UK take home pay calculator.
UK Take Home Salary Calculator
See your exact UK take-home pay, tax, NI and deductions — instantly.
Self-employed pays Class 4 NI (6%/2%) instead of employee NI — pension/salary-sacrifice via payroll won't apply.
2026/27 rates. Estimate only — check gov.uk for exact figures.
Fill in your details and press Calculate my take-home to see your full breakdown.
Showing amounts per month
Typing your salary into a take home pay calculator UK tool should give you a straight answer in a few seconds — no jargon, no sign-up, no guessing. This guide walks through exactly how to use the calculator above, then breaks down the tax, National Insurance and student loan rules behind the numbers, so you know precisely why your take-home pay looks the way it does for the 2026/27 tax year.
Whether you searched for a take home pay calculator, a net pay calculator UK, a salary calculator UK, or you're simply trying to work out take home pay before accepting a new job offer, the tool above and the explanations below cover the same ground: what you actually keep after Income Tax, National Insurance, pension contributions and student loan repayments come out.
People land here searching for slightly different phrases that all mean the same thing — a UK salary calculator, a net income calculator UK, a monthly salary calculator UK, or a straightforward way to calculate net take home pay and calculate take home salary UK figures without doing the maths by hand. This page (and the calculator above it) is built to answer all of those searches with one accurate, up-to-date net salary calculator UK tool.
How to Use This UK Take Home Pay Calculator
The calculator is built so you can get a rough answer in ten seconds, or a precise one in a couple of minutes if your situation is a bit more complicated (second job, Scottish tax rates, salary sacrifice pension, that sort of thing). Here's what each part of it does.
- Enter your salary and how often you're paid Type in your salary, then use the dropdown to say whether that figure is yearly, monthly, weekly, daily or hourly. If you're paid hourly, you'll also be asked for your usual hours per week so the calculator can work out your annual equivalent correctly.
- Choose where you pay tax Select England/Wales/Northern Ireland or Scotland. This matters more than most people expect — Scotland has six separate income tax bands instead of three, and the rates diverge quite a bit once you're earning above roughly £43,000. More on this below.
- Add your pension contribution, if you have one Pick whether it's a standard workplace pension or a salary sacrifice scheme, then enter either a percentage or a fixed amount. The calculator treats these two pension types differently in the maths, because salary sacrifice also reduces the income your National Insurance is calculated on — a genuine tax saving, not just a formality.
- Select your student loan plan, if applicable Plan 1, 2, 4, 5, or a postgraduate loan — each has its own repayment threshold and rate. Not sure which plan you're on? It depends on when and where you started your course; your loan provider's portal will confirm it.
- Open "More options" for anything extra This is where the calculator goes beyond a basic take home calculator: self-employed status (Class 4 National Insurance instead of the employed rate), a custom HMRC tax code, a second job, Child Benefit and the High Income Child Benefit Charge, part-year working, and a side-by-side comparison against a different salary. Skip this section entirely if none of it applies to you — the calculator works fine with just the basics filled in.
- Press "Calculate my take-home" Your results appear straight away: annual, monthly, weekly, daily and hourly take-home pay, a full breakdown of where your money goes, and an active-options summary confirming exactly which settings were used, so there's never any doubt about what's been included.
What Actually Counts as Take-Home Pay?
Take-home pay (also called net pay) is what actually lands in your bank account, after everything's been deducted from your gross salary. It's easy to mix this up with your headline salary figure, which is the number on your contract before anything comes off.
For most employees, the deductions between gross and net are:
- Income Tax — calculated on everything above your tax-free Personal Allowance
- National Insurance — a separate contribution with its own thresholds and rates
- Pension contributions — if you're enrolled in a workplace scheme
- Student loan repayments — only if you're above the relevant repayment threshold
Add those four together, subtract them from your gross pay, and what's left is your take-home pay. That's the entire job of a take home pay calculator UK tool — it just does that arithmetic accurately, using the correct thresholds for the current tax year, so you don't have to look them up yourself.
Income Tax and National Insurance: How Your Take Home Pay Is Calculated
For the 2026/27 tax year, everyone gets a Personal Allowance of £12,570 before any Income Tax applies — that part is the same whether you're in England, Wales, Northern Ireland or Scotland. What differs is the rates applied above it.
