The Royal College of Midwives' three-week consultation with its members resulted in 80.1% of respondents voting to accept the offer, with the RCM saying it was ‘a step towards addressing long-term pay cuts'.

The offer equates to an uplift of 4.25% for all NHS Agenda for Change (AfC) staff in 2025-26 and 3.75% for 2026/27. This amounts to a cumulative uplift of just over 8.1%

The RCM says the offer meets the above-inflation ask of the RCM's pay claim and is protected from any rises in inflation. This means that each year of the pay deal will be one percentage point higher than the average CPI inflation rate of that year.

The RCM's director for Scotland, Jaki Lambert, said: ‘We know how hard our members work, day in day out across Scotland striving to deliver the best care they can to women and their families and it's only fair that work is valued by the Scottish Government.

‘Unfortunately, colleagues, in the rest of the UK remain once again in limbo over their pay awards for this year, so in a way we are relived that our members in Scotland will see their pay increases sooner rather than later.'

The pay increase will be backdated to 1 April, the day it was due, and the RCM hopes members will receive their backdated uplift by the end of June with backdated pay in July.