About UK Salary Calculator
salary-calculator.org is a UK salary calculator that helps you estimate take-home pay, reverse-calculate gross salary from a net target, and understand exactly how your deductions break down, including Income Tax, National Insurance, pension contributions, and student loan repayments. All calculations are based on publicly available data from HM Revenue & Customs.
What Makes It Different?
UK Salary Calculator gives you a visual Sankey diagram — a flow chart showing exactly how your gross income splits into each deduction and what's left as take-home pay, as well as detailed breakdown table of figures.
Because the width of each flow represents real money, it's immediately obvious where the biggest chunks go. You can see at a glance how a pay rise, pension contribution, or student loan repayment changes the shape of your income — not just the numbers.
You can also easily simulate a pay rise and see exactly how it affects take-home pay, taxes and other deductions.
Our Calculators
- Annual Salary Calculator - Enter your annual salary and see your take-home pay, taxes and other deductions.
- Hourly Wage Calculator - Enter your hourly wage and see your take-home pay, taxes and other deductions.
- Net-to-Gross Salary Calculator - Enter your net salary and see the gross salary you need to earn before deductions.
Methodology
Outputs are estimates for planning and comparison. They are not a payslip, payroll software, or an official HMRC determination. Always check your employer paperwork and GOV.UK if you need a definitive figure.
Tax year coverage
Calculators default to the current UK tax year and let you switch between 2024/25, 2025/26, and 2026/27. Thresholds and rates for each year follow published HMRC / GOV.UK figures as implemented in our model.
Region and tax code defaults
By default we assume:
- Standard tax code 1257L, which gives the standard Personal Allowance of £12,570 (subject to the usual taper above £100,000)
- England, Wales, or Northern Ireland income tax bands
- Scottish income tax rates are not currently modelled — if you pay Scottish rates, treat results as approximate only
- No other taxable income beyond the salary or hourly equivalent you enter
You can override pension contributions, student loan plans, a potential pay rise, hours per week (on the hourly journey), and the tax year to model a closer scenario.
What is modelled
- Employee Income Tax under PAYE bands for England / Wales / NI
- Employee Class 1 National Insurance
- Optional workplace pension (salary sacrifice or net pay arrangement)
- Optional Student Loan Plans 1, 2, 4, 5, and Postgraduate (income-contingent thresholds)
- Hourly → annual conversion using your hours × 52 weeks
- Net → gross reverse solve for a target take-home
What is not modelled
- Scottish (or other non-rUK) income tax schedules
- Non-standard tax codes, Blind Person’s Allowance, Marriage Allowance, or emergency codes
- Benefits in kind, company cars, bonuses outside the gross you enter, overtime quirks, or multiple employments
- Employer National Insurance, corporation tax, or self-employed / sole-trader tax
- State benefits, Universal Credit interactions, or council tax
If your real payslip differs, the usual causes are a different tax code, region, pension setup, Student Loan plan, or other income — adjust the calculator inputs or verify against the sources below.
Primary sources
Use these official pages to verify the rules behind the estimates:
- Income Tax rates and Personal Allowances
- National Insurance rates and categories
- Student loan repayment
- Understanding your pay (including shift / bonus guidance where relevant)
Who Is It For?
- Employees wanting to understand their payslip or plan for a salary increase
- Contractors doing a quick sanity-check on day rate vs. equivalent gross salary
- Job seekers comparing offers — particularly when one comes with a pension contribution or different hours
- Anyone who's ever wondered where exactly their money goes each month
A Note on This Site
This site was built by an independent developer in the UK with an interest in personal finance, data visualisation and user experience.
The goal was to make salary calculations easier to understand with intuitive visualisations and clear explanations. There is no editorial board or invented credentials — just a transparent calculator and the sources linked above.
Contact
Have a suggestion or found a mistake? Talk to us at [email protected]. We'd love to hear from you.