Introduction
This UK Salary Calculator shows what you really take home after tax. Enter your pay and it works out your income tax, National Insurance, pension, and student loan. You get your net pay by year, month, four weeks, two weeks, week, day, or hour.
It covers the 2026/27 tax year, plus older years back to 2022/23 if you want to compare. Pick England, Wales and Northern Ireland, or Scotland, which has its own tax bands. You can enter your tax code, like 1257L, BR, D0, or a K code, and the tool adjusts your tax-free allowance to match.
Add extra details if they apply to you. Put in a bonus, overtime, pension contributions, salary sacrifice, childcare vouchers, benefits in kind, cash allowances, savings interest, or dividends. Mark your student loan plan, your age band, and any child benefit you get. Each one changes the result right away.
You can also flip it around. Use the Net to Gross mode to find the gross salary you need to hit a take-home target. That helps when you are asking for a raise or checking a job offer.
The headline figures show your take-home pay, how much of each pound you keep, your effective tax rate, and your marginal rate on the next pound you earn. Below that sits a full line-by-line breakdown, charts of your tax bands and where your money goes, and a step-by-step solution so you can see the math behind every number.
How to use our UK Salary Calculator
Enter your pay, pick your tax year and region, then add any extras like pension, bonus or student loans. The calculator shows your take-home pay per year, month, week or hour, plus your income tax, National Insurance and a full deduction breakdown.
Calculation Direction: Choose "Gross → Net" to start from your salary, or "Net → Gross" to find the salary you need to hit a target take-home pay.
Gross Salary: Type your pay amount, then pick the period it covers (hour, day, week, two weeks, four weeks, month or year). The tool turns it into a yearly figure.
Hours/Week: Enter how many hours you work each week. This sets your hourly rate for overtime and hourly results.
Days/Week: Enter how many days you work each week. This is used for daily pay figures.
Weeks/Year: Pick 52 for a simple year, or 52.1775 to match the exact number of weeks in a calendar year.
Popular salaries: Click a button like £30k or £50k to fill the salary box fast.
Tax Year: Pick the tax year you want, from 2022/23 to 2026/27. Older years let you compare.
Tax Region: Choose England/Wales/NI or Scotland. Scotland has its own income tax bands.
PAYE Tax Code: Enter the code from your payslip, such as 1257L. It sets your tax-free allowance. BR, D0, D1, 0T, NT and K codes all work.
Age Band: Pick your age group. People over State Pension age stop paying National Insurance.
Bonus Amount: Enter the value of one bonus payment.
Bonus Entered As: Say if the bonus is a fixed £ amount or a percent of your yearly salary.
Bonus Frequency: Pick how often you get the bonus: once a year, every quarter or every month.
Overtime Hours and Period: Enter your extra hours for each overtime tier and say if they are per week, month or year.
Overtime Multiplier: Enter the pay rate, like 1.5 for time and a half or 2 for double time.
Overtime Cash Override: If you know the exact overtime pay in pounds, enter it here and pick its period. This replaces the hours for that tier.
Pension Type: Choose auto-enrolment, employer scheme, salary sacrifice or a personal/SIPP plan. Each one is taxed a different way.
Contribution Method: Pay a percent of your pay, or a fixed £ amount.
Employee % / Fixed £ and Period: Enter how much you put in each period.
Earnings Basis: Pick gross salary or qualifying earnings. Most workplace schemes use qualifying earnings.
Include in pensionable pay: Tick overtime, bonus or cash allowances if your pension is worked out on them too.
Employer %: Enter what your employer adds. This is shown for info only and is not taken from your pay.
Student Loan Plans: Tick every plan you repay: Plan 1, 2, 4, 5 or a Postgraduate Loan. You can tick more than one.
Dependent Children: Pick how many children you get Child Benefit for. The tool adds the benefit and works out any High Income Child Benefit Charge.
Tax & NI Sacrifice: Enter pay you give up for schemes like cycle to work or an EV lease, then pick the period.
NI-Only Sacrifice: Enter pay given up under newer schemes that only save National Insurance, then pick the period.
Childcare Vouchers: Enter your monthly voucher value and tick the box if you joined before 6 April 2011.
