UK Salary Calculator 2026/27
What you actually take home after PAYE income tax, National Insurance, pension and student loan.
Last updated: August 2026 · 2026/27 tax rates
Your salary
Annual equivalent: £50,000
Tax code starts with "S".
Pension & student loan
Reduces gross before tax and NI, the most efficient pension route.
Annual breakdown
Understanding your take-home pay
From a typical UK gross salary, four things come off before you see your pay:
- Pension contribution, under salary sacrifice, deducted before any tax.
- Income tax, Personal Allowance up to £12,570, then 20% / 40% / 45% bands (rUK) or six Scottish rates (19/20/21/42/45/48), plus the Personal Allowance.
- National Insurance (Class 1 employee), 8% between £12,570 and £50,270, then 2% above.
- Student loan, 9% above your plan's threshold (6% for postgraduate).
Salary sacrifice swaps a slice of gross pay for an employer pension contribution. The pound that goes into your pension never hit your payroll, so:
- It avoids both income tax (20% / 40% / 45%) and employee NI (8% / 2%).
- Your employer's 15% NI bill is also lower, many employers pass some or all of that back into your pension.
- Relief-at-source (typical SIPP) only reclaims basic-rate tax automatically, higher-rate top-up needs Self Assessment.
Net of all this, a 5% salary-sacrifice contribution typically only reduces take-home by 3-4% of salary.
Related calculators
Other free UK tools that follow on from this calculation.
Income Tax Calculator
PAYE tax, National Insurance and take-home pay for any UK salary, including Scotland.
Salary Sacrifice Calculator
How much pension you actually buy for every pound of take-home pay you give up.
Hourly to Annual Calculator
Convert any hourly rate to weekly, monthly and annual gross pay using UK working-hour defaults.
Mortgage Affordability Calculator
How much UK lenders will typically offer at 4.5×, 5× or 5.5× income with your deposit.
Reviewed by
Alexandre Bernier, LLM (UK), CFP®, CIM®, PFP®. Financial planner with 18 years in banking and wealth management, holding a UK master of laws and the Canadian CFP®, CIM® and PFP® designations. Writes and reviews every calculator and article on FinanceToolz.
Last updated: August 2026. How figures are sourced, reviewed and corrected is set out in our editorial policy. This is general information, not regulated financial advice.
Sources
Every rate and threshold used by this calculator is taken from the official pages below. If a figure here disagrees with one of these, the official page is right, please tell us.