England, Wales & Northern Ireland
| Band | Taxable income | Rate |
|---|---|---|
| Personal Allowance | Up to £12,570 | 0% |
| Basic rate | £12,571 – £50,270 | 20% |
| Higher rate | £50,271 – £125,140 | 40% |
| Additional rate | Over £125,140 | 45% |
Scotland
| Band | Taxable income | Rate |
|---|---|---|
| Starter rate | £12,571 – £16,537 | 19% |
| Basic rate | £16,538 – £29,526 | 20% |
| Intermediate rate | £29,527 – £43,662 | 21% |
| Higher rate | £43,663 – £75,000 | 42% |
| Advanced rate | £75,001 – £125,140 | 45% |
| Top rate | Over £125,140 | 48% |
National Insurance works separately from Income Tax. Employees pay 8% on earnings between £12,570 and £50,270, then 2% on anything above that — the same thresholds apply in Scotland, since National Insurance is set at UK level, not devolved. If you're self-employed, Class 4 National Insurance uses the same thresholds but at 6% and 2% instead, which we cover in more detail further down.
Take Home Pay Examples: What You Keep From £20,000 to £100,000
Numbers are easier to reason about with real examples. Here's what someone on a standard PAYE contract, England/Wales/NI rates, with no pension and no student loan, actually takes home at various salary levels.
| Gross salary | Income Tax | National Insurance | Take-home (yearly) | Take-home (monthly) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| £20,000 | £1,486 | £594 | £17,920 | £1,493 |
| £25,000 | £2,486 | £994 | £21,520 | £1,793 |
| £30,000 | £3,486 | £1,394 | £25,120 | £2,093 |
| £35,000 | £4,486 | £1,794 | £28,720 | £2,393 |
| £40,000 | £5,486 | £2,194 | £32,320 | £2,693 |
| £45,000 | £6,486 | £2,594 | £35,920 | £2,993 |
| £50,000 | £7,486 | £2,994 | £39,520 | £3,293 |
| £60,000 | £11,432 | £3,211 | £45,357 | £3,780 |
| £70,000 | £15,432 | £3,411 | £51,157 | £4,263 |
| £80,000 | £19,432 | £3,611 | £56,957 | £4,746 |
| £100,000 | £27,432 | £4,011 | £68,557 | £5,713 |
Notice the jump between £50,000 and £60,000 — that's the 40% higher rate band starting to bite properly. And between £80,000 and £100,000, the drop-off is sharper still, partly because of the Personal Allowance taper mentioned earlier. These are exactly the kind of figures a good calculate take home pay UK tool should surface automatically, rather than making you work them out band by band.
England, Wales & Northern Ireland vs Scotland: Take Home Salary Calculator Comparison
If you're comparing a job offer that involves relocating across the border, the difference in take-home pay is worth understanding properly rather than guessing. At lower salaries, the gap between rUK and Scottish rates is tiny — sometimes Scotland even comes out slightly ahead, thanks to the 19% starter rate on the first slice of taxable income. Higher up the scale, it flips the other way.
| Gross salary | rUK take-home (yearly) | Scotland take-home (yearly) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| £20,000 | £17,920 | £17,959 | +£39 (Scotland) |
| £35,000 | £28,720 | £28,705 | −£15 (Scotland) |
| £50,000 | £39,520 | £38,024 | −£1,496 (Scotland) |
| £70,000 | £51,157 | £49,207 | −£1,950 (Scotland) |
| £100,000 | £68,557 | £65,257 | −£3,300 (Scotland) |
The reason for the widening gap is Scotland's Higher rate kicking in at £43,663 rather than £50,271, and sitting at 42% rather than 40%. A dedicated take home salary calculator Scotland users can trust needs to model all six Scottish bands correctly, not just apply a rough adjustment — which is exactly what the calculator above does when you toggle the region setting.
Pension Contributions and Your Net Pay Calculator UK Results
Not all workplace pensions are taxed the same way, and it genuinely changes your take-home pay:
Salary sacrifice
You formally agree to a lower salary in exchange for your employer paying the difference straight into your pension. Because your salary is contractually reduced, you pay less Income Tax and less National Insurance on that amount — this is the most tax-efficient option for most people, which is why "salary sacrifice calculator take home pay" is such a common search: the saving isn't always obvious until you see it worked out.
