UK Take-Home Pay & Tax Calculator

2025/26 tax year

Estimate your take-home pay with income tax, National Insurance, pension contributions and student loan deductions. Uses standard UK PAYE rules for the selected tax year.

Your details

Employee PAYE only  •  simple assumptions
£
Net pay and salary sacrifice both reduce taxable income; only salary sacrifice also saves NI. Relief at source takes your contribution from net pay and doesn’t affect NI.
£
For things like blind person’s allowance or transferred marriage allowance.
Advanced options
£
Standard personal allowance is £12,570 in both 2024/25 and 2025/26 (tapered away over £100k).

Your results

Enter your details on the left and hit Calculate to see your breakdown.

Take-home (per year)

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After tax, NI, pension & loans

Take-home (per month)

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Assuming 12 equal monthly pays

Total deductions (per year)

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Tax, NI, pension, loans
Item Per year Per month Per week
No results yet.
This tool is a simplified guide only. It uses standard 2024/25 or 2025/26 UK income tax bands, Scottish rates where selected, standard employee Class 1 NI (category A) and current student loan thresholds. You can choose whether pension contributions are treated as salary sacrifice (tax & NI saving), net pay (tax saving only) or after-tax (relief-at-source style). Employer contributions, complex tax codes and specialist arrangements are not modelled – always check your actual payslip or HMRC if anything looks off.

FAQs & assumptions

Which tax years does this support?
The calculator currently supports the UK tax years 2024/25 and 2025/26. The main personal allowance is £12,570 in both years, with the allowance tapering away once income exceeds £100,000 (gone completely at £125,140). Income tax bands are frozen over this period, so rUK bands are the same in both years – only student loan thresholds and some Scottish bands change.
How are pension contributions treated?
You enter how much you pay into your pension, either as a percentage of gross pay or as a fixed £ amount per pay period. Then pick one of three modes:
  • Net pay (tax saving only) – your contribution is taken from gross pay before income tax is worked out, so you save tax but still pay NI on the full gross. This is how many workplace schemes operate and matches how the MSE calculator treats pension in its main examples.
  • Salary sacrifice (tax & NI saving) – your contractual salary is reduced and the employer pays the contribution. You save both tax and employee NI on the sacrificed part. The calculator models this by reducing the income used for tax, NI and student loans, then showing the sacrificed amount as a separate “pension contributions” line in the breakdown.
  • Relief at source / personal (after-tax) – your contribution comes out of your net pay after tax and NI. The provider then claims basic-rate tax relief from HMRC into your pension pot. This doesn’t change the tax or NI on your payslip, so the calculator takes the contribution only from your take-home pay. Any extra top-up from HMRC is not shown here as it doesn’t affect your immediate net pay.
What’s the difference between Scotland and rUK?
Scotland uses more income tax bands with different thresholds and rates. The calculator uses the published Scottish bands for the selected year and applies them after your personal allowance. England, Wales and Northern Ireland share the standard rUK bands (basic, higher, additional).
How is National Insurance calculated?
Employee Class 1 NIC is calculated on earnings above the primary threshold (~£12,570 per year) up to the upper earnings limit (~£50,270), at 8%, with 2% above that. If you tick “over State Pension age” or “skip NI” the calculator will not deduct employee NI. Employer NI is not modelled. When you choose net pay or relief-at-source pension modes, NI is calculated on your full gross; salary sacrifice reduces the income used for NI.
How are student loans handled?
You can pick one main loan plan (1, 2 or 4) and optionally a postgraduate loan. Repayments are:
  • 9% of income over the threshold for Plan 1, 2 or 4.
  • 6% of income over the postgraduate threshold.
Thresholds update when you change the tax year, based on current HMRC guidance. For simplicity, the calculator assumes that if pension contributions reduce the income used for income tax, they also reduce the income used for student loan calculations (salary sacrifice and net pay modes). Relief-at-source contributions do not change student loan income.
Why don’t my results match my payslip exactly?
Real-world payslips can include overtime, irregular bonuses, benefits-in-kind, multiple employments, different pension setups, prior-year tax corrections and more. This tool deliberately keeps things simple to stay fast and offline-friendly – treat it as a useful estimate rather than an accounting system.