Strikes to end as resident doctors accept pay deal

Resident doctors in England have voted to accept a day deal, bringing to an end long-running strike action.

53% of eligible British Medical Association (BMA) members voted to accept the deal on a turnout of 57%.

They will see an average pay rise of 6.6%, fully implemented by April 2027.

That includes a base pay rise of 3.5%, plus an additional percentage based on a doctor's seniority.

The deal also includes 4,500 speciality training places, to try and help end the jobs "bottleneck" of medical school graduates being left without jobs to go into.

Doctors would also have exam fees and eligible royal medical college memberships reimbursed.

Resident - formerly known as junior - doctors have been in dispute with successive governments since 2023, and have engaged in 15 rounds of industrial action.

The BMA had rejected the government's initial offer issued last year, which led to five days of walkouts in the lead up to Christmas.

Medics also walked out for six days in April.

They were set to walk out again from 15 to 19 June after new Health Secretary James Murray said he would not improve the deal on the table. But that strike was called off on 13 June, after the BMA said the government had made a new offer, which was put to a referendum of resident doctors.

The Department for Health and Social Care (DHSC) said the deal would mean resident doctors had received a 35.2% pay rise over the past three years, the highest in the public sector.

Murray said the deal was "very good news for resident doctors, patients and the NHS as a whole" and allowed the sector to move on from months of disruption caused by industrial action.

He said that resident doctors will get "a new pay structure, better career progression opportunities and a range of other improved conditions to support them as they rotate and train", while he accepted that "there is much more to do".

Jack Fletcher, chair of the BMA resident doctors committee, said that while doctors have "decided that the current offer is sufficient" and that the "strikes will now end", the government was to blame for not offering resident doctors this deal sooner.

Warning of future strike action if future pay deals aren't good enough, he added: "We are putting the pay review process on notice - if it cannot deliver continued pay improvements, then we risk once again falling back into dispute in future."

The deal relates to resident doctors in England only. Resident doctors in Northern Ireland are currently taking part in their own walk out in a dispute over pay.

(c) Sky News 2026: Strikes to end as resident doctors accept pay deal