How it works
What the PAYE calculadora does
This take-home pay UK calculator (also known as the PAYE salary calculator) is the one employees reach for when they need a clean figure for 2025/26 — the number that actually hits the current account, after HMRC, the student loan company and the pension provider have taken their cut. Cross-reference the result against the income tax calculator, the national insurance calculator and the student loan calculator whenever a single line on your payslip looks off.
Take-home pay in the UK is what you keep after HMRC takes its share via PAYE (Pay As You Earn). For a typical employee, three things come off your gross salary before the money reaches your bank: Income Tax, National Insurance (NI) and, if you borrowed for university, your Student Loan repayment. Many people also sacrifice a chunk of pay into a pension, which changes the maths further.
This calculadora applies the 2025/26 thresholds published by GOV.UK and HMRC. It handles the Personal Allowance taper above £100,000, the Scottish income tax bands, and every Student Loan plan currently in repayment (1, 2, 4, 5 and Postgraduate Loan). Salary sacrifice pension contributions are applied before tax, so your Income Tax and NI both fall when you dial up the pension percentage.
How PAYE take-home pay is calculated
Here is how the numbers actually land. Take someone on £38,000 a year in England, sacrificing 5% into a pension and paying off a Plan 2 student loan.
The step-by-step calculation:
- Pension: 5% × £38,000 = £1,900 into your pension. You now have £36,100 of taxable pay.
- Personal Allowance: £12,570 is tax-free, leaving £23,530 of taxable income.
- Income Tax: all of it sits in the basic-rate band (20%): £23,530 × 20% = £4,706.
- National Insurance: 8% on the slice between £12,570 and £36,100 = £23,530 × 8% = £1,882.40.
- Student Loan (Plan 2): 9% of income above £28,470 = (£36,100 − £28,470) × 9% = £686.70.
- Take-home: £36,100 − £4,706 − £1,882.40 − £686.70 = £28,824.90 a year, or £2,402 a month.
The 2025/26 Income Tax bands (England, Wales & NI)
Everything above the Personal Allowance is split into three bands. Scottish taxpayers follow a separate set of bands with six rates rather than three.
| Band | Taxable income | Rate |
|---|---|---|
| Personal Allowance | Up to £12,570 | 0% |
| Basic rate | £12,571 – £50,270 | 20% |
| Higher rate | £50,271 – £125,140 | 40% |
| Additional rate | Over £125,140 | 45% |
The 60% tax trap between £100k and £125,140
The Personal Allowance tapers by £1 for every £2 you earn above £100,000. That means a £1 pay rise in this range can cost you 40p in higher-rate tax plus a 20p hit from losing tax-free allowance — an effective 60% marginal rate. Salary sacrifice into a pension is the standard way to avoid it.
National Insurance in plain English
From April 2024, Class 1 employee National Insurance dropped to 8% on earnings between £12,570 and £50,270, with 2% on anything above. The employer also pays Class 1 NI at 13.8% on top — that's not in your take-home maths, but it's why many firms now offer salary sacrifice so enthusiastically.
Student Loan plans — how to find yours
If you studied in the UK, HMRC deducts your loan repayment directly through PAYE once your income crosses the plan's threshold. You pay a flat 9% (or 6% for the Postgraduate Loan) on the amount above.
| Plan | Who it applies to | Threshold (2025/26) | Rate |
|---|---|---|---|
| Plan 1 | Pre-2012 England & Wales / Northern Ireland | £26,065 | 9% |
| Plan 2 | England & Wales 2012–Jul 2023 | £28,470 | 9% |
| Plan 4 | Scotland | £32,745 | 9% |
| Plan 5 | England from Aug 2023 | £25,000 | 9% |
| Postgraduate | Masters / PhD loans | £21,000 | 6% |
How to actually reduce your tax legally
Most people are not trying to avoid tax — they just don't want to leave money on the table. Four levers reliably shift the numbers in your favour:
- Salary sacrifice pension. The money goes in gross, and you save 20%/40%/45% Income Tax plus 8%/2% NI on the contribution. For most higher-rate payers, every £60 of take-home sacrificed becomes £100 in the pension.
