RMT BRIEFING – THE FACTS ABOUT NETWORK RAIL PAY
While your pay has fallen behind inflation, management have expanded and enriched themselves at your expense.
The Real Pay Story – We’re 10% Poorer Than in 2021
• Cumulative RPI inflation since 2021 = 27%
• Network Rail pay awards since 2021 = 17.1%.
• Result: We’re around 10% poorer in real terms
• Example: an S&T operative is now £3,747 worse off, a SSM Grade10 is £7,278 worse off than if pay had tracked RPI
• Every percentage point below RPI is a real pay cut year after year, the gap grows.
The Great “Modernising Maintenance” Lie
Network Rail promised to “save £400 million a year” through “efficiency” and “modernisation.”
In his parting message to us all, Adrew Haines said:
‘The railway runs because of its people. Not the managing directors and chief executives, but the people who choose day in day out to do their best work – for passengers, colleagues, and customers. Network Rail has thousands of you and that is a key reason why this job has been the privilege of my career. When we are at our best, I believe there is no finer industry to work for.’
Yet, what has been done? There are thousands less of you, and hundreds more managers.
Here’s the truth:
• Nearly 650 additional management jobs created while 1,900 maintenance posts were cut.
• Total payroll costs have gone up.
Modernising Maintenance was never about “efficiency”. It was about breaking collective agreements, undermining union strength, and shifting money from the track and into the pockets of management.
ORR CONFIRMS IT – THE REGULATOR’S OWN DATA
The Office of Rail and Road’s 2025 Efficiency Report spells it out:
“Maintenance headcount reduced by 9% since CP6, while senior management headcount increased by 61% over the last decade.”
“Average reward for senior managers: £167,927, up 5% in one year.”
Their Strategy: Cut, Control, and Divide
Network Rail’s pattern is clear:
• They imposed “Modernising Maintenance” – removing roles, hollowing out teams, and increasing fatigue.
• They imposed block leave – dictating when you can take your own holidays.
• They withhold pay unless you “sell” conditions – each year demanding “efficiencies” just to stand still.
This is not negotiation. It’s managed decline funded by our conditions.
How They Treat You
While the company boasts about “listening,” their actions tell a different story one of contempt for the workforce and for the agreements they’ve signed.
1. Broken Promises on Work–Life Balance
Network Rail agreed to meet your union to look at ways of improving work–life balance a commitment written into the last pay deal. They still haven’t even met us.
This was supposed to address the concerns you raised through the Modernising Maintenance Post-Implementation Reviews, where members told us you are more fatigued, more isolated, and more stretched than ever because of changes to rosters. Independent fatigue reports commissioned by the company confirmed what we already knew increased night working damages health. Management read those reports, nodded, and then ignored them.
They also agreed in that same pay deal to discuss a lump-sum payment for those who lost out on PDTA and mileage payments. That meeting never happened either. Another promise broken.
2. Disrespect for Your Representatives
At the National Maintenance Council, where your elected representatives raise issues directly with senior management, the company’s behaviour has become openly obstructive.
They have cut the number of NMC meetings by 50%, and when we do meet, they refuse to discuss many of the items we table.
We constantly have to remind them of their legal and moral duty to consult meaningfully on matters that affect you.
They have even tried to argue that they don’t need to consult us on changes to competencies and competency matrices a direct attack on collective bargaining and a dangerous precedent for the future.
3. Withdrawal of Agreed Entitlements
Every member on Jarvis Terms & Conditions is contractually entitled to a £40 meal allowance when lodging away, rising to £45 in London.
The company has started to decline claims despite repeatedly confirming that we are entitled to it. We are now having to fight to have this reinstated yet another example of Network Rail’s disregard for agreements and for the people who keep the railway running.
4. The pooling of planners
Network Rail have brought forward proposals to remove Section Planners from their existing sections and place them into pooled teams under a new central manager.
This change would strip away the specialist knowledge that keeps planning safe and efficient, forcing Planners to cover multiple engineering disciplines and take on wider responsibilities with no defined limits on workload or accountability.
Despite these clear increases in expectation and complexity, the company has shown no intention of reviewing pay or recognition for the additional skills and pressure this would involve.
In short, they want more work, more responsibility, and more risk for exactly the same pay.
5. Introducing inferior conditions for Section Supervisors and Section Managers
Network Rail are now attempting to push through new contracts for Supervisors and Section Managers across both Maintenance and Works Delivery, designed to drive down pay and increase control.
These so-called “modern” contracts would lower basic rates, strip away longstanding allowances, and introduce enforced overtime under the banner of “flexibility”.
In reality, that means being told when to work, how long to work, and where to work, with no guarantee of fair reward or work–life balance.
This is not modernisation it’s exploitation.
The company’s agenda is clear: to normalise longer hours for less pay, blur boundaries between grades, and replace collectively-agreed terms with managerial discretion.
And it won’t stop there. Once these new contracts are imposed on Supervisors and Section Managers, the next target will be Technical staff, with similar attacks already being discussed behind closed doors.
RMT has made it clear that these contracts will not be accepted. They represent a direct assault on negotiated agreements, job value, and fair reward, and every member must stand together to resist them.
Why We Must Act
If we stay silent, they will keep breaking agreements, cutting consultation, and clawing back every entitlement they can.
We have to show clearly and collectively that we are not just disappointed; we are prepared to do something about it.
The company needs to understand that we will not continue to accept being ignored, undermined, and disrespected.
The Reality Behind Their Spin
• Total reported PRP bonuses for Network Rail Executives for the last financial year, funded by the taxpayer and fare payer, totalled £4m which represents total PRP bonus payments of 27 per cent of the £15m total Executive salaries for the 2023/24 financial year.
• 39 executives on £170k–£330k each, with bonuses that can double their salaries
• Average worker productivity: higher than pre-pandemic, yet the company spends less of its budget on staff (38%) than at any time in the last decade.
In short: we do more, they take more.
Our Strategy: Organise, Resist, Win
Network Rail’s strategy is clear. They offer a poor offer based on CPI and, if we want more, we have to sell our conditions. This cannot continue.
So what is our strategy?
We cannot accept a future where:
• We sell off our conditions each year to fund inflation-matching pay.
• We work longer, harder, with worse rosters and feeling more fatigued
• We’re told “no money for pay” while over 100 million is pumped into management.
Our answer must be just as clear:
1. No more imposed “reforms” resist every erosion of T&Cs.
2. Demand RPI+ pay, not pay cuts dressed up as modernisation.
3. End PRP bonuses and reinvest that money in the workforce.
What We’re Fighting For
RMT’s 2026 pay claim demands:
✅ A substantial RPI+ pay rise to repair years of lost earnings.
✅ A flat-rate underpin to lift the lowest-paid.
✅ A reduction in the working week with no loss of pay.
✅ Abolition of performance-related bonuses and reinvestment in pay and conditions.
✅ Extension of the No Compulsory Redundancy guarantee through CP7.
✅ Fairness, dignity and proper recognition for the people who keep the railway
Sir Andrew Haines admitted, “On performance, we have not been able to shift the dial.”
After seven years, thousands of job cuts and hundreds more managers, that’s the legacy higher pay at the top, worse performance below.
It proves what we’ve said all along: you can’t run a safe, efficient railway by cutting the people who make it work.
The time has come to shift the dial ourselves in our direction.