How 2026-27 take-home pay is worked out
This page estimates take-home pay for an employee in the tax year that runs from 6 April 2026 to 5 April 2027. It uses the Income Tax rates on GOV.UK for people who do not live in Scotland, and the Class 1 National Insurance rates for a category A employee. Scotland has its own Income Tax bands. National Insurance is still a UK-wide charge, so the National Insurance half of the page is the same in Scotland. Wales can set Welsh rates of Income Tax. The GOV.UK table used here is the main UK table, and the page says so rather than inventing a second set of bands.
The standard Personal Allowance is £12,570. That slice of income is taxed at nothing. Above £100,000 of income the allowance falls by £1 for every £2. This page counts that in whole pounds, so £100,001 still has the full allowance and £100,002 loses £1. The allowance is zero once income reaches £125,140, which is £100,000 plus twice £12,570. GOV.UK describes the taper as applying to adjusted net income. A pension contribution or a Gift Aid donation can change adjusted net income. Neither is on this form, so the typed salary is treated as the income the taper sees.
With a full allowance, the basic rate of 20 percent runs from £12,571 to £50,270. That is a band of £37,700 of taxable income. The higher rate of 40 percent then runs up to £125,140, and the additional rate of 45 percent applies above that. GOV.UK also publishes the bands measured on taxable income after the allowance has already been removed. The additional-rate threshold on that view is taxable income over £125,140. The two descriptions meet when the allowance has been tapered away: at £125,140 of income the allowance is zero, taxable income is £125,140, and the next pound is at 45 percent. The tax on exactly £125,140 is £42,516. On £160,000 it is £58,203. On £30,000, where the whole bill sits in the basic-rate band, it is £3,486.
Employee National Insurance is not the same ladder. For 2026-27 a category A employee pays nothing up to the primary threshold, 8 percent up to the upper earnings limit, and 2 percent above that. The weekly figures on GOV.UK are £242 and £967. The monthly figures are £1,048 and £4,189. The category letter page works an example: £1,000 in a week is nothing on the first £242, 8 percent of the next £725, which is £58, and 2 percent of the remaining £33, which is £0.66. The week comes to £58.66. This page reproduces that example. Twelve times a monthly calculation, or fifty-two times a weekly one, is the yearly National Insurance. The two routes are not identical, because the published monthly thresholds are not exactly the weekly ones times fifty-two over twelve. Pick the frequency that matches the payslip.
Employer National Insurance is a different person's bill. For category A in 2026-27 the employer rate is 15 percent above the secondary threshold, which is £96 a week or £417 a month. The page shows that amount and does not subtract it from take-home pay. Category letters other than A, including the married women's reduced rate and the deferment letters, are not applied. Someone with two jobs can have National Insurance worked out on each job, and the annual totals will not match a single salary of the same size.
A student-loan line is optional and uses the same 2026-27 thresholds as the student-loan page. Plan 1, Plan 2, Plan 4 and Plan 5 are 9 percent of pay over the plan threshold. A postgraduate loan is 6 percent and can sit on top. Payroll rounds each deduction down to the nearest pound for the week or the month. The yearly figure here is that pound amount times the number of periods, which is how a steady salary behaves. A bonus month can trigger a deduction even when the year ends under the annual threshold, and the borrower can ask for a refund. Two undergraduate plans are not 9 percent twice. This form allows one undergraduate plan plus a postgraduate loan.
Several things a real payslip contains are left out on purpose. Tax codes can give more or less than £12,570, including a Blind Person's Allowance or a collected underpayment. Salary sacrifice into a pension reduces the pay that National Insurance sees. An employee pension contribution under relief at source does not. Benefits, tips that are not in the salary, and statutory payments have their own rules. The result is the arithmetic of the published bands on the salary you typed. It is not a coding notice and it is not advice to change a tax code.