Public sector jobs in Liverpool

Liverpool has an unusual number of specialist NHS trusts for a city its size, which makes health the most varied area of public sector work here. Add Liverpool City Council, the schools and the Merseyside-wide police, fire and ambulance services, and most vacancies fall into four groups. NHS pay starts at £25,272 (band 2) and council pay at £25,614 (SCP 3) in 2026/27.

A city of specialist trusts

Most English cities have one large acute trust plus mental health and community providers. Liverpool also has several single-specialty trusts:

• Liverpool University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, the main adult acute trust, including the Royal Liverpool and Aintree hospitals
• Alder Hey Children’s NHS Foundation Trust
• Liverpool Women’s NHS Foundation Trust
• Liverpool Heart and Chest Hospital NHS Foundation Trust
• The Clatterbridge Cancer Centre NHS Foundation Trust
• Mersey Care NHS Foundation Trust, for mental health, community and learning disability services

Staff can move between quite different clinical settings without leaving the city, and their Agenda for Change band and NHS service move with them. A paediatric nurse, a cardiac physiologist and an oncology pharmacist can all find employers within a few miles. NHS trusts and foundation trusts explains the difference between the two types, and moving between NHS trusts covers what carries over.

NHS pay in Liverpool

All of these trusts pay the national Agenda for Change rates for England, and Merseyside has no high cost area supplement.

Band	2026/27 pay range	Examples
3	£25,760 to £27,476	Clinical support worker, receptionist
5	£32,073 to £39,043	Staff nurse, radiographer
6	£39,959 to £48,117	Senior nurse, specialist physiotherapist
7	£49,387 to £56,515	Advanced practitioner, ward manager

Newly registered nurses and allied health professionals usually start at band 5, and NHS band 5 pay and jobs goes through it point by point. Specialist trusts often add on-call or unsocial hours payments depending on the service, and the advert should say so.

Liverpool City Council

Liverpool City Council is the unitary authority for the city. Its jobs range from adult and children’s social work to housing, environmental health, parks, libraries and bin collection. The council went through several years of government intervention, with commissioners overseeing parts of its work, and some departments were reorganised as a result. Most posts sit on the NJC spine, which rose by 3.3 per cent from 1 April 2026.

The Liverpool City Region Combined Authority runs regional transport, skills and economic development and recruits separately.

Police, fire and ambulance

Merseyside Police and Merseyside Fire and Rescue Service cover Liverpool along with Sefton, Knowsley, St Helens and Wirral. A police constable joining now starts at £32,255 (PP1) and rises to £52,015 at PP7 under the scale in force from 1 September 2026. Firefighters are paid £31,539 in development and £40,358 when competent, from 1 July 2026, with crew managers on £42,892 to £44,742. North West Ambulance Service NHS Trust runs emergency and 111 services and pays on Agenda for Change.

Schools and colleges

Teaching jobs in Liverpool follow the England scales. From 1 September 2026, M1 is £34,069 and M6 £46,940 outside London, under the award the government accepted in July 2026. Teaching assistants and other support staff are on the NJC spine, usually pro rata for term-time working. Further education colleges set their own pay, which is often lower than school scales for comparable teaching roles.

Applying

Almost all Liverpool NHS trusts advertise on NHS Jobs, some through Trac. Applications are scored against the person specification, and most trusts use values-based recruitment, so your supporting statement should show the trust’s values in action as well as your skills. How to write an NHS supporting statement has a structure that works for any band. Council, police and fire jobs are on each organisation’s own careers site, and school jobs are mainly on Teaching Vacancies.