UK Take-Home Pay Calculator 2026/27
Estimate your take-home pay for England, Wales, Northern Ireland or Scotland using PAYE Income Tax, employee National Insurance, pension deductions, student loan repayments, bonuses and salary sacrifice. Every figure is laid out the way a payslip would show it.
Four questions a plain salary box cannot answer
Target take-home, two salaries side by side, what you keep from the next £1,000, and where the thresholds sit. All four follow the settings you entered above.
Bonuses, overtime and one-off deductions are switched off for this solve. Pension, tax code and student loan settings stay on.
To take home about £3,000 a month on these settings, you need a gross salary of roughly £45,111 a year.
Bonus and overtime are switched off for this comparison. Pension, tax code, National Insurance category and student loan settings stay on.
A £5,000 gross rise adds about £2,937.88 to take-home pay over a year on these settings.
This is what you keep from your next £1,000 on your current settings in England. It is not a universal marginal rate.
| Band | Rate | Pay taxed here | Tax |
|---|---|---|---|
| Total Income Tax | £37,430 | £7,486 |
Gross salary flowing into deductions and take-home pay
A real payslip can differ because of your tax code, NI category, payroll period, pension method, student loan plan, taxable benefits and your employer's payroll software. That is why this output is labelled an estimate.
How this calculator works
Income Tax runs on an annual basis, the way cumulative PAYE settles over a full year. National Insurance and student loan repayments run per pay period, because that is how payroll handles them. So a one-off bonus lands in a single period and gets charged 2% National Insurance above the Upper Earnings Limit rather than 8%, which is why bonus take-home often beats people's guesses.
Salary sacrifice reduces pay for both tax and National Insurance. A net pay arrangement reduces taxable pay only. Relief at source leaves PAYE untouched, takes 80% of your contribution from net pay, and the provider reclaims the other 20% from HMRC. Higher and advanced rate taxpayers using relief at source have to claim the extra relief themselves, and the tool says so.
Standard code 1257L applies the Personal Allowance taper above £100,000 automatically, losing £1 of allowance for every £2 of adjusted net income. Any other code triggers a warning, because HMRC may have baked adjustments into it that no calculator can see.
Income Tax, National Insurance, pensions and why take-home moves
Income Tax
England, Wales and Northern Ireland share the frozen £12,570 Personal Allowance, then 20%, 40% and 45%. Scotland runs six bands from 19% to 48%. Crossing a threshold only taxes the slice above the line, never your whole salary.
National Insurance
Employee Class 1 sits at 8% between £1,048 and £4,189 a month, then 2% above. Monthly NI is not annual NI divided by 12 in every case, so the pay period selector changes the answer for weekly and 4-weekly payrolls.
Pension
The tool separates the gross contribution, the tax saved, the NI saved and the amount that actually leaves your pay. Salary sacrifice and relief at source are not interchangeable, and calculators that mash them together give you the wrong number.
Student loans
Repayments are 9% above the plan threshold for Plans 1, 2, 4 and 5, plus 6% above £21,000 for a postgraduate loan. Interest never appears here, because interest does not change what payroll deducts.
Scotland against the rest of the UK
Scottish rates differ, employee National Insurance does not. On £50,000 in 2026/27 a Scottish taxpayer pays about £1,496 more Income Tax than someone in England, because the 42% band starts at £43,663 instead of £50,270.
Above £100,000
The Personal Allowance tapers away at £1 for every £2, which creates the 60% effective band between £100,000 and £125,140 before National Insurance and student loans. Near that range, pension contributions do more for you than another salary comparison.
Rates, sources and assumptions
Rates and thresholds come from GOV.UK Income Tax rates, GOV.UK National Insurance rates and categories, GOV.UK Scottish Income Tax and GOV.UK student loan repayment thresholds. Built for PAYE employees only.
Not modelled: cumulative month-by-month PAYE catch-up, the 50% regulatory limit on K code deductions, benefits in kind valuation rules, attachment of earnings orders, Scottish savings and dividend income, and employer National Insurance. A real payslip can differ from this estimate.
FAQ
What salary is £7,000 a month after tax?
On 2026/27 rates with standard employee NI, no pension and no student loan, about £136,251 a year in England, Wales or Northern Ireland lands near £7,000 a month. In Scotland you need about £147,289.
What salary is £3,000 a month after tax?
Same assumptions: about £45,111 a year in England, Wales or Northern Ireland, or about £45,952 in Scotland.
What salary is £1,600 a month after tax?
Roughly £21,778 a year in England, Wales or Northern Ireland, or about £21,723 in Scotland, with no pension and no student loan.
Is £25,000 a low salary?
Depends where you live and what it has to cover. In England it gives about £1,793 a month take-home before pension or student loan. Workable in some places, tight fast where rent is ugly.
Is it better to earn £50k or £55k?
On 2026/27 England rates with standard NI and no pension or student loan, going from £50,000 to £55,000 adds about £244.83 a month. You keep 58.8% of the rise. In Scotland the same rise adds about £232 a month.
What happens above £100,000?
The Personal Allowance tapers away. In England, Wales and Northern Ireland someone around £105,000 keeps only about £380 of their next £1,000 once Income Tax and employee NI come out. In Scotland it is about £305.
Why is my £5,000 bonus nowhere near £5,000 in my pocket?
Payroll runs the bonus through the same PAYE, NI, pension and student loan rules as your salary. On £50,000 in England with no pension or loan, a one-off £5,000 bonus adds about £2,953 net. Paid as a £5,000 annual salary rise instead, it adds about £2,938, because the NI hits differently.
Does a pay rise ever leave you worse off?
No. Higher bands only tax the money above the line, so more gross always means more net. What changes is how much of each extra pound you keep, which drops to about 38% in the £100,000 to £125,140 taper and lower again with a student loan on top.
Where to take this number next
Take-home pay matters once you attach it to a decision. Borrowing, budgeting, car finance and long-run saving all start from the net figure, not the gross one.
- Debt-to-income ratio calculator — see what share of your net pay is already committed to debt.
- Personal loan calculator — test a monthly repayment against the take-home figure above.
- Car loan calculator: PCP vs HP vs cash — compare the three ways of paying for a car.
- Compound interest calculator — project what the money you keep each month grows into.
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