | £95,050 | Group 3 max |
| L24 | £89,186 | £92,754 | £96,000 | |
| L25 | £91,401 | £95,058 | £98,385 | |
| L26 | £93,663 | £97,410 | £100,819 | |
| L27* | £95,034 | £98,836 | £102,295 | Group 4 max |
| L27 | £95,984 | £99,824 | £103,318 | |
| L28 | £98,364 | £102,299 | £105,879 | |
| L29 | £100,800 | £104,832 | £108,501 | |
| L30 | £103,309 | £107,442 | £111,202 | |
| L31* | £104,812 | £109,005 | £112,820 | Group 5 max |
| L31 | £105,862 | £110,097 | £113,950 | |
| L32 | £108,492 | £112,832 | £116,781 | |
| L33 | £111,187 | £115,635 | £119,682 | |
| L34 | £113,936 | £118,494 | £122,641 | |
| L35* | £115,613 | £120,238 | £124,446 | Group 6 max |
| L35 | £116,769 | £121,440 | £125,690 | |
| L36 | £119,659 | £124,446 | £128,802 | |
| L37 | £122,634 | £127,540 | £132,004 | |
| L38 | £125,669 | £130,696 | £135,270 | |
| L39* | £127,456 | £132,555 | £137,194 | Group 7 max |
| L39 | £128,732 | £133,882 | £138,568 | |
| L40 | £131,943 | £137,221 | £142,024 | |
| L41 | £135,240 | £140,650 | £145,573 | |
| L42 | £138,627 | £144,173 | £149,219 | |
| L43 | £140,685 | £146,313 | £151,434 | Group 8 max |
£52,680 – £146,313
The confirmed statutory Welsh leadership spine, L1 to L43, from 1 September 2025
The spacing of the spine is worth a moment's attention, because it tells you something about how Welsh leadership careers are meant to feel. Between L1 and L10 each increment is worth somewhere between about £1,300 and £1,650 — roughly 2.5% a year, which is a real but modest step. By the thirties, increments are worth £2,700 to £3,300. By L40 to L43 they are £3,400 or more. The spine accelerates. A leader who progresses steadily under the paragraph 11.2(b) assumption gains more in cash each year than the year before, which compounds over a long leadership career in a way that a flat percentage uplift does not.
The seven starred sub-points
Seven points on the spine carry an asterisk: 18*, 21*, 24*, 27*, 31*, 35* and 39*. They are not an alternative scale, a historic anomaly or a Welsh-medium variant, and they are not points anybody progresses through in the ordinary way. The footnote under the table in paragraph 4.4(e) states their purpose in one line: "These points and point 43 are the maximum salaries for the eight headteacher group ranges."
So there are eight headteacher groups and eight corresponding ceilings. Seven of them needed a value that did not already exist on the ordinary spine, so the document inserted one immediately below the nearest whole point and starred it. The eighth ceiling is the top of the spine itself, L43, which needed no insertion.
| Starred point | Is the maximum for | 2025 value (statutory) | 2026/27 (derived) |
|---|---|---|---|
| L18* | Headteacher group 1 | £79,288 | £82,063 |
| L21* | Headteacher group 2 | £85,329 | £88,316 |
| L24* | Headteacher group 3 | £91,836 | £95,050 |
| L27* | Headteacher group 4 | £98,836 | £102,295 |
| L31* | Headteacher group 5 | £109,005 | £112,820 |
| L35* | Headteacher group 6 | £120,238 | £124,446 |
| L39* | Headteacher group 7 | £132,555 | £137,194 |
| L43 | Headteacher group 8 | £146,313 | £151,434 |
This is an elegant bit of drafting once you see it. England, having abolished its spine, has to define its eight headteacher group ranges as eight separate pairs of numbers floating free of any scale. Wales expresses the same eight ceilings as positions on one continuous ladder, which means a Welsh governing body sizing a post, a Welsh leader planning a career and a Welsh local authority benchmarking across a county are all working from a single shared frame of reference. It also makes the group boundaries legible: you can see at a glance that a group 5 school's ceiling (L31*, £109,005) is only two ordinary increments above a group 4 school's ceiling plus a bit, and that the jump from group 7 to group 8 is the largest in the system.
Why the starred point pays less than the point above it
Sizing a school: the unit total
Before you can know which group range applies, the school has to be assigned to a group, and that assignment is arithmetic rather than judgement. Paragraph 5.1 requires the relevant body to assign its school to a headteacher group; paragraph 6 tells it how, for an ordinary school.
