Published 30 October 2026 · Last checked 30 October 2026 · Information, not financial or tax advice.
It has been a week of mixed messages for anyone working in health and care. The Budget brought a pay rise and kept a higher mileage rate, and in the same few days the government asked households to keep three days of food and water at home.
If you drive between visits, or you are wondering how three days of supplies fits into this month's budget, you have probably asked what all of it adds up to. Fuel has gone up by almost a third in a year. Inflation rose again in September. And the government says it has very little room to do more.
So here are the sums, done plainly. Below, we set out what April's pay rise is really worth once prices are counted, why 55p a mile is a ceiling rather than a promise, the tax you may be able to claim back if you are paid less, what the "stock up" advice actually asks of you, and why the government says it cannot go further.
In short. The minimum wage rises to £13.21 an hour in April. The tax-free mileage rate went up to 55p this year, the first rise since 2011. Both are real increases, but prices are rising almost as fast, and fuel faster still. If you drive for work and are paid less than 55p a mile, you may be able to claim tax back on the difference.
| What changed | By how much |
|---|---|
| National Living Wage, from 1 April 2027 | +3.9%, to £13.21 an hour |
| Tax-free mileage rate, from 6 April 2026 | +22%, from 45p to 55p |
| Prices (CPI), year to September 2026 | +3.5% |
| Motor fuel, year to September 2026 | +29.8% |
Sources: HM Treasury; HMRC; Office for National Statistics.
Read across, the picture is mixed. The pay rise is slightly ahead of prices today. The Office for Budget Responsibility, which produces the government's official forecasts, expects inflation to peak at 3.8% early in 2027, which would leave April's rise roughly level with prices by the time it arrives. The Treasury puts it at £910 a year before tax for someone working full time on the minimum.
Mileage is where the gap shows. The rate sat at 45p for fifteen years, and when it finally moved, it moved by less than the price of fuel did in a single year.
The new minimum lands right at the bottom of NHS pay. NHS Employers points out that Band 2 currently starts at £12.92 an hour and Band 3 at £13.17, so both will need to rise to meet it. According to the union Unite, the government's evidence to the NHS Pay Review Body proposes 2.4% for 2027/28. By our arithmetic, that would take the bottom of Band 2 to about £13.23, two pence above the legal minimum. NHS Employers says it will discuss interim arrangements with the government if the pay award is not settled in time for April.
The rise to 55p came in this year, backdated to 6 April, as part of the government's response to rising fuel prices. The Budget on 28 October made it permanent, and from April 2027 the rate for miles beyond the first 10,000 in a year goes up from 25p to 35p.
What the rate is not is an entitlement. It is the most an employer can pay you without it being taxed, and many pay less. A survey of homecare providers reported in July found that 59% could only afford to reimburse 40p a mile or less, while 80% of homecare workers use their own cars. That is rarely a choice about staff. The Homecare Association, which represents providers, says 61% of homecare contracts in England pay less than it costs to employ a care worker at the minimum wage, and it has pointed out that the tax-free rates "do not require employers to reimburse care workers at those levels".
Paid less than 55p a mile? HMRC lets you claim tax relief on the gap between what your employer pays and the approved rate. To be clear about what that means: you get back the tax on the shortfall, not the shortfall itself. Someone paying basic-rate tax who drives 5,000 work miles a year at 40p has a £750 gap, and could get about £150 back. You can claim for this tax year and the four before it, at 45p a mile for years before April 2026. You need a record of your journeys, with dates, reasons and postcodes, and ordinary commuting does not count. GOV.UK has a checker: claim tax relief for vehicles you use for work.
In late October the government launched Be Ready, asking households to keep enough to manage for three days if water, power or phones go down: food that needs no cooking, three litres of water per person per day, a torch, a radio and some cash. The Security Minister pointed to last winter's storms and this summer's wildfires. The government's own survey over the summer found just 4% of households had three days' water in.
Three days of supplies costs money in a year like this one, and it can be built up a little at a time. For anyone who looks after somebody else, at work or at home, three parts of the advice matter more than the tins:
The government's answer is that there is very little room. Alongside the Budget, the Office for Budget Responsibility cut the margin the government has against its own borrowing rules from £23.6 billion in March to £15 billion for 2029/30, with the conflict in the Middle East and its effect on energy prices a large part of the reason. Within that, the government accepted the Low Pay Commission's recommendation on the minimum wage in full, made 55p permanent and raised the rate for higher-mileage drivers.
There was no new money for adult social care. Decisions there wait for the 2027 Spending Review and Baroness Casey's review of the sector, and providers' bodies say April's rise will add to their costs unless council fees rise with it. For the NHS, the Budget's headline is an independent review of productivity and AI, a subject we have looked at from the other side: who carries the risk when the software writes the record.
Sources and last check. Last checked 30 October 2026 against: HM Treasury, Budget 2026 press release (28 October 2026), for the National Living Wage; Office for National Statistics, Consumer price inflation, September 2026 (21 October 2026); GOV.UK, travel mileage and fuel rates and the increase to approved mileage allowance payments; the Chartered Institute of Payroll Professionals (27 October 2026) on the Budget mileage changes; NHS Employers, Autumn Budget 2026 (28 October 2026), for Agenda for Change entry rates; Unite (20 October 2026) on the government's pay evidence; the Office for Budget Responsibility's October 2026 forecast as reported by Investment Week (28 October 2026); LaingBuisson News (7 July 2026) for the homecare mileage survey; the Homecare Association's Budget response (28 October 2026); the Be Ready campaign with the Security Minister's comments as reported by The National (23 October 2026), and the Cabinet Office's UK Public Survey of Risk Perception, Resilience and Preparedness 2026 (19 August 2026); and the International Longevity Centre UK's Budget briefing on social care. The £150 example is our own arithmetic. If you spot something out of date, please tell us — we would rather fix it than leave it.
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