Take-Home Pay Calculator UK 2026/27

Gross employment pay is reduced by PAYE income tax, employee National Insurance, pension contributions, student-loan repayments and any post-tax deductions entered. Tax depends on the selected tax year, home nation and tax code; National Insurance and student loans are assessed using their own thresholds. This net pay calculator for the UK applies the 2026/27 figures, and the monthly view divides the annual result by twelve, which is how most employers pay, so the number matches a payslip rather than a rough twelfth of a yearly estimate.

Enter your gross pay and frequency, tax year, home nation, tax code and relevant deductions. The result shows estimated take-home pay annually and at common UK pay frequencies.

Yes. Net pay is the amount remaining after the modeled PAYE income tax, employee National Insurance and any pension, student-loan or other deductions included in the calculation.

The result separates estimated PAYE income tax from employee National Insurance. The amounts depend on gross pay, tax year, home nation, tax code, NI category, pay frequency and relevant deductions.

Use this tax calculator UK employment estimate to see PAYE income tax separately from National Insurance. As a UK income tax calculator it uses the selected tax year, home nation and tax code, but it is not a complete Self Assessment calculation.

Yes. Choose hourly gross pay and enter hours per week and working weeks per year. The calculator annualises that pay before applying the selected UK tax rules.

No. It uses governed UK tax rules and source records for an educational estimate, but it is not an HMRC service, payroll system, payslip or tax return.

Almost always because something on your payslip is not switched on here. The usual causes are a tax code that is not the standard one, a non-cumulative or emergency code applied after a job change, a student loan plan you did not realise you were on, a workplace pension deducted before the figure you are comparing against, or a salary sacrifice arrangement that has already reduced your gross pay. Enter your real tax code and your actual pension and student loan settings and the gap normally closes. If it does not, the difference is worth raising with your payroll department rather than assuming either figure is right.

The number is your tax-free pay for the year with the last digit removed, so 1257L means £12,570 tax free. The letter records why: L is the standard allowance, M and N mean Marriage Allowance has been received or given away, and T means HMRC is reviewing something. A code starting with K is the opposite of an allowance — it adds notional income, usually because a benefit in kind or an underpayment is being collected, and by law no more than half your pay can be taken that way. S means you are taxed at Scottish rates and C at Welsh rates. W1, M1 or X on the end means the code is non-cumulative, so each payday is taxed in isolation and any overpayment is not corrected until the year is reconciled.

Scotland sets its own income tax on employment income and uses six bands rather than three: 19%, 20%, 21%, 42%, 45% and 48% for 2026/27. The higher rate starts at £43,662 of income, which is well below the £50,270 point where National Insurance drops from 8% to 2%. A Scottish taxpayer in that gap therefore pays 42% income tax and 8% National Insurance at the same time, a 50% marginal rate on every extra pound. The Personal Allowance is not devolved and is £12,570 everywhere, and National Insurance is identical across the UK — only the income tax bands differ.

Not in 2026/27. Wales can vary each rate under the Wales Act 2014, but the Welsh Government has set every Welsh rate so that the totals match England and Northern Ireland: 20%, 40% and 45% on the same bands. The visible difference is the tax code, which carries a C prefix. Wales is still offered as a separate option here because the equality is a policy choice renewed each Welsh Budget, not a permanent feature.

Because it is a different kind of tax. Income tax is assessed on your whole year and spread across your paydays, so a tax code can carry information forward and correct itself. National Insurance is assessed on each pay period on its own and is never reconciled at the end of the year for an ordinary employee. That is why two people on the same annual salary can owe different National Insurance: if one of them received a large bonus in a single month, more of that month sat above the upper earnings limit where the rate drops to 2%, and the quiet months wasted part of the threshold. No tax code adjusts for it afterwards.

Once your income passes £100,000 the Personal Allowance is withdrawn by £1 for every £2 you earn above it, disappearing entirely at £125,140. So each extra £2 of salary is taxed at 40% and also drags £1 of previously tax-free income into the 40% band — £1.20 of tax on £2 of pay, an effective 60% rate, or 62% once the 2% National Insurance is added. In Scotland the same arithmetic on the 45% advanced rate produces 67.5%. Paying enough into a pension to bring your income back below £100,000 removes the trap entirely, which is why the pension inputs on this page matter most to people in exactly this band.

It changes your take-home pay materially, and the same "5%" produces three different answers. Under a net pay arrangement the contribution comes out before income tax but National Insurance is still charged on the full amount. Under relief at source it comes out of your pay after all tax and your provider reclaims 20% from HMRC, which means a higher-rate taxpayer has to claim the rest back separately and never sees it on a payslip. Under salary sacrifice your contractual salary is reduced instead, so the contribution escapes income tax and National Insurance for you and your employer alike, which makes it the cheapest of the three for the same money into the pot. Your payslip or scheme booklet will name which one you are on.

Usually not. The automatic-enrolment default charges contributions only on qualifying earnings, the slice of pay between £6,240 and £50,270. On a £30,000 salary that slice is £23,760, so a 5% contribution is £1,188 a year rather than £1,500. Some employers instead certify on basic pay or on total pay, which gives a larger contribution for the same percentage. This calculator lets you pick the basis, because assuming full salary is one of the largest silent errors in consumer salary tools.

As a percentage of what you earn above a threshold, never as a function of the balance you owe. Plan 1, 2, 4 and 5 all take 9% above their own threshold and a Postgraduate Loan takes 6% above £21,000. Undergraduate and postgraduate loans stack, so someone on Plan 2 with a Master’s loan pays 15% of everything above £29,385. Repayments are assessed on each pay period separately, like National Insurance, so a bonus month triggers a repayment even if the year as a whole is below the threshold. The deduction is taken from the same earnings figure used for National Insurance, which means a net pay pension contribution does not reduce it, though a salary sacrifice one does.

Yes. Enter the annual take-home figure you need in the net-to-gross field and the calculator solves backwards to the gross salary that produces it, using the same tax code, pension, student loan and region settings as the main calculation. This is the calculation to use when you are negotiating a salary against a budget, or comparing an offer to what you currently keep rather than what you are currently paid.

A bonus is taxed at the same rates as the rest of your pay, but paying it in one month can push that month into a higher band than your usual salary would reach, and payroll withholds accordingly. Income tax generally corrects itself over the rest of the year because it is worked out cumulatively. National Insurance does not: a bonus month puts more pay above the monthly upper earnings limit, where the rate falls to 2%, and there is no year-end reconciliation to reclaim the difference. Enter the bonus separately here to see the effect on the year as a whole.

Employer National Insurance at 15% on everything above £5,000 a year, with no upper limit, plus their pension contribution. That threshold is far lower than your own £12,570, and unlike your contributions the employer rate does not fall to 2% at the top, so the cost keeps rising with your salary. This calculator shows the total employer cost of employing you, which is the figure that matters when you are negotiating or working out what a contract rate needs to be. It excludes the £10,500 Employment Allowance, which an employer claims once a year against their whole bill rather than per employee.