UK Take Home Pay Calculator

Income tax, National Insurance, student loan and pension in one place — because your payslip deducts all four, not just the first two.

Your Salary Breakdown

Take Home Pay
£25,119.60
Income Tax
£3,486.00
National Insurance
£1,394.40
Net
Tax
NI

About the UK Take Home Pay Calculator

Most take-home pay calculators deduct income tax and National Insurance and stop there. Your payslip does not. If you have a student loan it comes out too, and if you are in a workplace pension so does that — and for a graduate paying into a pension, those two together can be larger than the National Insurance line. On a £35,000 salary with a Plan 2 loan and a 5% pension contribution, tax and NI take £5,930 while the loan and pension take another £2,255. A calculator that ignores the second pair overstates your monthly pay by nearly £190. This one includes all four. Enter your salary, pick your student loan plan if you have one, and set your pension percentage, and it shows each deduction separately along with what actually lands in your account. The student loan thresholds it uses are the current ones — Plan 1 at £26,900, Plan 2 at £29,385, Plan 4 at £33,795, Plan 5 at £25,000 and postgraduate at £21,000 — and they are shared with the dedicated student loan calculator on this site rather than copied, so the two can never disagree.

Mathematical Formula & Logic

Four deductions, applied in a specific order, and the order changes the answer. Your pension contribution comes off first, because in a net pay arrangement — the most common workplace setup — it reduces your pay before income tax is calculated. That is what gives you relief at your marginal rate. Income tax is then worked out on what remains: nothing on the first £12,570 of personal allowance, 20% up to £50,270 of total income, 40% up to £125,140, and 45% above that. Between £100,000 and £125,140 the personal allowance is withdrawn at £1 for every £2, which the calculator applies to your post-pension figure — one of the reasons pension contributions are so effective in that range. National Insurance is calculated separately and on your full gross pay, not your post-pension pay. This is the detail that distinguishes a net pay arrangement from salary sacrifice: under salary sacrifice the contribution comes off before NI as well, saving a further 8% on the contribution, but most schemes are not salary sacrifice and assuming otherwise overstates take-home. The rates are 8% between £12,570 and £50,270, and 2% above that. Student loan repayment is 9% of everything above your plan threshold, or 6% on a postgraduate loan, assessed on gross pay before any pension relief. Subtract all four from gross and what remains is your take-home.

Step-by-Step Example

Three examples, building up the deductions. Example 1: £30,000 with no loan and no pension. The personal allowance covers £12,570, leaving £17,430 taxable at 20%, which is £3,486. National Insurance is 8% of the same £17,430, which is £1,394.40. Take-home is £25,119.60 a year, or about £2,093 a month. Example 2: £35,000 with a Plan 2 student loan and no pension. Income tax is £4,486 and NI £1,794.40. The student loan takes 9% of the £5,615 above the £29,385 threshold, which is £505.35. Take-home is £28,214.25. Note that the loan alone is worth about £42 a month — small, but invisible on any calculator that omits it. Example 3: the same £35,000 with the Plan 2 loan and a 5% pension contribution. The £1,750 pension comes off before tax, so income tax falls from £4,486 to £4,136 — a saving of £350, which is exactly 20% of the contribution. National Insurance is unchanged at £1,794.40 because a net pay arrangement does not reduce it. The student loan is unchanged at £505.35 because it is assessed on gross. Take-home is £26,814.25. So contributing £1,750 to your pension cost you £1,400 in take-home pay, with the other £350 coming from tax you no longer owe.

Reference Data & Values

labelvalue
Personal allowance£12,570, tapered above £100,000
Basic rate20% up to £50,270 of total income
Higher rate40% from £50,271 to £125,140
Additional rate45% above £125,140
National Insurance8% from £12,570 to £50,270, then 2%
Student loan, Plans 1, 2, 4 and 59% above the plan threshold
Postgraduate loan6% above £21,000
Pension, net pay arrangementReduces income tax, not National Insurance

Frequently Asked Questions

Usually because they leave out your student loan, your pension, or both. Those are real deductions that appear on your payslip, and on a graduate salary with a workplace pension they can easily exceed £200 a month combined. Set your plan and pension percentage above and the figure should match your payslip closely. If it still differs, the most likely causes are a non-standard tax code, salary sacrifice rather than a net pay arrangement, or benefits in kind such as a company car.
Only under salary sacrifice, and this calculator assumes the more common net pay arrangement, which does not. Under a net pay arrangement the contribution reduces your taxable pay so you save income tax at your marginal rate, but National Insurance is still charged on your full gross. Under salary sacrifice you formally give up salary, so both tax and NI fall, saving you a further 8% of the contribution. If your employer offers sacrifice, your take-home will be slightly higher than shown here.
From gross, before any pension relief. This catches people out because it means increasing your pension contribution does not reduce your student loan repayment at all. The two deductions are calculated independently from different bases — the loan from your gross pay, income tax from your pay after pension. This calculator applies that order, which is why the loan figure does not move when you change the pension percentage.
In that band your personal allowance is withdrawn at £1 for every £2 you earn, so each extra £2 of salary is taxed at 40% and also costs you £1 of allowance that was previously untaxed — an effective 60% on that slice. It is the highest marginal rate in the UK system, above the 45% additional rate. Pension contributions are unusually effective here because they reduce the income used for the taper, restoring allowance as well as attracting relief.
No. Scotland sets its own income tax bands and rates, which differ from the rest of the UK and include additional bands. This calculator uses the rates for England, Wales and Northern Ireland. National Insurance and student loan repayments are the same UK-wide, so those parts would be correct, but the income tax figure would not be. A Scottish taxpayer should use a calculator built for Scottish rates.
Several reasons. Student loan and National Insurance are both assessed per pay period rather than annually, so a bonus month produces a larger deduction that is not evened out later. Tax codes are sometimes adjusted mid-year to collect underpayments. And if you are paid weekly or four-weekly, some months contain more pay periods than others. The annual figures here are the reliable comparison; monthly is an average.
No, and it should not. Your employer contribution is paid on top of your salary and never appears as a deduction from your pay, so it does not affect take-home. It does count towards your £60,000 annual allowance though, which matters if you are contributing heavily. The percentage you enter here should be your own contribution, the one that appears on your payslip.
Each employer applies your tax code and the National Insurance thresholds to the pay it gives you, independently. That means your personal allowance is usually applied to one job only, and National Insurance can be underpaid across two jobs because neither reaches the threshold alone. Student loan works the same way. This calculator assumes a single employment; with two jobs the combined position is normally settled through your tax code or Self Assessment.