Salary Calculator UK 2026/27: Take-Home Pay After Tax, NI & Student Loan
Most people only think about one number when they look at a job offer or a pay rise: the salary on the contract. The number that actually lands in your bank account is something else entirely, and the gap between the two surprises a lot of people. If you earn £50,000, you do not take home £50,000. You take home roughly £39,500. The rest vanishes to income tax, National Insurance, and sometimes a student loan or a pension contribution you forgot you signed up for.
This guide walks through what really happens to a UK salary in the 2026/27 tax year. All the figures below use the rates that apply from 6 April 2026, for someone under state pension age living in England or Wales, with no student loan and no pension contribution unless I say otherwise. Scotland has its own income tax bands and is a different beast entirely, so I've left it out here.
What the 2026/27 tax bands actually look like
Before the worked examples, here are the three things that chew into your pay. You need these to follow the numbers.
- Personal allowance: £12,570 of your income is tax-free. Earn over £100,000 and it starts shrinking (more on that trap below).
- Income tax: 20% on earnings between £12,571 and £50,270, then 40% up to £125,140, then 45% above that.
- National Insurance: nothing on the first £12,570, 8% from £12,570 to £50,270, and 2% on everything above £50,270.
Notice that income tax and NI both start at the same point (£12,570) but NI drops to 2% at the higher threshold while income tax jumps to 40%. That mismatch is why a pay rise that pushes you over £50,270 can feel disappointing.
Take-home pay by salary: £25k to £125k
I've run the numbers for the salaries people actually ask about. These assume no pension contribution and no student loan, because that's the cleanest way to see the underlying tax. Add those back in and your take-home drops further, which I cover later.
| Gross salary | Income tax | National Insurance | Take-home / year | Take-home / month |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| £25,000 | £2,486 | £994 | £21,520 | £1,793 |
| £30,000 | £3,486 | £1,394 | £25,120 | £2,093 |
| £40,000 | £5,486 | £2,194 | £32,320 | £2,693 |
| £50,000 | £7,486 | £2,994 | £39,520 | £3,293 |
| £60,000 | £11,432 | £3,211 | £45,357 | £3,780 |
| £80,000 | £19,432 | £3,611 | £56,957 | £4,746 |
| £100,000 | £27,432 | £4,011 | £68,557 | £5,713 |
| £125,140 | £42,516 | £4,513 | £78,111 | £6,509 |
The jump between £50k and £60k is worth a look. Your income tax climbs by nearly £4,000 because part of that salary now falls in the 40% band, while NI actually becomes cheaper per pound above £50,270 (it drops from 8% to 2%). They pull in opposite directions, but income tax wins.
Income tax: where your money goes first
Income tax is the big one for most earners. The personal allowance of £12,570 means the first chunk of your salary is yours to keep entirely. Above that, the 20% basic rate applies until £50,270. That £37,700 slice is the band most people live in their whole careers.
Cross £50,270 and the next portion is taxed at 40%. This is where the "don't bother asking for a raise" feeling comes from, except it's rarely as bad as people fear. Only the bit above the threshold is taxed at 40%, not your whole salary. If you go from £50,000 to £55,000, only that extra £5,000 is touched at 40% (plus a little extra NI at the lower 2% rate). Your take-home still goes up, just less dramatically than the headline number suggests.
National Insurance: the quieter deduction
NI doesn't get as much attention as income tax, but for someone earning between £12,570 and £50,270 it's nearly as expensive at 8%. Above £50,270 the rate drops to 2%, which is why higher earners feel NI less as a percentage even though the absolute amount keeps rising with salary.
One thing NI and income tax have in common: neither touches the first £12,570. That's your tax-free floor for both.
Student loan: the deduction people forget
If you have a Plan 2 loan (most English undergraduates who started after 2012), you repay 9% of everything you earn above £29,385 in 2026/27. So on a £40,000 salary, the £10,615 above the threshold costs you about £955 a year. Plan 1 (older loans) has a higher threshold of £26,900, Plan 5 (started 2023 onwards) is £25,000, and Postgraduate loans take 6% above £21,000. The repayment only kicks in once you're over the threshold, so a small raise can suddenly switch it on.
