What comes out of a UK salary
For most employees, exactly two deductions matter. Income tax starts above the £12,570 Personal Allowance and climbs through the bands. National Insurance runs alongside it at 8% between the thresholds, dropping to 2% above £50,270. Everything else on a payslip — pension, student loan, benefits — is specific to you, and this calculator says so rather than guessing.
take-home = gross salary − income tax (after the allowance) − employee National InsuranceWorked example · £35,000, England, 2026-27
- Taxable income: £35,000 − £12,570 allowance = £22,430.
- Income tax at the basic rate: £4,486.
- National Insurance: £1,794.
- Take-home: £28,720 a year — £2,393.30 a month.
The tax year matters
UK tax years run 6 April to 5 April, so “2026” here means 2026-27, and every rate is transcribed from GOV.UK’s pages for that year — sources below, checked dates shown. When the next year’s rates are published, they arrive here as a new verified rule set, not a silent edit.
Where to go from here
Paid by the hour? The hourly to annual converter builds the gross figure first. To lead with the yearly net, use the take-home pay calculator; to lead with the tax itself, band by band, the UK tax calculator opens the working by default. Comparing against a US offer? The US salary calculator runs the same discipline on the other system.
What’s included, and what isn’t
Every figure this calculator produces is an estimate. Here is exactly what it accounts for, and what it does not.
What’s included
- Income tax from the published GOV.UK bands — rest-of-UK or Scottish, band by band.
- The Personal Allowance, including its taper above £100,000.
- Employee Class 1 National Insurance at 8% between the thresholds and 2% above the upper limit.
- Conversion between annual, monthly and weekly figures.
What’s not included
- Pension contributions and salary sacrifice — on the roadmap; both reduce tax in ways this estimate does not yet show.
- Student loan repayments (Plans 1, 2, 4, 5 and postgraduate) — also on the roadmap.
- Tax code adjustments: benefits in kind, marriage allowance, blind person's allowance, K codes.
- Bonuses and other one-off pay, self-employment, dividends, and savings interest.
- Employer National Insurance and the apprenticeship levy, which cost your employer rather than you.
What this calculator assumes
- Uses the 2026-27 rates and thresholds published on GOV.UK (tax year 6 April 2026 to 5 April 2027).
- Applies the standard £12,570 Personal Allowance, tapered by £1 for every £2 of income above £100,000.
- Assumes a standard tax code with no adjustments, one employment, and the same pay all year.
- National Insurance uses the annual equivalents of the published thresholds; per-payday NI can differ by a few pounds.
- Scotland's six income tax bands are applied when selected. Welsh rates currently match England & NI.
Sources
Every rate and threshold above is transcribed from a primary source and re-checked on the date shown.
Frequently asked questions
How is UK take-home pay calculated?
Two deductions do almost all the work for most employees. Income tax applies to earnings above your £12,570 Personal Allowance, through the published bands. National Insurance takes 8% of earnings between the thresholds and 2% above the upper limit. Gross salary minus both is your take-home — this calculator shows each line.
Why is Scotland different?
Scotland sets its own income tax bands — six of them, against three in the rest of the UK — so the same salary can produce a different take-home north of the border. Choose Scotland in the calculator and the band table switches to the Scottish rates. National Insurance is UK-wide and does not change.
Does this include my pension or student loan?
Not yet — both are on the roadmap and both are listed plainly in what's not included. A workplace pension and a student loan repayment each reduce what reaches your account, so treat this result as take-home before those. Adding them is the next stage of the UK tools.
What tax code does this assume?
The standard code with a full Personal Allowance and no adjustments (in 2026-27 terms, the common 1257L position). If your code differs — benefits in kind, marriage allowance, an underpayment being collected — your real deductions will differ from this estimate in the direction your code implies.
Why is my payslip slightly different from this?
Payroll calculates National Insurance per payday on the weekly or monthly thresholds, while this calculator uses their annual equivalents — a difference of a few pounds a year. Larger gaps usually mean a pension deduction, a student loan, or a non-standard tax code, all listed in what's not included.