Take-home pay
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Take-home pay calculator

Compare your current salary against a new offer or pay rise. See exactly how much extra cash hits your bank account each month, alongside a complete line-by-line breakdown of Income Tax, National Insurance, pension, and student loan deductions.

What this assumes: modelled for single-job UK taxpayers (incorporating England, Wales, Northern Ireland, and Scottish tax bands for the 2026/27 tax year). See full tax assumptions & edge-case boundaries →

Your two salaries

The one you're on now, and the one you're comparing it against — an offer, a rise you're hoping for, or just a what-if. Put the same figure in both and it will explain the payslip you already have.

This genuinely changes the answer if you're repaying a student loan — your student loan and your payslip explains why.

Student loan

Not sure? Which plan explains how to work it out. If you'd rather not guess, say so — the answer will leave the deduction out and tell you it has.

I pay into a workplace pension

A pension changes your take-home by more than the amount you put in, and by different amounts depending on how your employer runs it. To get it right I need to know which of three arrangements you're on. How to find out, in about a minute.

It's on your payslip, or your HR system, or ask payroll. If you genuinely don't know, say so — I'll leave the pension out and tell you I have excluded it, rather than guessing.

Qualifying earnings is a narrower band: only the pay between £6,240 and £50,270 counts, and the pounds below and above it are left out. On a £35,000 salary, 5% of all your pay is £1,750 a year and 5% of qualifying earnings is £1,438 — the same 5%, £312 apart. Most larger employers use all your pay, and qualifying earnings turns up mainly in schemes doing the legal minimum, which is why all pay is the default setting here. How to tell which one yours uses.

I'm on a tax code that isn't 1257L

Type it exactly as it appears on your payslip, including any letters at the start or end — S, C, K, W1, M1 and X all change something. What the letters mean.

For example 1257L, S1257L, BR, K475 or 1257L W1.

I'm getting overtime or a bonus

Overtime or a bonus doesn't change what a typical month looks like, so it stays out of the figures above. It gets its own payslip underneath, because the interesting part is what that one month does — and it's rarely what people expect.

It only really matters if it's April. I'll show you why.

Add both salaries and the answer appears here. 2026/27 tax year, from GOV.UK and the Scottish Government. What the calculator assumes and what it doesn't try to do.

2026/27 tax year, from GOV.UK and the Scottish Government. What the calculator assumes and what it doesn't try to do.

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