- Marriage Allowance. If your partner earns under the Personal Allowance and you're a basic-rate taxpayer, they can transfer £1,260 of allowance to you — worth about £252 a year.
- Tax code check. An incorrect code is the single most common cause of over- or under-paying tax. Check yours on the HMRC app.
- Cycle-to-work and electric-vehicle salary sacrifice save NI and Income Tax on commuting costs.
Common mistakes with take-home calculadoras
A £35,000 job advert is not £35,000 in your account. It's also not the same after pension, after student loan or after a Scottish post-code. Three things trip people up:
- Assuming the headline figure from a rival calculadora applies in your region (Scotland differs from England).
- Forgetting to include the Postgraduate Loan — it stacks on top of Plan 1/2/5 if you have both.
- Confusing employee NI (which affects you) with employer NI (which doesn't).
Scottish Income Tax in full
Scotland sets its own Income Tax bands and rates since 2016, and the gap between Edinburgh and London has widened each year. For 2025/26, the Scottish Government has six bands rather than the three used elsewhere in the UK. The same Personal Allowance of £12,570 applies everywhere.
| Band | Taxable income | Rate |
|---|---|---|
| Personal Allowance | Up to £12,570 | 0% |
| Starter rate | £12,571 – £15,397 | 19% |
| Basic rate | £15,398 – £27,491 | 20% |
| Intermediate rate | £27,492 – £43,662 | 21% |
| Higher rate | £43,663 – £75,000 | 42% |
| Advanced rate | £75,001 – £125,140 | 45% |
| Top rate | Over £125,140 | 48% |
What counts as "Scottish" for tax
HMRC decides your Scottish taxpayer status from your main residence, not your employer. If you live in Scotland for more of the tax year than anywhere else, your code starts with an S (for example S1257L) and the Scottish rates apply — even if you commute daily to Carlisle or Newcastle. Students splitting time between Edinburgh and London use whichever home is their "main" one, usually where they spend most nights.
The cross-border cliff at £43,663
Because Scotland's higher rate starts at £43,662 (compared with £50,270 in the rest of the UK), a Scottish taxpayer earning £50,000 takes home roughly £1,500 less per year than someone on the same salary in Leeds or Cardiff. Higher earners above £75,000 feel it again at the advanced rate. The counterbalance is free tuition, free prescriptions and a broader social safety net.
Reading your payslip line by line
Every UK payslip is required to show at least your name, pay date, gross, deductions and net. In practice, most add another dozen lines that look like accounting shorthand. Here is what each one really means.
- Tax code. The number is (roughly) your tax-free allowance divided by ten. 1257L means £12,570 tax-free. An S prefix means Scottish rates, a C prefix means Welsh rates. BR taxes the whole of this income at 20% — usually wrong unless this is a second job.
- NI category. A is the default for most employees. B is for married women on the reduced rate (historic). C is for over state-pension age (no NI). H is for apprentices under 25. M and Z are for under-21s.
- Gross pay TD. Total year-to-date gross pay. Useful for sense-checking your P60 in April.
- Tax TD / NI TD. Year-to-date tax and NI. Add up the monthly amounts and they should match.
- Pensionable pay. The slice of your gross used to calculate pension contributions — often slightly different from headline gross if your scheme only counts qualifying earnings.
- Benefits in kind. Company car, private medical, gym membership — these are added to your taxable pay via a BIK line or, more commonly, bundled into a reduced tax code.
- Student Loan. Shown separately from Income Tax. The Plan number (1, 2, 4, 5 or PGL) appears in the reference.
Four salary scenarios worked end-to-end
Numbers lose their abstractness when they sit beside a real life. Each of the following is a complete PAYE calculation for 2025/26, using the same logic as the calculator above.
Ben, 24, graduate scheme in Manchester — £32,000
Ben contributes 5 % to his workplace pension via salary sacrifice and has a Plan 5 student loan. Pensionable pay: £32,000 − 5 % = £30,400. Tax-free: £12,570. Income Tax: (£30,400 − £12,570) × 20 % = £3,566. Employee NI: (£30,400 − £12,570) × 8 % = £1,426.40. Plan 5 starts at £25,000, so (£30,400 − £25,000) × 9 % = £486. Take-home: £24,921.60 / year, roughly £2,077 per month.
