UK Take-Home Pay Calculator 2026-27
What actually lands in your account, after income tax, National Insurance, your student loan and your pension. Built by the people who do the student loan part properly: your Postgraduate Loan stacks on top of your undergraduate plan, and Scotland gets its own tax bands.
Your details
£2,916.67 a month before deductions
England, Wales and Northern Ireland share the same income tax bands.
England 2012 to 2023, or Wales from 2012
£1,750 a year, £145.83 a month
The workplace default. It cuts your income tax, but National Insurance and your student loan are still charged on your full salary.
Outcome: your monthly take-home pay
£2,234.67 a month
£26,816 a year, after £6,434 of tax, National Insurance and student loan and £1,750 into your pension.
That is 18.4% of your salary in deductions, and 37.0% of your next pay rise.
Your take-home pay on £35,000
Take-home a month
£2,234.67
from £2,916.67 gross
Take-home a year
£26,816
2026-27 rates
Deductions a month
£536.16
tax, NI and student loan
On your next £1
37.0%
combined marginal rate
| Line | A month | A year | How it is worked out |
|---|---|---|---|
| Gross pay | £2,916.67 | £35,000 | Your salary before anything is taken off |
| Pension | −£145.83 | −£1,750 | 5.0% of salary. Still your money — it is saved, not spent. |
| Income tax | −£344.67 | −£4,136 | England, Wales and Northern Ireland rates |
| National Insurance | −£149.49 | −£1,794 | 8% above £1,048 a month, 2% above £4,189 |
| Student loan (plan 2) | −£42.00 | −£504 | 9% above £2,448 a month |
| Take-home pay | £2,234.67 | £26,816 | What reaches your bank account |
How this is worked out
£2,916.67 − £145.83 − £344.67 − £149.49 − £42.00 = £2,234.67
One month: gross, less pension, income tax, National Insurance and student loan. 2026-27 rates, England, Wales and Northern Ireland income tax bands.
How this is worked out
(£2,916.67 − £2,448) × 9% = £42
Your undergraduate plan, one pay period. HMRC uses a floored monthly threshold of £2,448 — not £29,385 ÷ 12 — and rounds the deduction down to a whole pound.
Where your income tax comes from
| Band | Rate | Your income in it | Tax |
|---|---|---|---|
| Personal Allowance | 0% | £12,570 | £0 |
| Basic rate | 20% | £20,680 | £4,136 |
| Higher rate | 40% | £0 | £0 |
| Additional rate | 45% | £0 | £0 |
| Total income tax | £33,250 | £4,136 |
Rates, assumptions and sources
Every figure below is the 2026-27 published figure, read from this site's single source of truth at page-render time[source]. The 6% Plan 2 and Postgraduate interest cap covers the 2026/27 year only and is not assumed to continue[source].
| Plan | Threshold | Rate | Interest | Written off | Threshold freeze |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Plan 2 | £29,385[source] | 9% | 4.1% to 7.1% by income, capped at 6% for 2026-27[source] | 30 years[source] | Frozen at £29,385 until April 2030 |
Write-off is counted from the April after the course ends, not from the course-end date itself, and the Plan 2 interest bands (£29,385 lower, £52,885 upper) are frozen alongside the Plan 2 repayment threshold.
This calculator also assumes
- Tax year
- 2026-27
- Income tax bands
- England, Wales and Northern Ireland
- Personal Allowance used
- £12,570
- National Insurance
- Per pay period against HMRC's published £1,048 and £4,189 monthly thresholds
- Student loan basis
- Per pay period, threshold and deduction both floored to whole pounds
- Pension treatment
- Taken before tax (net pay or relief at source)
- Pay pattern
- The same gross pay in all 12 months, with one tax code and no other income
- Not modelled
- Non-standard tax codes, benefits in kind, salary in a single lump, Marriage Allowance, Blind Person's Allowance, student loan interest
Growth, inflation and long-run interest figures are assumptions, not published rates. Change them and the projection changes.
What this calculator does that most do not
The £100,000 Personal Allowance taper
Between £100,000 and £125,140 your tax-free allowance disappears at £1 for every £2 you earn. Every extra £1 of pay therefore makes £1.50 taxable, giving a real marginal rate of 60% on income tax alone — and more once National Insurance and a student loan are added. Calculators that keep the allowance flat at £12,570 show a 40% band here and overstate take-home pay by thousands.
Two student loans at once
A Postgraduate Loan does not replace your undergraduate plan — it runs alongside it, with its own £21,000 threshold and its own 6% rate. Above both thresholds that is 15% of your income going to the Student Loans Company, and it is the line people most often find unexplained on their payslip. We wrote a guide to reading student loan deductions on your payslip for exactly this.
Scotland is not a rounding difference
Scotland has six income tax bands against three, starting at 19% and topping out at 48%. Below roughly £33,795 a Scottish taxpayer pays slightly less; above it, noticeably more. Switching the nation control changes the whole answer, and Plan 4 borrowers usually want Scotland selected here too.
Payslip arithmetic, not annual arithmetic
National Insurance and student loan deductions are worked out on each pay period on its own, against HMRC's published monthly figures — £1,048 for NI, and a student loan threshold floored to a whole pound. HMRC then rounds each loan deduction down to a whole pound as well. That is why the figure on your payslip is never quite the annual sum divided by twelve, and this calculator follows the payslip.
Where to go next
- Monthly repayment calculator — the deduction on its own, for every plan, if that is the only line you came for.
- Student loan deductions on your payslip, explained — what the SLC and PGL lines mean, and what to do when they look wrong.
- Postgraduate loans: a UK strategy guide — whether to overpay, and how the 15% combined deduction behaves over a career.
- Pension salary sacrifice calculator — how much switching your pension to salary sacrifice would add to the take-home figure above.
Related student loan calculators
The take-home pay calculator answers one specific question. For the full picture, start with our UK student loan calculator on the homepage, work out what leaves your payslip each month with the monthly repayment calculator, or check what you can borrow with the student finance calculator. Every tool on the site is listed in the UK student loan calculator directory.
- monthly repayment calculator: the monthly deduction on its own, for any plan, without the rest of the payslip
- combined undergraduate and postgraduate calculator: what two loans running at once take from the same salary
- pension salary sacrifice calculator: how much sacrificing salary into your pension adds back to your take-home pay