UK Take-Home Pay for 2026/27: Income Tax, National Insurance and Student Loans

By Alok Singh · Published

A job ad says £40,000. What lands in your bank account each month is a different number, and it depends on where you live, your National Insurance category, your student loan plan and how your pension is paid. UK take-home pay does the whole calculation for the 2026/27 tax year and shows the employer's National Insurance too.

Steps

  1. Enter the salary, yearly or monthly, and where you pay income tax.
  2. Choose your National Insurance category, student loan plan, and postgraduate loan if you have one.
  3. Read take-home pay, income tax, National Insurance and employer National Insurance.

A worked example

£40,000 in England, category A National Insurance, no student loan:

At £30,000 in England, take-home is £25,119.60. In Scotland, the same £30,000 has slightly lower tax: £3,451.07 instead of £3,486.00.

The rules the page uses

Personal allowance: £12,570, reduced by £1 for every £2 of adjusted net income above £100,000, reaching zero at £125,140.

England, Wales and Northern Ireland: 20% on the first £37,700 of taxable income, 40% up to £125,140, 45% above.

Scotland has six bands, starting at 19% and reaching 48% above £125,140.

Employee National Insurance: category A is 8% between £12,570 and £50,270, then 2%. Category C (over State Pension age) pays none. Categories B and J have their own rates.

Student loans: 9% above the yearly threshold for your plan (Plan 1 £26,900, Plan 2 £29,385, Plan 4 £33,795, Plan 5 £25,000). A postgraduate loan adds 6% above £21,000, and both can apply at once. On £40,000, Plan 2 costs £955.35 a year.

Employer National Insurance: 15% above £5,000 for the common categories, shown so you can see the full cost of employing you.

The £100k trap

Between £100,000 and £125,140, losing the personal allowance creates an effective marginal tax rate of 60%. At £110,000, the allowance has dropped to £7,570. Salary sacrifice pension contributions reduce the income used for the taper, which is why so many people in this band increase pension contributions. Try it in the calculator by adding a salary sacrifice amount and watching tax fall.

Pensions: how you enter them matters

Enter a yearly amount and choose the type:

The same £3,000 contribution produces three different take-home figures depending on the scheme, so check with payroll which one you're in.

What isn't modelled

The calculator uses the standard £12,570 allowance. Marriage Allowance and Blind Person's Allowance are applied by HMRC through your tax code. Payroll uses monthly thresholds, so a single month may differ by a few pence from a twelfth of the yearly figure.

Rules as of October 2026

Rules as of 27 October 2026. The page covers income tax, National Insurance and student loans for the 2026/27 tax year, including Scotland's separate bands. Pensions, benefits in kind, tax codes and salary sacrifice change the result. Check HMRC's figures and your own tax code.

Official sources:

Privacy

The page says your pay stays in the browser tab and the link only keeps the choices around it. Google ads appear on the page, as on the rest of the site.

FAQ

What's take-home on £30,000? £25,119.60 in England, with category A NI and no loan.

How does the allowance taper work? It drops £1 for every £2 over £100,000, gone at £125,140.

Which student loan threshold applies? Your plan's yearly threshold; Plan 2 is £29,385.

Does it include Scotland? Yes, with Scotland's own bands.

Compare offers properly with UK take-home pay.

— Alok Kumar Singh

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