Take-home pay in the UK depends on three independent stacks: income tax (PAYE), National Insurance contributions, and any student loan repayments. The calculator above runs all three using the published 2025/26 rates and shows the exact net figure, with each deduction itemised so you can see where the gross goes.
How the UK income tax bands work
UK income tax for England, Wales and Northern Ireland uses a three-band schedule: 20% basic rate, 40% higher rate, and 45% additional rate. Every taxpayer also gets a Personal Allowance — £12,570 in 2025/26 — that's taxed at 0%. Above £100,000 the Personal Allowance tapers away at £1 for every £2 of gross income, so by £125,140 it's fully gone.
Scotland operates a separate five-band schedule with rates from 19% (Starter) through 42% (Higher) to 48% (Top). The Scottish bands apply automatically when you select "Scotland" in the region dropdown. Welsh rates currently mirror the rest of the UK; Northern Ireland is governed by the same schedule as England and Wales.
National Insurance Class 1
Employee NICs are charged on earnings between the Primary Threshold (£12,570) and the Upper Earnings Limit (£50,270) at 8%, and at 2% above the UEL. There's no upper cap — high earners keep paying the 2% rate on every additional pound. The Lower Earnings Limit (£6,396) still triggers contributory state-pension credit even though no NIC is actually deducted below the Primary Threshold.
Unlike income tax, NICs do not use an annual reconciliation — each pay period is calculated independently. That means a one-off bonus is taxed harder for NIC than your normal monthly salary would be, and is the most common source of "why was my bonus taxed so much" questions.
Student loans
The calculator supports all five active loan plans: Plan 1, Plan 2, Plan 4 (Scotland), Plan 5 (new English/Welsh borrowers from August 2023), and Postgraduate. Each has its own threshold and rate (9% above the plan threshold for Plans 1/2/4/5; 6% above the postgrad threshold). You can repay multiple plans simultaneously — undergraduate + postgraduate together is the common case, and both deductions stack.
Thresholds for the plans you select are listed in the result panel above. They are uprated by the relevant earnings index each April; the calculator uses the current tax-year values.
Pension contributions
If your employer operates a relief-at-source scheme (most personal pensions), pension contributions are deducted from your gross before income tax is calculated. The result is that your taxable income falls and you pay less tax — the effective rate is your marginal rate on the contribution amount. Net-pay arrangements (most workplace pensions) work the same way for tax purposes; only the timing of the tax relief differs.
The calculator's pension input assumes net-pay (deducted from gross before tax). If you contribute via salary sacrifice, also enter the same amount in the salary-sacrifice input — that additionally reduces National Insurance.