Count the pupils by key stage
Take the number of pupils on the school register, split by key stage, as shown on the most recently available Welsh Government Annual School Census submitted on behalf of the school (paragraph 6.3). This is a defined data source, not a headcount somebody does in the office — which removes a whole category of dispute about whose number is right.
Apply the units-per-pupil weighting
Paragraph 6.2 scores each pupil according to the stage they are at:
| Key stage | Units per pupil |
|---|---|
| Preliminary stage, and first or second key stage | 7 |
| Third key stage | 9 |
| Fourth key stage | 11 |
| Fifth key stage | 13 |
The weighting is a statement that older pupils are more work to lead. A sixth-former counts for almost twice a Year 2 pupil, which is why an 11–18 secondary lands in a higher group than an all-through primary of the same roll.
Add three units for each pupil with an Individual Development Plan
Paragraph 6.4 is the ALN loading, and it works in two different ways depending on the setting. A pupil with an IDP who is in a special class consisting wholly or mainly of such pupils must be counted as three units more than they otherwise would be. A pupil with an IDP who is not in such a class may be counted as three units more, but only where the relevant body so determines. So the loading is mandatory in designated provision and discretionary in mainstream classes — a distinction that can move a borderline school between groups and is worth checking in your own school's assignment.
The reference to Individual Development Plans rather than statements of special educational needs is itself recent: the introductory section of the document lists it among the changes since 2024, reflecting Wales's replacement of the SEN system with the ALN framework under the Additional Learning Needs and Education Tribunal (Wales) Act 2018.
Halve part-time attenders
Under paragraph 6.5, a pupil who attends for no more than half a day on each day they attend counts as half the units they would otherwise score, including after the IDP loading. This mostly affects nursery and early-years provision.
Read the total off the group table
Paragraph 6.1 converts the total unit score into a group from 1 to 8. The bands are set out in the next section. Paragraph 8 allows the relevant body to assign on the basis of an expected rise or fall in numbers rather than current ones, and requires a governing body with a delegated budget to consult the local authority first. For a federation or a permanent multi-school headship, paragraph 6.6 requires the unit scores of all the schools to be combined into one total.
The eight headteacher group ranges
Paragraph 5.3 sets out the resulting ranges. Each one begins at an ordinary spine point and ends at one of the eight maxima identified above.
| Group | Total unit score | 2025 range (statutory) | Spine points | 2026/27 range (derived) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Group 1 | Up to 1,000 | £59,597 – £79,288 | L6 – L18* | £61,683 – £82,063 |
| Group 2 | 1,001 to 2,200 | £62,612 – £85,329 | L8 – L21* | £64,803 – £88,316 |
| Group 3 | 2,201 to 3,500 | £67,531 – £91,836 | L11 – L24* | £69,895 – £95,050 |
| Group 4 | 3,501 to 5,000 | £72,579 – £98,836 | L14 – L27* | £75,119 – £102,295 |
| Group 5 | 5,001 to 7,500 | £80,080 – £109,005 | L18 – L31* | £82,883 – £112,820 |
| Group 6 | 7,501 to 11,000 | £86,183 – £120,238 | L21 – L35* | £89,199 – £124,446 |
| Group 7 | 11,001 to 17,000 | £92,754 – £132,555 | L24 – L39* | £96,000 – £137,194 |
| Group 8 | 17,001 and over | £102,299 – £146,313 | L28 – L43 | £105,879 – £151,434 |
Two features of this table repay attention. The first is that the groups overlap heavily. Group 3 runs to £91,836 while group 5 starts at £80,080 — so a group 3 headteacher at the top of their range out-earns a newly appointed group 5 headteacher by a comfortable margin. Moving to a bigger school is not automatically a pay rise, and a Welsh head considering such a move should compare the actual offered point against their current point rather than comparing group numbers.
The second is that the bands widen dramatically. Group 1 covers schools up to 1,000 units — a small primary. Group 8 covers everything from 17,001 units upwards, with no ceiling at all. A very large all-through school and a moderately large secondary can both be group 8 while differing enormously in complexity, which is precisely the situation paragraph 9.3's above-maximum provision exists to handle.
Special schools are scored differently
Paragraph 7 runs a separate, more elaborate calculation for special schools, and it is a genuinely thoughtful piece of drafting that has no direct English counterpart in this form.
