From gross to net, in two moves
A UK payslip’s big two are income tax and National Insurance, and they behave differently. Income tax ignores your first £12,570 entirely, then climbs through the bands — Scotland through six of them. National Insurance starts lower down and flattens to 2% above £50,270, which is why high earners feel it less than the headline rate suggests.
Worked example · £40,000, England, 2026-27
- Income tax: £5,486 on £27,430 of taxable income.
- National Insurance: £2,194.
- Take-home: £32,320 a year — £2,693.30 a month, £621.53 a week.
Using this for real decisions
Rent affordability, loan applications and the “can we live on one salary?” conversation all run on the monthly net figure — the one in the result panel, not the one in the job advert. When comparing two offers, run both and compare take-homes; when one offer includes a better pension, remember this tool deliberately excludes pensions for now, so the gap it shows overstates the difference.
The rest of the picture
The UK salary calculator is this tool’s per-payday twin, and the salary after tax calculator leads with the deduction itself. The mechanics — allowance, bands, why the last pound is taxed hardest — are laid out in the UK tax calculator, working open by default.
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
What percentage of my UK salary will I take home?
There is no single percentage, which is why the calculator shows yours next to the amount. The Personal Allowance shields the first slice entirely, so lower salaries keep a larger share; as pay climbs through the bands the share falls — but never as steeply as the headline band rates suggest, because those apply only to the dollars — pounds — inside each band.
Why did my take-home change in April?
The UK tax year restarts on 6 April, and thresholds, NI rates or your tax code can change with it. Payroll also trues up across the year, so the first payslip after April often shifts even when your salary hasn't. This calculator is pinned to the 2026-27 rules, so a difference against an old payslip may simply be a different tax year.
Is National Insurance a tax?
Functionally yes — a deduction from earnings, collected through payroll. It differs from income tax in shape: it starts and mostly stops at its own thresholds, has no Personal Allowance taper, and is charged per employment. The calculator shows it as its own line because payslips do.
How do I increase my take-home pay?
The honest levers are limited: pension contributions and salary sacrifice reduce tax but move money to later rather than to your account today; marriage allowance can shift a slice of allowance between partners; a correct tax code fixes over-collection. Anything promising dramatically more take-home from the same salary deserves suspicion.
Does this work for weekly pay?
Yes — set the frequency to weekly and the result panel leads with the weekly figure. The calculation still runs on the annual salary, because that is how the allowance and bands are defined; the weekly number is that result divided by 52.