Priya, 36, senior NHS clinician in Glasgow — £68,000
Priya is a Scottish taxpayer (code S1257L). She pays 9.8 % into the NHS pension scheme (defined benefit, not salary sacrifice), so her full £68,000 is taxable. Applying Scottish bands: starter (19 %) on £2,827 = £537; basic (20 %) on £12,093 = £2,419; intermediate (21 %) on £16,171 = £3,396; higher (42 %) on £24,338 = £10,222. Income Tax total = £16,574. NI: 8 % on £37,700 + 2 % on £17,730 = £3,016 + £355 = £3,371. Plan 1: (£68,000 − £26,065) × 9 % = £3,774. Pension: £6,664. Take-home (after pension): £68,000 − 16,574 − 3,371 − 3,774 − 6,664 = £37,617 / year.
Marcus, 48, director in London — £112,000 plus £15,000 bonus
Marcus puts 10 % of base into a salary-sacrifice pension (£11,200). Taxable pay: £112,000 − £11,200 + £15,000 = £115,800. He is inside the 60 % trap: Personal Allowance tapers from £12,570 to £12,570 − (£115,800 − £100,000) / 2 = £4,670. Income Tax: (£37,700) × 20 % = £7,540 on the basic band; (£115,800 − £4,670 − £37,700) = £73,430 × 40 % = £29,372. Total Income Tax = £36,912. NI: 8 % on £37,700 + 2 % on £73,430 = £3,016 + £1,469 = £4,485. Take-home (after pension): £115,800 − £36,912 − £4,485 = £74,403 / year. Pushing another £10,000 into the pension would recover £6,000 of allowance and save about £6,000 in tax — the classic 60 % trap fix.
Sofia, 29, part-time plus side PAYE job — £22,000 + £9,000
Two PAYE jobs mean two tax codes. HMRC allocates the Personal Allowance to the bigger job (1257L) and puts the second on BR (20 %). Main job: (£22,000 − £12,570) × 20 % = £1,886 tax, NI £754. Second job: £9,000 × 20 % = £1,800 tax, £0 NI (each job assessed separately for NI). Combined income £31,000 should only owe £3,686 Income Tax under a single assessment — which matches. Where it goes wrong is if HMRC puts the smaller job on 1257L by mistake, which leaves Sofia under-taxed by about £1,800 and facing a bill the following April.
Benefits in kind and the hidden effects on your take-home
Anything your employer gives you that is not cash is a benefit in kind (BIK). HMRC either taxes you on the cash value, or your employer adjusts your tax code to collect the tax as you go. The effect on your payslip is the same: a smaller tax-free allowance, so a higher deduction each month.
- Company car. Taxable benefit is list price × CO₂-based "BIK percentage". A £35,000 petrol car with 150 g/km CO₂ attracts roughly 34 % BIK, so you are taxed on £11,900 of extra income — a higher-rate payer loses around £396 a month.
- Private medical insurance. Taxed on the premium value (P11D cash equivalent). A £600 policy for a 40 % taxpayer costs £240 in tax over the year, deducted via code adjustment.
- Gym or leisure memberships. Taxable unless on-site and available to all employees on a like-for-like basis.
- Season ticket loans over £10,000. Interest-free element taxed as BIK at HMRC's official interest rate (2.25 % in 2025).
- Electric-car salary sacrifice. Pure EVs have a BIK rate of just 3 % in 2025/26, which is why they dominate employer car schemes. Hybrids and petrols are far less favourable.
Who this calculadora is for
The numbers on this page assume you are a regular employee on standard PAYE — which covers the vast majority of UK workers. If you are a sole trader, a company director paying yourself in dividends, or juggling multiple PAYE jobs, your real tax bill flows through Self Assessment. Use this as a sensible starting figure, not the final word.
For the most accurate official figure, use GOV.UK's Estimate your Income Tax tool and check your tax code on the HMRC app. If anything looks off by more than £20 a month, ring HMRC on 0300 200 3300.
