How Much Money Doctor Who's Biggest Stars Got Paid

3. Matt Smith

Doctor Who Jodie Whittaker Thirteenth Doctor money
BBC Studios

The Eleventh Doctor was one of the few Doctors to actually get a job (in the toy department of Colchester’s Sanderson & Grainger).

As he explains to Craig: “Saw a shop, got a job. You got to live in the moment.”

However good the pay at Sanderson & Grainger was though, we’re fairly sure it wasn’t as good as what Matt Smith was earning in real life.

According to reports at the time, Smith’s original contract committed him to three years on the show, with an option for two more. The overall fee was £1 million, working out at £200,000 a year (in today’s money, around £1.5 million and £300,000, respectively).

Of course, Smith only ended up completing three series of the show. In that case he would've walked away with a total of £600,000, which would be about £890,000 today.

If the £1-million-a-year figure for Tennant is correct, the Eleventh Doctor’s basic earnings were only a fraction of the Tenth’s. By those metrics, Tennant earned more in a single year than Smith did overall.

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