Payroll Take-Home Calculator (2026/27)

See your real pay after payroll deductions

Your gross salary and the amount that actually reaches your bank account are two very different numbers, and the gap is everything your employer's payroll takes off before payday. This payroll take-home calculator shows that journey in full: start with your gross pay, then watch income tax, National Insurance, pension contributions and any student loan repayment come off, leaving your true take-home pay. Every figure uses the official 2026/27 rates for your part of the UK.

Understanding payroll deductions matters whether you're checking a payslip, comparing a job offer, or simply budgeting for the month ahead. Payroll is where the abstract tax rules become real pounds and pence, and a clear breakdown helps you spot errors — a wrong tax code, an unexpected deduction — that can quietly cost you money.

What payroll takes off your gross pay

UK payroll runs under the PAYE (Pay As You Earn) system, where your employer deducts tax and National Insurance each pay period and sends it to HMRC on your behalf. The main deductions are:

• Income tax — based on your tax code and the income tax bands, after your tax-free Personal Allowance.
• National Insurance — employee Class 1 contributions on earnings above the threshold.
• Pension — your workplace pension contribution, often a percentage of your pay.
• Student loan — a percentage of earnings above your plan's threshold, if you have one.

This calculator models all of them so the take-home figure reflects what you'll genuinely receive. For a deeper look at any single element, our Income Tax Calculator and National Insurance Calculator break them down individually.

Checking your payslip and tax code

Payroll errors are more common than people realise, and the usual culprit is the tax code. If you've changed jobs, have more than one employment, or receive benefits in kind, your code can end up wrong — leaving you over- or under-paying. Compare this calculator's output against your payslip: if they don't match, your tax code is the first thing to check with our Tax Code Checker. You can also produce a clean payslip for your records with the free Payslip Generator.

Make payroll deductions work in your favour

Some deductions actually save you money. Pension contributions reduce your taxable pay, so part of what you put in would otherwise have gone to HMRC — our Salary Sacrifice Calculator shows how giving up a slice of gross salary for pension can cut both tax and National Insurance. If you're an employer rather than an employee, the Payroll Calculator works out the total employment cost including employer's NI.

Take-home pay across the UK

Income tax bands differ in Scotland, so the same gross salary produces a different take-home figure north of the border. This calculator applies the correct bands for England, Wales and Northern Ireland or for Scotland, so your result is accurate wherever you're employed. For the official rates behind the maths, see GOV.UK's income tax rates and National Insurance rates.

Related take-home calculators

Prefer a different framing? Try the Take-Home Pay Calculator for the classic salary view, the Take-Home Wage Calculator if you're paid hourly or weekly, or the Take-Home Paycheck Calculator to see each pay packet. They all use the same accurate engine — pick whichever matches how you think about your pay.

A worked payroll example

Take a £35,000 salary in England, paid monthly, on tax code 1257L with a 5% pension contribution. Payroll first protects the £12,570 Personal Allowance, then taxes the remaining £22,430 at 20% — roughly £4,486 of income tax across the year. Employee National Insurance applies to earnings above the primary threshold, adding a further annual deduction. The 5% pension contribution (£1,750) comes off your gross pay before tax is calculated on the remainder, so it gives a small tax saving too. The calculator turns all of this into a clear monthly take-home figure, and you can change any input to see the effect instantly.

Now imagine a £55,000 salary: part of the income crosses into the 40% higher-rate band, so the average deduction rate rises, and the take-home percentage falls. Seeing where the higher rate begins to bite is one of the most useful things a payroll calculator reveals — and it's why pension contributions become even more attractive for higher earners.

Understanding your payslip line by line

A payslip can look like a wall of numbers, but it follows a simple logic: gross pay at the top, deductions in the middle, net pay at the bottom. The deductions you'll usually see are income tax (often labelled PAYE), National Insurance, pension, and sometimes student loan or other items like a season-ticket loan. The figure that matters is the net pay — and that's what this calculator predicts. If the net pay on your real payslip is lower than the calculator suggests, the most common explanations are a non-standard tax code, an additional deduction, or a benefit in kind affecting your code. Our Payslip Generator lets you produce a clean payslip to compare against.

Payroll for employers

If you're the one running payroll rather than receiving it, your costs go beyond the employee's gross salary — you also pay employer's National Insurance and, usually, employer pension contributions. The true cost of employing someone is therefore higher than their headline salary. Our Payroll Calculator works out that total employment cost, while this page focuses on what the employee takes home. Both views matter: one for budgeting a hire, the other for understanding a pay packet.

You might also need

• check your tax code, so the deductions are correct.