Special schools use higher units per pupil — 10 for the preliminary stage and key stages 1 and 2, 12 at key stage 3, 14 at key stage 4 and 16 at key stage 5 (paragraph 7.6). That total is then multiplied by a staff–pupil ratio modifier under paragraph 7.7. The modifier is derived from the school's staff–pupil ratio, calculated under paragraph 7.2 with teachers weighted at two units each, support staff at one unit each, full-time pupils at one unit and part-time pupils at a half. The resulting percentage maps to a modifier from 1 to 6:
| Staff–pupil ratio | Modifier |
|---|---|
| 1–20% | ×1 |
| 21–35% | ×2 |
| 36–50% | ×3 |
| 51–65% | ×4 |
| 66–80% | ×5 |
| 81% or more | ×6 |
The effect is that a special school with a very high adult-to-pupil ratio — the ones with the most complex pupils and the largest staff teams — can multiply its unit score sixfold, pushing a numerically small school into a high headteacher group. It is a deliberate recognition that leading a 90-pupil special school with 120 staff is not a small job. Special schools also enter the group table at group 2 rather than group 1, so no Welsh special school headteacher can be assigned to the lowest group at all.
The standout finding: progression is a default yes
Everything above is structure. This is the part that changes how it feels to be a school leader.
Paragraph 11.1 requires the relevant body to consider annually whether to increase the salary of leadership group members who have completed a year of employment since the previous pay determination. So far that is unremarkable, and England requires much the same. Paragraph 11.2 then tells the relevant body how to decide, and sub-paragraph (b) says this:
"Pay Progression should be on an annual basis from 1 September, with an assumption in favour of progression unless an individual has been notified that capability procedures are underway in respect of that year."
— STPC(W)D 2025/26 (revised March 2026), paragraph 11.2(b)
Read that again with an English eye. The default position for a Welsh headteacher, deputy head, assistant head or ALNCo is that they move up a point on 1 September. The only condition named for displacing that assumption is that capability procedures have been notified. Not "did not meet objectives". Not "the governing body was not satisfied". Not "budgetary constraints". Capability.
Assumption in favour
The Welsh statutory default for leadership pay progression — displaced only by capability procedures
Paragraph 11.2(e) does add that "a decision may be made not to award progression where the head teacher, deputy, assistant head teacher or ALN coordinator is subject to capability proceedings", which reinforces rather than widens the exception: the two provisions between them describe capability as the route by which progression is withheld. Paragraph 11.2(c) runs in the opposite direction, permitting the relevant body to award an additional point where performance in the previous school year was excellent, with particular regard to agreed objectives — and requiring that discretion to be set out in the pay policy if the school wants to use it.
So the Welsh leadership pay year has three gears: the default single increment, an optional double increment for excellence, and a withheld increment where capability is engaged. Performance management in Wales determines whether you get more than the default. In England it determines whether you get anything at all.
Wales: the burden sits on the employer
Progression is assumed. A governing body that wants to withhold a leader's increment has to be able to point to notified capability procedures. That is a high, specific and documented bar, and it makes a withheld increment an event with a paper trail rather than a judgement call. It also means a Welsh leader can plan: barring capability, next September's salary is the next point up.
England: the burden sits on the leader
There is no equivalent assumption in the STPCD. An English leader's annual pay progression is a decision the governing body or trust board makes on the basis of performance against objectives, within a range it set itself. A leader who has had a solid but unspectacular year has no default to fall back on, and in a tight budget year the absence of a default is exactly where the pressure lands.
It is worth being fair about the trade-off, because an assumption in favour of progression is not costless and the arguments against it are real ones. It reduces a governing body's ability to differentiate between a transformational deputy and a coasting one. It hard-wires an annual cost increase into leadership budgets on top of the national award. And it arguably pushes difficult conversations into the capability process, which is a heavier and more adversarial instrument than a pay decision. Those are genuine objections and the English reforms of 2013–14 were made partly on those grounds.
But the Welsh position has an equally genuine case behind it. Performance-related leadership pay has proved hard to operate consistently, easy to use as a budget lever, and a recurring source of appeal and grievance. Welsh policy since devolution has gone consistently the other way — national scales restored, the main pay range shortened, pay portability reintroduced, the application requirement to move from the main to the upper pay scale removed, ALNCos brought onto the leadership spine — and the leadership progression assumption is part of that same pattern rather than an isolated quirk. Whichever view you take, a teacher comparing a leadership post in Cardiff with one in Bristol is comparing two different theories of how leadership pay should work, not merely two numbers.
