UK take-home pay explained for 2026/27

The year the figures belong to

The 2026/27 tax year runs from 6 April 2026 to 5 April 2027. The calculators on this site use the rates and thresholds published for that year by GOV.UK, HMRC and the Scottish Parliament. They are not a payslip, and they are not advice. They are the arithmetic, with the sources written on each page.

A steady salary is the case they handle well. Overtime that changes every month, benefits in kind, and a tax code other than the standard Personal Allowance are outside that case. If your code is not 1257L, the take-home calculator can still show the shape of the deduction, but your employer’s figure is the one that will be paid.

Income tax, including Scotland

The Personal Allowance is £12,570. It is reduced by £1 for every £2 of adjusted net income above £100,000, and it is gone by £125,140. That taper is the same in Scotland as in the rest of the UK. The rates above the allowance are not.

England, Wales and Northern Ireland charge 20% on taxable income up to £37,700, 40% up to £125,140 of taxable income, and 45% above that. Scotland charges a starter rate of 19%, then 20%, 21%, 42%, 45% and a top rate of 48%, on the band widths in the Scottish Rate Resolution. The income tax calculator shows each slice.

On a £30,000 salary with no pension, income tax is £3,486 in England, Wales or Northern Ireland. Take-home pay on a monthly payroll, with employee National Insurance and no student loan, is £2,093.34 a month, or £25,120.08 across the year. Those figures are the ones the tests check.

National Insurance is not a twelfth of the annual sum

Employee Class 1 National Insurance, category A, is 8% between the primary threshold and the upper earnings limit, and 2% above that. The weekly and monthly thresholds are published payroll figures. They are not exactly a fifty-second or a twelfth of the annual amounts, so a monthly payslip is not the annual calculation divided by 12.

The take-home calculator follows the period you choose. A weekly £1,000 example on the National Insurance rates page is £58.66. The calculators reproduce that, rather than inventing a smoother number.

Employer National Insurance is not part of take-home pay. Self-employed Class 2 and Class 4 are a different scheme and are not included. The income tax page says so, and it does not print a Class 4 figure.

Student loans

Plan 1, Plan 2, Plan 4 and Plan 5 are 9% of earnings above their own threshold. If more than one undergraduate plan applies, the repayment uses the lowest threshold only. A postgraduate loan is 6% on top. Payroll rounds the monthly deduction down to the nearest pound.

Plan 1 on £42,000 for the year is £1,359. The same salary in a monthly payroll is £113 in the month, because of that rounding and the monthly threshold. The student loan calculator shows both, so the two numbers are not a surprise on payday.

Salary sacrifice reduces the earnings the repayment is based on. A pension paid as net pay or relief at source does not. The take-home calculator applies that. The student loan page uses the income you type, before a pension.

Pension contributions

The same 5% can leave your pay in three ways. Salary sacrifice lowers the salary before tax, National Insurance and student loans. A net-pay arrangement lowers taxable pay only. Relief at source is paid from taxed pay: you contribute 80% and the scheme claims basic-rate relief of 20%. If your rate is higher, the extra relief is the difference between full relief and that 20%.

On £60,000 in the rest of the UK, 5% is £3,000 in the pension under salary sacrifice or net pay, and income tax falls by £1,200 against no pension. Salary sacrifice also saves £60 of National Insurance on the annual thresholds. Relief at source takes £2,400 from you, the scheme adds £600, and a further £600 of higher-rate relief is left to claim. The pension calculator compares the three.

Two things are deliberately missing. The pension annual allowance is not applied, because this site does not store an unconfirmed charge. The cap on salary-sacrifice National Insurance relief, which starts on 6 April 2029, is not applied to a 2026/27 year.

What to open next

Use income tax if you only want the tax. Use the student loan page for a plan threshold. Use the pension page to see the cost of a contribution. Use take-home pay when you want them together on a monthly or weekly payroll. Stamp duty and VAT are separate, and the stamp duty page is England and Northern Ireland only.