The Datum Report

Occupation 2255 · Professional occupations

Paramedics

Half of full-time paramedics in the UK earn more than £53,818 a year, and half earn less.

Paramedics provide first aid and life support treatment in emergency situations and transport sick and injured people who require skilled treatment.

How people enter it

Entry is via a student paramedic position with an ambulance service trust or completion of an approved full-time university course in paramedical science. Qualification requirements for entry to university courses vary (GCSEs, A levels or equivalent). A full, manual driving licence (with appropriate classifications) is required. Paramedics working in the NHS must be registered with the Health Professions Council.

What the work involves

• drives ambulance or accompanies driver to respond to calls for assistance at accidents, emergencies and other incidents
• assesses the nature of injuries, provides first aid treatment and ascertains appropriate method of conveying patient
• resuscitates and/or stabilises patient using relevant techniques, equipment and drugs
• transports and accompanies patients who either require or potentially require skilled treatment whilst travelling
• briefs other medical staff when handing over the patient, and completes patient report forms describing the patient’s condition and any treatment provided

Also called

Ambulance paramedic · Emergency care practitioner · Paramedic · Paramedic-ECP

What it pays

How pay has changed

Median gross annual pay for paramedics, full-time employees, 2023 to 2025. Each point is that year's ASHE April snapshot as published — revisions are not backfilled into earlier years, and a year ONS withheld is a gap rather than a joined line.

ONS, ASHE Table 14 - occupation by four-digit SOC (national). Table

Year-on-year change

The change from each year to the next, in per cent, computed from the figures in the chart above — so the two cannot disagree.

ONS, ASHE Table 14 - occupation by four-digit SOC (national). Table

Pay by region

Median gross annual pay for full-time employees, ranked, against the UK figure. 9 of 11 regions are published: ONS withholds a cell where the survey sample cannot support it, and those are shown as gaps rather than dropped — an absent region is not a region without the work in it.

ONS, ASHE Table 14 - occupation by four-digit SOC (national). Period 2025. Table

Every regional figure

ONS does not publish occupational pay below region. Cells the survey could not support are shown as withheld, with its reason — adding a region split to a specific occupation leaves roughly a tenth of cells publishable.

Common questions

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