Take Home Pay Calculator

The tax is calculated against the whole-year gross, then split into 12 equal monthly figures for display. Real PAYE payslips will differ slightly from month to month because HMRC recalculates tax and NI against cumulative thresholds each pay period.

Take-home pay is the amount that lands in your bank account after the employer has deducted income tax and employee National Insurance. It is the number most people actually budget against, even though the headline figure on a job advert is always the gross salary.

Two deductions make up take-home pay for most employees: income tax (paid to HMRC) and employee National Insurance (also paid to HMRC, but ring-fenced for state benefits and the NHS). The take-home pay calculator works out both, so you can see exactly what your salary becomes in cash.

For England, Wales and Northern Ireland, the calculation follows HMRC's 2026/27 rates. The first £12,570 of gross pay is the Personal Allowance — it is tax-free. The next £37,700 of taxable income is taxed at 20% (the basic rate), then income from £50,270 to £125,140 is taxed at 40% (the higher rate), and anything above £125,140 at 45% (the additional rate).

The £12,570 Personal Allowance is reduced by £1 for every £2 earned above £100,000, so it disappears entirely at £125,140. That creates an effective 60% marginal rate in the taper band, which GOV.UK explains in its income tax rates guidance.

Employee National Insurance uses different thresholds. The main rate is 8% on earnings between £12,570 and £50,270, dropping to 2% above £50,270. NI is calculated on the same gross pay but with its own band structure, so the two deductions do not align at the same boundary.

Below is what take-home pay looks like at common salaries in 2026/27, with the standard Personal Allowance and no other deductions. For your exact figure, use the calculator above.

The transition from £50,000 to £75,000 is where the higher-rate tax band starts biting: above £50,270 gross, every additional pound is taxed at 40% rather than 20%. The £100,000 row sits at the edge of the Personal Allowance taper — above this level, the £12,570 allowance starts shrinking by £1 for every £2 of income, which is what makes the next £25,000 of gross salary carry a particularly heavy tax burden.

The take-home pay calculator above uses the rates for England, Wales and Northern Ireland (rUK). Scotland has a different income tax structure with six bands and a higher top rate, set by the Scottish Government each year.

The differences are concentrated in the middle and top of the range: Scottish higher-rate taxpayers pay 42% instead of 40%, and the top rate is 48% rather than 45%. Employee NI, the £12,570 Personal Allowance and the £100,000 taper are the same across the UK.

Between £100,000 and £125,140 gross income, the £12,570 Personal Allowance is tapered away at £1 for every £2 earned. That means every additional £100 of salary costs 40% income tax plus the loss of £50 of allowance (taxed at 40%), totalling an effective 60% marginal income tax rate before NI. Adding 2% employee NI on top makes the real marginal rate 62% in this band. Salary sacrifice into a workplace pension can be an effective way to bring adjusted net income below £100,000 and restore the full allowance. Use the [salary sacrifice calculator](/salary-sacrifice-calculator/) to model the saving.

If you have two PAYE jobs, only one should normally have the 1257L tax code with the full Personal Allowance. The second job is usually taxed at the basic rate on all earnings (BR code) or 40% if your combined income reaches the higher-rate band (D0 code). The combined take-home from two jobs is not the sum of two separate single-job calculations because the allowance is used only once. Use the [two jobs tax calculator](/two-jobs-tax-calculator/) to see the combined picture and check whether HMRC has split your allowance correctly.

A workplace pension reduces take-home pay but also reduces the income used for tax or NI (depending on the scheme type). Under salary sacrifice, pension is deducted before tax and NI, saving both. Under net pay arrangements, pension is deducted before tax but after NI. Under relief at source, pension is deducted after tax and NI, but the pension provider reclaims basic-rate tax. Student loan repayments apply at 9% above a plan-specific threshold: Plan 1 above £24,990, Plan 2 above £27,295, Plan 4 above £31,395, Plan 5 above £25,000, and postgraduate loan at 6% above £21,000 in 2026/27. The [national insurance calculator](/national-insurance-calculator/) shows NI separately, while the [employer NI calculator](/employer-ni-calculator/) shows the employer’s side.

Enter the gross salary, read the take-home annual and monthly figures, and check the income tax and NI breakdown alongside. If you need to back-solve — for example, to find the gross salary that delivers a specific take-home — use the [net to gross calculator](/net-to-gross-calculator/).

The result is an estimate for the rates above: a real payslip will flex slightly because PAYE recalculates tax and NI against cumulative thresholds each period, so year-end totals match but the monthly line moves. For employer costs, use the [employee cost calculator](/employee-cost-calculator/) which adds employer NI and pension on top of the gross salary.