Understanding your take-home pay is essential whether you’re negotiating a new salary, budgeting for the year ahead, or comparing job offers. With the 2026/27 tax year now in effect, here’s how to work out exactly what you’ll keep after tax, National Insurance, and other deductions.
What Counts as Take-Home Pay?
Your take-home pay — also called net pay — is what’s left after all deductions are taken from your gross salary. These deductions typically include income tax, National Insurance contributions, workplace pension contributions, student loan repayments, and sometimes other deductions like cycle-to-work schemes or childcare vouchers.
The 2026/27 Income Tax Bands
For the 2026/27 tax year, the personal allowance remains at £12,570, meaning you pay no income tax on earnings below this threshold. The basic rate of 20% applies to earnings between £12,571 and £50,270. Earnings between £50,271 and £125,140 are taxed at the higher rate of 40%. Anything above £125,140 falls into the additional rate of 45%. It’s important to note that if you earn over £100,000, your personal allowance reduces by £1 for every £2 above this threshold, disappearing completely at £125,140.
National Insurance Contributions
If you’re employed, you pay Class 1 National Insurance. For 2026/27, employed individuals pay 8% on earnings between £12,570 and £50,270, and 2% on earnings above that threshold. These rates changed from the previous tax year, so your take-home pay may be slightly different even with the same gross salary. Self employed individuals pay Class 4 NICs at 6% on profits between £12,570 and £50,270, plus 2% above that.
Don’t Forget Pension and Student Loans
If you’re enrolled in a workplace pension through auto-enrolment, contributions are taken before tax, which actually reduces your taxable income. The standard rate sees employees contribute 5% of qualifying earnings and employers contribute 3%. If you have a Plan 2 student loan, repayments are 9% of earnings above £28,030 per year. Plan 5 loans kick in at £26,065.
Why Manual Calculations Are Tricky
Working through all the tax bands, NI thresholds, pension percentages, and student loan thresholds manually is complex and easy to get wrong. A £1,000 salary increase could push you into a new tax band, change your NI rate, or increase your student loan repayment — making the actual increase to your take-home pay much smaller than you might expect.
The Easy Way to Get an Accurate Figure
Rather than wrestling with spreadsheets and HMRC tables, you can use a free UK take-home pay calculator to get an instant, accurate breakdown. PayToolkit’s salary calculator lets you simply enter your gross salary, tax code, pension contribution rate, and any student loan details to see your monthly and annual net pay — along with a full breakdown of exactly how much tax and National Insurance you’ll pay. It’s the fastest way to know precisely what your payslip will look like.
Knowing your true take-home pay puts you in control of your finances, whether you’re planning a mortgage application, reviewing your monthly budget, or simply want to understand where your money goes.