I've written a full breakdown of how each plan repays and when the loan gets written off, which matters more than the monthly number for most borrowers. See the student loan repayment guide if that's your situation.
Pension contributions: the deduction you chose
Auto-enrolment means most employees now pay 5% of qualifying earnings into a pension, with the employer adding at least 3%. That money leaves your payslip before you see it, which is exactly the point. The trade-off is real though: a £50,000 salary with a 5% contribution means you're only taking home the remaining 95% after tax and NI, but you've also parked £2,500 (roughly) into a pension that grows tax-free.
If you want to play with the numbers including a pension, the calculator on this page handles income tax and NI. For the pension side specifically, the pension calculator shows what your contributions could become over time.
The £100,000 trap nobody warns you about
This is the part of UK tax that catches people out. Your personal allowance isn't fixed if you earn over £100,000. For every £2 you earn above £100,000, you lose £1 of your tax-free allowance. By £125,140 the allowance is gone completely.
The nasty side effect is an effective 60% tax rate on the slice between £100,000 and £125,140. You pay 40% income tax on it, but you also lose 50p of allowance for every £1, which is worth 40% tax relief you no longer get. Add them together and £1 of extra salary in that band costs you about 60p. It's the single worst stretch of the entire income tax system, and salaries right in that range are common for managers and senior professionals.
The usual escape is pension salary sacrifice, which I'll come to. But the first step is just knowing the trap exists, because a lot of people celebrate crossing £100k without realising their marginal rate just jumped.
Salary sacrifice: turning a bad band into a good one
If you're affected by the £100k trap, or you just want to lower your tax bill, salary sacrifice is the cleanest tool most employees have. Instead of taking salary as cash, you give up part of it in exchange for a pension contribution (or childcare, or a bike). Because the sacrifice happens before income tax and NI are calculated, you save both.
Quick example at £50,000. Sacrifice £5,000 into your pension and your taxable salary becomes £45,000. You save 20% income tax (£1,000) and 8% NI (£400) on that £5,000, a total of £1,400. Your pension gets the full £5,000. So the real cost to you is £3,600, and you've put £5,000 away for retirement. That's an immediate ~39% return before any investment growth, which you will not find anywhere else.
For higher-rate taxpayers the maths is even better, and if you're in the £100k to £125k band, salary sacrifice can pull you back under the threshold and claw your personal allowance back. Worth a conversation with your payroll team.
Frequently asked questions
How much take-home pay will I get on a £40,000 salary?
About £32,320 a year, or £2,693 a month, with no pension contribution and no student loan. Add a 5% pension and it drops to roughly £30,700. A Plan 2 student loan would take another £955.
What is my take-home pay on £60,000?
Around £45,357 a year (£3,780 a month) before pension or student loan. The higher 40% income tax band starts to bite here, which is why the monthly figure is less than £5,000 even though the salary is 50% higher than £40k.
Why is my take-home pay lower than I expected?
Usually it's one of three things: National Insurance (8% through most of your earnings), a student loan repayment that switches on once you pass the threshold, or a pension contribution you agreed to without totalling it up. Income tax gets the blame, but NI is often the silent partner.
Does the personal allowance taper mean I lose money earning over £100k?
You don't lose money overall, your take-home still rises, but the marginal rate in the £100k–£125k band is around 60% once you count the lost allowance. It's a penalty on that slice, not a cliff.
Is salary sacrifice worth it if I'm a basic-rate taxpayer?
For most people, yes. You save 20% income tax and 8% NI immediately, so a £5,000 sacrifice only really costs you about £3,600 while £5,000 lands in your pension. The downside is the money is locked until retirement age.
If you want to run your own figures with a pension or student loan included, the income tax calculator on this page is a good place to start, and the National Insurance calculator shows the NI side on its own.
Figures use 2026/27 rates for England and Wales, employees under state pension age. Scottish income tax bands differ. This is general information, not financial advice, and you should check your own payslip or speak to a qualified adviser for your specific situation.