16 October 2025
RMT Press Office:
Rail union RMT, has gone into dispute with Network Rail over pay, after years of falling real-terms wages despite major productivity improvements delivered by staff across the railway.
Since 2021, cumulative RPI inflation has risen by around 27%, while Network Rail pay awards over the same period total just 17%. That means staff are, on average, 10% worse off in real terms than they were four years ago. Depending on grade, individual losses amount to between £3,500 and £9,600 compared with inflation.
At the same time, Network Rail’s own figures show that workers in maintenance and operations have delivered more for less. In 2023/24, the company spent about £3.9 billion on renewals, and staff delivered 108% of the planned work in the first year of Control Period 7, completing more work than scheduled without an increase in headcount.
While productivity has gone up, staff costs have fallen as a share of total Network Rail spending while money continues to leak out of the railway through outsourcing and agency contracts.
Network Rail spent £168 million on agency labour last year, with an estimated £34 million lost to agency margins.
This is on top of contractor profit extraction, running at around £200 million a year, or almost £5 billion since the late 1990s.
RMT says this shows that frontline workers are not being paid the true worth of their labour.
Real pay has fallen while output and efficiency have increased, proving that a fair pay rise is both justified and affordable.
The union argues that decades of privatisation and fragmentation have driven up costs and weakened the industry’s ability to invest.
Outsourced and short-term contracts have inflated bills, delayed projects, and diverted hundreds of millions of pounds each year away from public service delivery.
The debt burden arising from the failure of privatisation continues to sap investment capacity, while official productivity measures ignore these structural inefficiencies and reward short-term cost cutting instead of long-term value.
RMT says the creation of Great British Railways (GBR) is an opportunity to rebuild a unified, publicly accountable railway that values its workforce, delivers better results for passengers, and puts investment back into the system instead of private profit.
RMT General Secretary Eddie Dempsey said: “Our members have enhanced the value of the railways, kept it running safely day and night, and achieved rising levels of productivity.
"However, the value of their pay packets has fallen behind the cost of living and they want that addressed.
"Network Rail management need to make an offer that reflects the hard work, professionalism and productivity of staff across maintenance and operations.
"The money is there but is instead being wasted on outsourcing, agency costs and the inefficiencies created by years of privatisation.
"If we want to rebuild rail, make GBR a success and revive Britain, we must start by valuing the people who make the railway run.”
RMT says it remains open to genuine talks at any stage and that a fair deal would bring lasting stability to the rail industry and support the transition to Great British Railways.
END
Want to receive updates from us? Subscribe to a mailing list
Tagged with: RMT, Eddie Dempsey, Network Rail, Pay
Related News
- Carlisle Support Services must end pay freeze and return to meaningful talks as Northern revenue staff strike
- RMT blasts big oil and gas for benefiting from Petrofac administration
- RMT slams Avanti West Coast over short staffing at stations and ticket offices
- RMT demands end to outsourcing on publicly owned Northern Trains ahead of Manchester day of action
- RMT calls for BTP cuts reversal and safer railways following Huntingdon stabbing
Latest News
- Carlisle Support Services must end pay freeze and return to meaningful talks as Northern revenue staff strike
- RMT slams Avanti West Coast over short staffing at stations and ticket offices
- RMT blasts big oil and gas for benefiting from Petrofac administration
- RMT demands end to outsourcing on publicly owned Northern Trains ahead of Manchester day of action
- RMT calls for BTP cuts reversal and safer railways following Huntingdon stabbing
Unity House
Tel: 020 7387 4771
Email: