UK Take-Home Pay Calculator 2025/26
Your gross salary and your take-home pay are two different numbers — sometimes very different. This tool calculates your exact after-tax income including National Insurance, pension contributions, student loan deductions, and salary sacrifice — and shows you how the 2026/27 and 2027/28 tax years compare.
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Your gross salary passes through four deductions before it reaches your bank account. Understanding each one helps you spot mistakes on your payslip — and spot opportunities to reduce them.
Income tax is charged in bands, not on your whole salary. In 2026/27 (England, Wales, Northern Ireland): the first £12,570 is tax-free (your Personal Allowance), earnings between £12,571 and £50,270 are taxed at 20%, and earnings between £50,271 and £125,140 are taxed at 40%. Only the slice of income that falls within each band is taxed at that rate — so earning £51,000 does not mean your whole salary is taxed at 40%, only the £730 above £50,270 is.
National Insurance (Class 1) is separate from income tax and often misunderstood. In 2026/27: you pay 8% on earnings between £12,570 and £50,270, and 2% on anything above £50,270. NI is calculated on gross earnings before pension contributions — unless you use salary sacrifice, which reduces your NI bill as well as your tax.
This is one of the most consequential — and least publicised — features of the UK tax system. Between £100,000 and £125,140, every additional £2 you earn causes your Personal Allowance to reduce by £1. This means each pound of income in that band is effectively taxed at 60% (40% income tax plus losing a further 20p of tax-free allowance). Above £125,140 the Personal Allowance is gone entirely and the rate returns to 40%.
Salary sacrifice is an arrangement where you give up part of your gross salary in exchange for a non-cash benefit — most commonly pension contributions, a cycle-to-work scheme, or an electric vehicle lease. Because the sacrifice happens before tax and NI are calculated, you save both income tax and National Insurance on the sacrificed amount.
For a basic rate taxpayer (20% tax, 8% NI), every £100 sacrificed into a pension reduces your take-home by only £72. The other £28 comes from tax and NI savings. For a higher-rate taxpayer it's even more striking — every £100 into the pension costs only £52 from take-home. Your employer also saves their 15% employers' NI on the sacrificed amount, which some employers pass back to employees as an additional contribution.
Scotland has its own income tax rates, set by the Scottish Parliament. The 2026/27 bands use six rates rather than England's three: Starter (19%), Basic (20%), Intermediate (21%), Higher (42%), Advanced (45%), and Top (48%). The Scottish rates apply to non-savings, non-dividend income only — savings interest and dividends use UK rates for Scottish taxpayers too.
The practical effect is that Scottish taxpayers earning between roughly £43,000 and £125,140 pay more income tax than equivalent earners in England, Wales, and Northern Ireland — though they benefit from different public services as a result. NI is the same across the whole UK and is not devolved.
Student loans are repaid through PAYE as a percentage of earnings above a threshold — they are not a debt that builds interest in the same way as a commercial loan. Plan 2 borrowers (most graduates who started between 2012 and 2023) repay 9% of income above £27,295. Plan 5 borrowers (from September 2023) also repay 9% but above a lower threshold of £25,000 — and crucially, their loans write off after 40 years rather than 30, meaning more graduates will repay in full under Plan 5.
Student loan repayments reduce take-home pay but do not reduce taxable income — they come out after tax and NI are calculated. This matters when comparing job offers: two salaries with the same gross can have very different net figures depending on which loan plan applies.