Paying above the group maximum: the 25% rule
The group ranges are firm but not absolute. Paragraph 9.3 sets out the escape valve, and its wording is careful:
- Pay ranges for headteachers should not normally exceed the maximum of the headteacher group.
- They may exceed it where the relevant body determines that circumstances specific to the role or the candidate warrant a higher than normal payment.
- The relevant body must ensure that the maximum of the head's pay range plus any temporary payments under paragraph 10 does not exceed the group maximum by more than 25%, other than in exceptional circumstances.
- In those exceptional circumstances, the governing body must seek external independent advice before agreeing, and must support its decision with a business case.
Paragraph 10 runs a parallel control on temporary payments. Under 10.2, temporary payments to a headteacher in any school year must not exceed 25% of the annual salary otherwise payable, and the total of salary and other payments must not exceed 25% above the group maximum. Paragraph 10.3 carves out residential duties that are a requirement of the post, and housing or relocation expenses relating solely to the head's personal circumstances. Paragraph 10.4 permits exceeding even that limit "in wholly exceptional circumstances and with the agreement of the governing body", again requiring external independent advice before the business case is produced.
England's STPCD has a broadly analogous safeguard, and it is genuinely similar in shape: an English relevant body can also go above a group maximum in specified circumstances, and is also expected to seek external independent advice before agreeing a total exceeding 25% above the group maximum. The honest position here is that this is one of the closest points of alignment between the two documents rather than a point of divergence, and we would rather say so than manufacture a contrast. What does differ is the backdrop. In Wales the 25% headroom sits on top of a fixed spine point, so "25% above the group maximum" is a precisely knowable number. In England it sits on top of a range the governing body already chose, so the same percentage is applied to a figure that was itself discretionary. The Welsh control binds a harder edge.
The 25% rule is also the cap that isn't a cap for maintained heads
Who is on the spine, and who isn't
The Welsh document defines "member of the leadership group" in its interpretation section as "a headteacher, a deputy headteacher, an assistant headteacher or an ALN coordinator", and separately defines "leadership group post" as "a post of headteacher, deputy headteacher, assistant headteacher and ALN coordinator of a school". Four roles, and the fourth is the one that has no English equivalent at all.
The inclusion of ALN coordinators is new — it arrived with the March 2026 revision, implementing recommendations 4 and 5 of the IWPRB's fifth report, and it is a genuinely significant piece of policy that we have given its own page: ALNCo pay explained. The short version is that Wales has written a mandatory five-point ALNCo scale into statute, on the leadership spine, at a time when England has no SENCo pay scale whatsoever.
Note who is not on the spine. Leading practitioners are not members of the leadership group: paragraph 16 gives them a plain minimum and maximum, and the interpretation section defines a "classroom teacher" as a qualified teacher who is not a member of the leadership group or on the leading practitioner range. TLR holders are classroom teachers with an allowance, not leadership group members. And paragraph 9.4 constrains everybody in the leadership group other than the head: the maximum of a deputy's, assistant head's or ALNCo's pay range must not exceed the school's headteacher group maximum, and should only overlap the headteacher's own range in exceptional circumstances.
That last point is a real structural difference from England, where the eight group ranges formally bind the headteacher's pay range only, leaving deputy and assistant head ranges to be set with reference to the head's but without a hard statutory ceiling tied to school size. Our assistant and deputy headteacher pay guide explains that English position in detail; the Welsh version is tighter in both directions.
How to read a Welsh leadership job advert
Welsh leadership adverts are unusually informative once you know what the notation means, and there are five things worth extracting before you apply.
- The spine points, not the cash. An advert saying 'L14–L18' is telling you the individual pay range the governing body has set under paragraph 9.2. Convert it against the table above — but the points are the durable information, because the cash moves every September with the national award.
- Whether the top of the range is a starred point. If a headship advert tops out at L21*, L24*, L27*, L31*, L35* or L39*, the governing body has set the range to the full group maximum. If it tops out below that, it hasn't, and there may be room to discuss under paragraph 9.2 — which expressly invites the relevant body to consider a higher starting salary where the requirements of the post and the strength of the preferred candidate warrant it.
- The school's headteacher group. Many Welsh adverts state it directly. If not, you can approximate it yourself from the roll and phase using the unit formula above, then sanity-check against the advertised range.
- Scope for progression. Paragraph 9.2 requires the relevant body to 'ensure that there is appropriate scope within the range to allow for progress over time'. A range with only one or two points in it is arguably not compliant with that, and is a fair question to raise.