Taxable Benefits in Kind: Enter the value of perks like a company car or medical cover, then pick the period. These are taxed but not paid as cash.
Cash Allowances: Enter car, phone or other cash allowances and pick the period. These are taxed and pay National Insurance.
Savings Interest: Enter the interest you earn each year outside an ISA.
Dividend Income: Enter your yearly dividends. The dividend allowance and dividend rates are applied.
Flags: Tick any that apply, such as no National Insurance, Blind Person's Allowance, Marriage Allowance (giving or getting), or Married Couple's Allowance. You can also show Employer's NI and your Adjusted Net Income.
Pre-Tax Deductions: Enter things taken before tax, like payroll giving, and pick the period.
Post-Tax Deductions: Enter things taken after tax, like union fees, and pick the period.
Primary Results Period: Choose the main period for your headline take-home pay: year, month, four weeks, two weeks, week, day or hour.
Display Currency: Show results in pounds or convert them to another currency. All tax is still worked out in GBP.
Periods to show: Tick the pay periods you want listed in the results table.
Calculate and Reset: Click Calculate to see your results, or Reset to clear everything back to the default settings.
UK Take-Home Pay: What It Means
Your gross salary is the money your job pays you before anything is taken out. Your net pay, or take-home pay, is what actually lands in your bank account. The gap between the two is made up of income tax, National Insurance, pension payments, and sometimes student loan repayments.
Income Tax and the Personal Allowance
Most people can earn £12,570 a year before paying any income tax. This is called the Personal Allowance. After that, tax is charged in steps, or bands. In England, Wales and Northern Ireland the main rates are 20% (basic), 40% (higher) and 45% (additional). Scotland has its own set of bands with more steps, starting at 19%.
One rule catches a lot of people out: if you earn more than £100,000, your Personal Allowance shrinks by £1 for every £2 above that line. Once you pass about £125,140, it is gone. This makes a slice of income between those points feel like a 60% tax rate.
Your Tax Code
Your tax code tells your employer how much tax-free pay you get. 1257L is the most common one and means £12,570 tax free. Other codes do different jobs: BR taxes everything at basic rate, 0T gives no allowance at all, NT means no tax, and a K code adds extra taxable pay instead of taking it away. Codes starting with S are Scottish.
National Insurance
National Insurance (NI) is a second deduction that helps pay for the State Pension and NHS. Employees pay Class 1 NI on earnings above the primary threshold (£12,570 a year), then a much lower rate on pay above the upper earnings limit (£50,270). If you are over State Pension age, you stop paying NI even though you still pay income tax. Your employer pays its own NI on top, which never comes out of your wage.
Pensions Change Your Tax Bill
How you pay into a pension matters a lot:
- Net pay / auto-enrolment: taken before income tax, so you save tax but still pay NI on it.
- Salary sacrifice: your pay is lowered first, so you save both tax and NI. This is usually the cheapest way to save.
- Personal pension or SIPP: paid from money you have already been taxed on. The provider claims 20% back for you, and higher-rate payers claim the rest through Self Assessment.
Student Loans
Student loan repayments are worked out as a share of pay above a set threshold, not as a fixed bill. Plans 1, 2, 4 and 5 all take 9% of earnings above their own threshold. A Postgraduate Loan takes 6%. If you have both an undergraduate and a postgraduate loan, you pay both at once.
Other Things That Move Your Net Pay
- Bonuses and overtime are taxed like normal pay, but a big one-off payment can push you into a higher band for that month.
- Benefits in kind, like a company car or private medical cover, are taxed even though you never see the cash.
- Cash allowances, such as a car allowance, count as normal pay for both tax and NI.
- High Income Child Benefit Charge claws back Child Benefit once your adjusted net income passes £60,000, and takes all of it by £80,000.
- Marriage Allowance lets one partner pass £1,260 of unused allowance to the other, worth up to £252 a year.
Effective Rate vs Marginal Rate
Your effective tax rate is all your tax and NI divided by your whole gross pay. It is always lower than your band rate, because the first slice of your income is tax free. Your marginal rate is what you lose on the next £1 you earn. That is the number to watch when deciding on a raise, extra shifts, or a bigger pension contribution.
Rates and thresholds change each April, so always check the tax year that matches the pay you are looking at.