Net pay arrangement
The most common setup for workplace pensions. Your contribution comes out of your salary before Income Tax is calculated, so you get full tax relief automatically, but it doesn't reduce the earnings your National Insurance is based on.
Relief at source
Common with personal pensions. Your contribution comes out of your pay after tax, and your pension provider claims basic-rate tax relief back from HMRC and adds it to your pot. Higher and additional rate taxpayers need to claim the rest back separately through Self Assessment.
Self-Employed? Class 4 National Insurance Explained
If you're self-employed, the maths changes in one specific way: you don't pay Class 1 employee National Insurance, you pay Class 4 instead — 6% on profits between £12,570 and £50,270, then 2% above that, rather than the 8%/2% employees pay. You also won't have a workplace pension deducted through payroll, since that's not how self-employed pension contributions work.
The calculator above has a dedicated "Self-employed" toggle under More Options that switches to Class 4 rates automatically, so you're not stuck manually working out net pay uk figures with the wrong National Insurance class applied.
Student Loan Repayments and Your Take Home Salary
Student loan repayments only kick in once your income passes your plan's threshold, and they're calculated as 9% of everything above it (6% for postgraduate loans):
| Plan | Repayment threshold (2026/27) | Rate |
|---|---|---|
| Plan 1 | £26,900 | 9% |
| Plan 2 | £29,385 | 9% |
| Plan 4 (Scotland) | £33,795 | 9% |
| Plan 5 | £25,000 | 9% |
| Postgraduate loan | £21,000 | 6% |
If you're not sure which plan applies to you, it depends on where and when you started your course — your loan provider will confirm it, and it's worth double-checking before you rely on any take home salary calculator's output for budgeting purposes.
Frequently Asked Questions
What would my take home pay be on different salaries?
It depends on your gross salary, where you pay tax, and any pension or student loan deductions — that's exactly what the calculator above works out. As a rough guide, most people in England, Wales or Northern Ireland keep somewhere between 78% and 85% of their gross salary once Income Tax and National Insurance are deducted, with the percentage falling as income rises into the higher tax bands.
How do I calculate take home pay UK style, without a calculator?
Subtract your Personal Allowance (£12,570) from your salary, apply the relevant tax bands to what's left, then separately work out National Insurance on your full salary above £12,570. Add both deductions together and subtract from your gross pay. It's entirely doable by hand — the calculator just saves you looking up the current thresholds and doing the band-by-band maths yourself.
Is take-home pay the same as net pay?
Yes — "take-home pay" and "net pay" mean exactly the same thing: what's left after tax, National Insurance, pension and any other deductions come out of your gross salary.
What's £40,000 after tax and NI in the UK?
On a standard PAYE contract in England, Wales or Northern Ireland with no pension or student loan, £40,000 gross works out to roughly £32,320 a year take-home, or around £2,693 a month. It'll be slightly different in Scotland, and lower if you're contributing to a pension or repaying a student loan.
Does this work as a take home salary calculator for Scotland?
Yes. Select Scotland under "Where do you pay tax?" and the calculator applies all six Scottish Income Tax bands — Starter, Basic, Intermediate, Higher, Advanced and Top — rather than the three rUK bands.
How does salary sacrifice affect my take-home pay compared to other pension types?
Salary sacrifice reduces both your Income Tax and your National Insurance, because your contractual salary is lower. A standard net pay pension only reduces Income Tax. Over a full tax year the difference is usually a few hundred pounds in extra take-home pay, depending on your contribution level.
Is this take home pay calculator updated for 2026/27?
Yes — Personal Allowance, Income Tax bands for both rUK and Scotland, National Insurance thresholds, and student loan repayment thresholds all reflect the 2026/27 tax year figures published by HMRC and the Scottish Government.
Can I use this to work backwards from net to gross salary?
Not directly — this tool is a forward take home pay calculator, so you enter your gross salary and see your net pay. Working out gross from a target net figure involves the same tax bands in reverse, which is a slightly different calculation we may add as a separate feature in future.
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