- Whether the pay policy contains the 11.2(c) excellence discretion. The double-increment power only exists if the relevant body has written it into its pay policy. Ask to see the pay policy before accepting — it is a public document and a reasonable thing to request.
Honest limits of this page
Three things we cannot tell you, stated plainly rather than papered over.
The 2026/27 spine is derived, not published. We have applied the announced 3.5% to each confirmed 2025 point. The method matches NASUWT Cymru's published endpoints exactly, which is good evidence it is the right method, but the revised STPC(W)D giving the 2026/27 figures statutory effect had not been published when this page was written, and the award was below the IWPRB's recommendation and subject to consultation. If a rounding convention in the final document differs from ours by a pound at some mid-spine point, our table will be a pound out at that point. Use the statutory document for anything binding.
We cannot tell you where an individual will actually be placed. The spine fixes the ladder; paragraph 9 leaves the relevant body to determine the individual pay range within the group, and paragraph 11.2(d) leaves newly appointed leaders to be allocated to an appropriate scale point as detailed in the relevant body's pay policy. Two group 5 schools can advertise materially different ranges lawfully.
We have not tried to quantify how often progression is actually withheld. Paragraph 11.2(b) tells us the statutory default. It does not tell us how many Welsh governing bodies apply it faithfully, how many increments are withheld each year, or whether the assumption is doing the work it appears to do. We have found no published dataset on that, and rather than estimate we will say that the legal position is clear and the operational picture is not documented.
Sources
- School Teachers' Pay and Conditions (Wales) Document 2025/26 and guidance (revised) — March 2026, GOV.WALES — the statutory source for every 2024 and 2025 figure on this page, and for paragraphs 4.4(e) (the spine and the starred-point footnote), 5.3 (headteacher group ranges), 6.1–6.6 (unit totals for ordinary schools), 7.1–7.8 (special schools), 9.2–9.5 (determination of leadership pay ranges and the 25% provision), 10.1–10.4 (temporary payments) and 11.1–11.2 (pay progression)
- The School Teachers' Pay and Conditions (Wales) Order 2026 — the instrument giving the revised Document statutory effect
- Written Statement: Teachers' Pay Award 2026/27 (13 July 2026) — GOV.WALES — the 3.5% award used to derive the 2026/27 column
- Independent Welsh Pay Review Body: Seventh Report 2026 — GOV.WALES — the 4.25% recommendation the award fell short of
- Pay Scales (Wales) — NASUWT — the published September 2026 endpoints against which our derivation was checked
- Written Statement: Pay Order related to moving ALN Coordinators to leadership pay and conditions (4 February 2026) — GOV.WALES — the addition of ALNCos to the leadership group
Frequently asked questions
How many points are there on the Welsh leadership pay spine? +
Fifty in total, spread across numbers 1 to 43. Forty-three of them are the plain numbered points L1 to L43, and seven more are 'starred' sub-points sitting immediately below the ordinary points numbered 18, 21, 24, 27, 31, 35 and 39. So the table in paragraph 4.4(e) of the STPC(W)D has fifty rows, not forty-three, even though everybody — including this site — calls it 'the 43-point spine'. The starred points exist for one purpose: each one is the maximum of one of the eight headteacher group ranges. Point 43, the top of the spine, is the eighth. The Document's own footnote to the table says exactly that: 'These points and point 43 are the maximum salaries for the eight headteacher group ranges.'
Is pay progression on the Welsh leadership spine automatic? +
Very nearly, and this is the single biggest structural difference between Welsh and English leadership pay. Paragraph 11.2(b) of the STPC(W)D says pay progression 'should be on an annual basis from 1 September, with an assumption in favour of progression unless an individual has been notified that capability procedures are underway in respect of that year.' That is a default of yes. The governing body still has to consider progression annually under paragraph 11.1, and paragraph 11.2(e) allows a decision not to award progression where the leader is subject to capability proceedings — but outside capability, the burden sits on the governing body to justify withholding a point, not on the leader to earn one. England's STPCD has no equivalent assumption anywhere in its leadership provisions.
