UK take-home pay calculator
See your estimated take-home pay in the UK for the current tax year: from your gross salary the calculator applies PAYE income tax, Class 1 National Insurance, any student-loan repayment and your workplace pension — and handles the Personal Allowance taper above £100,000 and the separate Scottish scale. The result is an estimate based on the rates in force for 2026/27.
- Income tax, National Insurance, student loan and pension — broken down
- No sign-up, no hidden costs
- Employer NI shown on top of your wage, never taken out
Quick estimate
Enter your gross salary, choose where you live, and tell us about any student loan and workplace pension — the calculator shows your take-home pay, the income tax and National Insurance taken out, and the employer NI paid on top. The result is an estimate for a ballpark, not an official assessment.
Your salary before tax — the amount on your contract or offer.
Assumes a UK resident, tax year 2026/27, standard tax code, PAYE employment (see the notes).
Leave blank for the standard code. An “S” prefix uses the Scottish scale; “C” is Wales; BR, D0, D1, 0T, NT and K codes are honoured literally.
Your own contribution, as a percentage of gross pay (0 to turn it off).
Take-home pay
Take-home pay: £28,719.60- Take-home£28,719.6082%
- Income tax£4,486.0013%
- National Insurance£1,794.405%
- Income tax
- −£4,486.00
- National Insurance
- −£1,794.40
- Employer NI (on top of your wage)
- £4,500.00
- Your marginal tax rate
- 20%
The allowance taper is estimated from your gross pay; your real adjusted net income can differ (gift aid, other income), so a real assessment may vary.
Notes on this calculation (2)
National Insurance is legally worked out per pay period and is non-cumulative — this annual-equivalent figure is an honest approximation, and real per-period NI on irregular pay can differ.
Your employer also pays £4,500 of secondary (employer) National Insurance ON TOP of your wage. Employer NI is never deducted from your take-home pay.
In the UK you don’t file a return to work out your take-home pay — your employer operates PAYE (Pay As You Earn), withholding income tax and National Insurance from each payslip and sending them to HMRC for you. What lands in your account is your take-home pay: your gross salary, less income tax above the Personal Allowance, less Class 1 National Insurance, and less any student-loan repayment and workplace pension.
One figure trips people up: employer National Insurance. Your employer pays it on top of your wage — it is never taken out of your pay. This calculator keeps it where it belongs: a separate figure beside your take-home, never a deduction from it.
- £12,570
- Personal Allowance
- 20% / 40% / 45%
- Income-tax bands
- 8%
- NI main rate
How it works
Three steps to a first, honest number — no sign-up.
- 1
Enter your salary
Your gross pay, where you live, and any student loan and pension.
- 2
See the breakdown
Income tax after the Personal Allowance, National Insurance, and any student-loan repayment — line by line.
- 3
Get take-home + employer cost
Your take-home pay, and the employer NI your employer pays on top of your wage.
How the deductions work
From your gross salary, a few things come out before you’re paid — all set nationally, though Scotland has its own income-tax scale:
- Income tax — charged on bands above the Personal Allowance (the first £12,570 is usually tax-free). Rest-of-UK rates run 20% / 40% / 45%, but only on the income inside each band, never your whole salary.
- National Insurance — Class 1 employee NI, 8% between the Primary Threshold and the Upper Earnings Limit, then 2% above it. Charged per pay period, not cumulatively.
- Student loan — if you have one, a percentage of income above your plan’s threshold, collected through PAYE.
- Workplace pension — your contribution, taken via relief at source, net pay, or salary sacrifice — each changes take-home differently.
And separately, above all of this, your employer pays employer National Insurance on your wage. It’s their cost on top of your pay — the calculator shows it as its own figure, never subtracted from your take-home.
Explore the tools
One page for each layer of the deduction stack.
Income tax
The rest-of-UK bands, the Personal Allowance, and the 60% effective band above £100,000.
National Insurance
Class 1 employee NI — the thresholds and rates, worked out per pay period rather than cumulatively.
Student loan
Plans 1, 2, 4 and 5 and the Postgraduate Loan — the thresholds and rates collected through PAYE.
Scotland
The Scottish six-band scale applied via the “S” tax-code prefix, and the 67.5% effective band.
FAQ
Answers on income tax, National Insurance, student loans and the pension relief methods.
About
What PoundTally is, how the figures are sourced, and how they are checked.
The 60% band — why £100k is a strange place to earn
Between £100,000 and £125,140 the Personal Allowance is withdrawn by £1 for every £2 you earn. On top of higher-rate tax, that withdrawal makes each extra pound in this range cost about 60% (67.5%in Scotland) — an effective marginal band higher than the headline top rate of 45%.
The calculator models the allowance as a function of income and taxes what’s left — so the 60% band emerges on its own, exactly as it does on a real payslip, rather than being bolted on as a special case.
What a fair salary comparison looks like
For context, ONS puts median gross full-time earnings at about £39,039 a year (around £766.60 a week) — a gross figure that varies widely by industry, region and hours. The number on a contract only means something once you see the take-home behind it.
At the other end of the same scale sits the minimum wage, and it is worth knowing that the UK states it by the HOUR rather than by the year. Under the National Minimum Wage rules the rate for workers aged 21 and over — the National Living Wage — is £12.71 an hour from April 2026. Younger workers and apprentices have their own, lower rates. An annual salary only clears the minimum wage once the hours actually worked behind it are counted, which is why a low-paid salaried job and a low-paid hourly one are not compared on the same number.
Compare take-home against take-home, and remember the employer’s National Insurance sits on top: two offers at the same salary are worth the same in your pocket. The calculator gives you both numbers — what you take home, and what it costs your employer.
Frequently asked questions
The figures behind these answers come from GOV.UK and HMRC, and each one is cited on the page that uses it. If a rate changed recently it may not be reflected here yet — for an official amount, check the cited source or ask HMRC.
Ready?
Work out your take-home pay in seconds
Enter your gross salary and see your take-home, the income tax and NI taken out, and the employer cost on top — no sign-up.