Salary Calculator: Work Out Your Take-Home Pay (2026/27)

Use the salary calculator above

Type in your gross salary, pick how often you are paid, and the tool shows your yearly, monthly and weekly take-home pay alongside the tax and National Insurance taken off. The sections below explain the formula behind it so you can sanity-check any payslip yourself.

How your take-home pay is worked out

Your employer does not hand over your full salary. Two main deductions come off before you are paid, and both are worked out by HMRC's rules rather than your employer's choice. The core formula is simple:

Take-home pay = Gross salary − Income Tax − National Insurance − any pension or student loan

Income Tax. Everyone gets a tax-free Personal Allowance of £12,570 in 2026/27. You only pay tax on what you earn above it. The first £37,700 of taxable income (so income from £12,570 up to £50,270) is taxed at the 20% basic rate. Income between £50,270 and £125,140 is taxed at 40%, and anything above £125,140 at 45%. One trap to know: once you earn over £100,000 your Personal Allowance shrinks by £1 for every £2 above that, disappearing entirely at £125,140.

National Insurance (Class 1). As an employee you pay 8% on earnings between the £12,570 primary threshold and the £50,270 upper earnings limit, then 2% on anything above £50,270. Unlike Income Tax, NI is normally worked out per pay period rather than across the whole year, so the calculator's annual figure is a close approximation. Our dedicated National Insurance calculator breaks the monthly thresholds down further.

Put together, the calculation runs gross salary, then subtracts Income Tax, then NI, and finally any workplace pension or student loan repayment, to reach your net pay. The result is your take-home pay, also called net pay or salary after tax.

Worked example: a nurse on £30,000

Say you are a nurse earning £30,000 in England. Here is the maths, step by step.

• Personal Allowance: £12,570 tax-free.
• Taxable income: £30,000 − £12,570 = £17,430, all within the basic rate.
• Income Tax: £17,430 × 20% = £3,486.
• National Insurance: (£30,000 − £12,570) × 8% = £17,430 × 8% = £1,394.40.
• Take-home: £30,000 − £3,486 − £1,394.40 = £25,119.60 a year, about £2,093 a month.

Worked example: a higher-rate earner on £55,000

Now a manager on £55,000, which tips into the 40% band.

• Taxable income: £55,000 − £12,570 = £42,430.
• Income Tax: the first £37,700 at 20% = £7,540, then £4,730 at 40% = £1,892. Total = £9,432.
• National Insurance: £37,700 (from £12,570 to £50,270) at 8% = £3,016, plus £4,730 above £50,270 at 2% = £94.60. Total = £3,110.60.
• Take-home: £55,000 − £9,432 − £3,110.60 = £42,457.40 a year, about £3,538 a month.

Notice the jump: earning £25,000 more than the nurse leaves only about £17,300 extra in the hand, because the slice above £50,270 is taxed at 40% plus 2% NI. If you are weighing up a new role, that gap is worth modelling before you accept, because the gross figure on an offer letter overstates how much your monthly budget actually improves.

2026/27 rates and thresholds

These are the figures the calculator uses for England, Wales and Northern Ireland, checked for the 2026/27 tax year against gov.uk.

Source: gov.uk Income Tax rates and the 2026 to 2027 rates and thresholds for employers.

Scotland is taxed differently

If you live in Scotland, your Income Tax follows Scottish bands set by Holyrood, not the rates above. Scotland uses more bands (starter, basic, intermediate, higher, advanced and top) and the higher-rate slices kick in at lower amounts, so a Scottish taxpayer on a middle income often pays a little more tax than someone on the same salary in England. The £12,570 Personal Allowance and the 8%/2% National Insurance rates stay the same UK-wide. To see your Scottish figure, use the Scotland tax calculator instead of this one.

How to keep more of your salary

A few legitimate moves change your take-home, and the calculator lets you test them:

• Pension contributions. Paying into a workplace pension reduces the income that gets taxed, and salary sacrifice cuts your National Insurance too. The salary sacrifice calculator shows the saving on a specific contribution.
• Watch the £100,000 cliff edge. Between £100,000 and £125,140 you lose Personal Allowance, creating an effective 60% tax rate on that slice. Pension contributions are the usual way to claw it back.
• Check your tax code. A wrong code, or an emergency code after starting a job, can over-deduct tax. Compare the code on your payslip to your P60.
• Model a pay rise properly. The headline rise is not what you keep; our pay rise calculator shows the net difference after tax and NI.

Common mistakes when reading your pay

People often assume their whole salary is taxed at one rate. It is not: only the part of your income inside each band is taxed at that band's rate, so a higher-rate taxpayer still pays 20% on the slice up to £50,270. Another frequent error is forgetting that bonuses, overtime and commission stack on top of your salary and can push that month into a higher band, which is why a bonus can feel disproportionately taxed. Student loan repayments (typically 9% above a plan threshold) and pension deductions are also easy to overlook when comparing job offers. For a quick gross-versus-net comparison, the take-home pay calculator covers the same ground from a different angle.

Helpful background reading on payslips and deductions is available from MoneyHelper, the government-backed money guidance service.

These figures are estimates for guidance only and are not personal tax or financial advice. Your exact deductions depend on your tax code, pension scheme and circumstances.

Related calculators

To dig into a specific deduction, try the Income Tax calculator, the National Insurance calculator, or the salary sacrifice calculator to see how pension contributions change your salary after tax.

More pay calculators

Work out a pro rata salary, your hourly wage, salary to hourly rate, overtime pay, tax on a second job or the effect of a pay rise.