UK Take-Home Pay Calculator 2026/27

How it's calculated

UK take-home pay is your gross salary minus two deductions made through PAYE: Income Tax and National Insurance (NI). The order matters. First, your tax-free personal allowance of £12,570 is removed from your gross salary — income up to that point is taxed at 0%. What's left is your taxable income, to which the Income Tax bands apply in sequence: 20% on the basic-rate band up to £50,270, 40% on the higher-rate band up to £125,140, and 45% above that. A critical wrinkle catches high earners: the personal allowance is withdrawn by £1 for every £2 of income above £100,000, vanishing entirely at £125,140. That withdrawal stacks on top of 40% tax to create an effective 60% marginal rate between £100,000 and £125,140. National Insurance (Class 1, employee) is calculated separately on gross earnings, not on taxable income: 8% on earnings between £12,570 and £50,270, then 2% on everything above. Because the two systems use different thresholds, your combined marginal rate is 28% (20% + 8%) in the basic band but jumps to 42% (40% + 2%) once you cross £50,270. This calculator applies England, Wales and Northern Ireland bands; Scotland sets its own income-tax rates.

Take-home = Gross − Income Tax − National Insurance

Taxable income = max(0, Gross − Personal Allowance)
Income Tax    = 20% × (band 1) + 40% × (band 2) + 45% × (band 3)
National Ins.  = 8% × (£12,570…£50,270) + 2% × (above £50,270)

Worked example

Take a salary of £35,000 for the 2026/27 tax year, England, with the standard tax code and no student loan or pension deductions:

The effective tax rate is £6,280.40 ÷ £35,000 = 17.9%, even though this worker sits in the 20% Income Tax band — because the first £12,570 is tax-free and NI is charged at a lower rate. The marginal rate on the next pound earned is 28% (20% tax + 8% NI).

When your result may differ

Income Tax bands are applied to taxable income (0–£37,700 basic, £37,700–£125,140 higher, above that additional), and the tapered personal allowance is rounded up to a whole pound (ITA 2007 s.35(3)); at £120,000 the tax is £39,432. The '62 %' marginal figure between £100,000 and £125,140 is a band approximation, not the exact deduction on each next pound after the whole-pound steps. Pension contributions, student loans, benefits in kind and Scottish rates are not modelled. Your real payslip can differ from this estimate for several reasons. Scotland uses six income-tax bands (19%, 20%, 21%, 42%, 45% and 48%) rather than three, so Scottish taxpayers will see a different figure. Student loan repayments (Plan 1, 2, 4, 5 or Postgraduate) take 6–9% of income above the relevant threshold and are not included here. Pension contributions made by salary sacrifice reduce both your taxable pay and your NI, raising take-home above this figure. A non-standard tax code (for example from a company benefit, underpaid tax from a previous year, or the marriage allowance) changes your personal allowance. Finally, NI here is annualised; a real payslip calculates it per pay period, so a month with a bonus can be taxed differently from a flat annual division.

Rates and thresholds

England, Wales and Northern Ireland — 2026/27 tax year.

Sources & legal basis

Update log

• 2026-04-09 — Updated to the 2026/27 tax year; personal allowance and basic-rate threshold remain frozen at £12,570 and £50,270.
• 2026-06-15 — Added worked example, rates table and source table; expanded the explanation of the £100k allowance taper.
• 2026-07-14 — Rechecked gov.uk Income Tax, National Insurance and Scottish-rate sources; added adjusted-net-income guidance to the source table.
• 2026-09-05 — Correction after the UK Astra thread (evening of 2026-09-05): the higher-rate band is measured in taxable income (£37,700–£125,140), not gross minus allowance — at £120,000 Income Tax is £39,432 (previously £39,675); the tapered personal allowance rounds up to a whole pound (ITA 2007 s.35(3)); pension FAQ corrected (sacrifice lowers cash, never raises it).
• 2026-09-29 — Blank salary (blank-inputs wave W5): a cleared gross salary now leaves every row unresolved with “Enter the gross annual salary” instead of £0 take-home next to the full £12,570 allowance. An entered 0 still gives £0. Default £35,000: £28,719.60 a year, £2,393.30 a month unchanged. Sources rechecked.