What is a 'unit total' and why does it matter to a Welsh headteacher's pay? +
It is the arithmetic that decides how big your school is considered to be, and therefore which of the eight headteacher groups it sits in — which in turn fixes the range the governing body must set the head's pay within. Under paragraph 6.2 of the STPC(W)D each pupil scores units by key stage: 7 units for a pupil in the preliminary stage or key stage 1 or 2, 9 units at key stage 3, 11 units at key stage 4, and 13 units at key stage 5. Paragraph 6.4 adds 3 units for each pupil with an Individual Development Plan (automatically where the pupil is in a special class consisting wholly or mainly of such pupils, and at the relevant body's discretion otherwise). Paragraph 6.5 halves the count for a pupil attending no more than half a day. Add it all up and paragraph 6.1's table converts the total into a group from 1 to 8.
Can a Welsh headteacher be paid above the maximum of their school's group? +
Yes, but it is fenced. Paragraph 9.3 says pay ranges for headteachers 'should not normally exceed the maximum of the headteacher group', but may where the relevant body determines that circumstances specific to the role or candidate warrant a higher than normal payment. The hard limit is that the maximum of the head's pay range plus any temporary payments under paragraph 10 must not exceed the group maximum by more than 25% other than in exceptional circumstances — and in those exceptional circumstances the governing body must seek external independent advice before agreeing and must support the decision with a business case. Paragraph 10.2 applies a parallel 25% ceiling to temporary payments in any one school year.
Does the spine apply to deputy and assistant headteachers too? +
Yes. Paragraph 4.4 puts headteachers, deputy headteachers, assistant headteachers and — since the March 2026 revision — ALN coordinators all on the same leadership group pay spine at 4.4(e). The difference is the ceiling. Paragraph 9.4 says the maximum of a deputy's, assistant head's or ALNCo's pay range must not exceed the maximum of the headteacher group for the school, and that their range should only overlap the headteacher's own range in exceptional circumstances. So the group banding constrains everybody on the leadership spine in that school, not just the head — which is a meaningfully tighter arrangement than England's, where the group ranges formally bind only the headteacher.
Wales has a spine and England doesn't. Does that mean Welsh leaders are paid more? +
The spine is a question of structure, not generosity, but in cash terms Wales does currently sit ahead. Comparing the confirmed statutory endpoints, the Welsh leadership spine's 2025 range of £52,680 to £146,313 uplifts to roughly £54,524 to £151,434 for September 2026, against England's national leadership range of £53,586 to £148,829. What the spine really buys is predictability: a Welsh deputy head can look at a numbered point and know what it pays, whereas an English deputy's salary is a spot value chosen by a governing body somewhere inside a very wide range. It also narrows the gap between two similarly sized schools, because there are far fewer places for an individual determination to land.
Do academy pay freedoms affect any of this? +
No, because Wales has no academies. Every maintained school in Wales is bound by the STPC(W)D, so the leadership spine, the unit-total formula and the eight group ranges describe what Welsh school leaders are actually paid, rather than describing a national default that a large share of employers can lawfully depart from. In England roughly half of all schools — and the great majority of secondaries — are academies, which are not bound by the STPCD's leadership provisions at all. That is a much bigger practical difference than the spine-versus-range question, and it runs the same way: Welsh figures are more reliable as a description of reality.
Where does the leading practitioner range fit? +
It doesn't sit on the leadership spine at all, and it is worth being precise because this is commonly got wrong. A leading practitioner in Wales — a teacher whose post has 'the primary purpose of modelling and leading improvement of teaching skills' — is not a member of the leadership group. Paragraph 16.3 sets their pay as a plain minimum and maximum (£52,939 to £80,478 in the confirmed 2025 document), with the relevant body determining an individual range within it. That is structurally identical to England's leading practitioner arrangement. Wales kept the spine for the leadership group only.
Related guides
ALNCo Pay Explained (Wales)
The fourth leadership group role — a mandatory five-point statutory scale with no English equivalent at all.
NPQH Is Mandatory in Wales
Before you can be paid on this spine as a head, Wales requires a qualification England dropped in 2012.
Welsh Teacher Induction and the NQT Year
Wales still says NQT, still runs a one-year induction, and lets an Appropriate Body shorten it to a single term.
Wales Teacher Pay Scales 2026/27
The classroom scales, allowances and the cash comparison with England that this page's leadership figures sit alongside.
Assistant and Deputy Headteacher Pay (England)
How England sets senior leadership pay without a spine — the direct comparison for everything on this page.
Pathway to Headship (England)
England's leadership route, its eight group bandings, and where NPQH fits when it isn't a legal requirement.
SENCo Pay Explained (England)
The English counterpart to Wales's statutory ALNCo scale: no pay scale, no allowance, no minimum time.