The average salary for a UK contract holding GP fell last year to £104,100 bringing the total decrease since its peak in 2005/06 to £6000, according to the latest GP Earnings and Expenses report.
The figures show that the average income for contractor GPs, which form 80% of the GP workforce, was actually up by 1.5% in the year 2010/2011 but this was offset by expenses rising by 3.5% on average.
“From our figures we can see that the fall in actual income before tax for the latest year is influenced by the increase in expenses that practices are facing,” said Health and Social Care Information Centre Chief Executive, Tim Straughan.
“While contractor GPs’ gross earnings are continuing to move upwards, this small rise is offset by the bigger increase they face in the cost of running their practices.”
The number of top-earning GPs with an income of more than £200,000 before tax fell to 720 (2.2% of the total). The report also shows that around half of all contactor GPs (48.9%) had income before tax of less than £100K.
The average income before tax of a contractor GP was £107,000 in England, £89,300 in Scotland, £92,300 in Wales and £88,000 in Northern Ireland.
www.ic.nhs.uk
