About SalaryCalculator.org

If you’re wondering how to work out what your wage or salary is after tax, you’ve come to the right site.

We use up-to-date information to make sure you get the right figures for your expected take home pay. This includes tax rates and personal allowances.

We’ve built an easy-to-use UK salary calculator which lets you work out how much money you will get every month with confidence.

We rely on information and rules from HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC), which is the agency which collects tax in the UK.

Our easy-to-use online tool has been designed so that you can get accurate figures you can trust with just some basic information.

What information do I need to have to use your salary calculator?

The only things you will need to work out your take home pay are the following:

• Your gross salary (the salary you expect to have before tax).
• Your pay cycle (how often you are paid).
• The tax year (this runs from the start of April to the start of April the following year).
• Your age (because tax rates change when you’re over 66 and over 74).
• The percentage of your wage you put into a pension (this will be specific to your pension plan).
• The type of pension which you have (this will also be specific to you).

We don’t ask you for any personal details such as your name, your email or your National Insurance Number. We are only interested in helping you work out your take home pay.

How do you work out your pay after tax using our salary calculator?

We have designed our take home pay calculator to be as easy to use as possible.

All you need to do to get an accurate figure for your net pay is some basic information. Here’s a description of each piece of information we need and why we need it.

Gross Salary

Type in your gross salary into this box. Your gross salary is the amount of money you will receive before any deductions for tax.

You can use the arrows to the left of this box to change the number you’ve put into the system, or just type it in again.

Pay cycle

You can use this drop-down menu to tell the system how your pay is calculated. For most people, this will be the figure for a whole year or a whole month. But we know some people are paid weekly too, so we’ve included that as an option too, and added a five-day option too.

You may be paid hourly. We’ve taken this on board too and allowed you to choose an hourly option. This is based on a standard 40-hour working week. This will help you get a figure from our hourly calculator.

Tax Year

A tax year is a specific period of time. It doesn’t run from the start of January to the end of December. In the UK, the tax year is a period of 12 months running from 6 April to 5 April.

To enter the tax year you’re looking for, use the drop-down menu and pick the right one.

It’s important you get your tax year right because tax rates change from year to year.

We’ve built our tool so that you aren’t just trapped looking at this year’s tax. You can use it for every year from 2016 to 2017 onward.

Age

There’s a drop-down menu for age which allows you to choose between three options – Under 66, 66-74, and Over 74. This is because once you reach 66 you no longer have to pay National Insurance contributions, so you get to keep more of your money. The amount of money you can keep increases even further when you get to 74 if you are still working.

Pension Contribution

This box asks you for the amount of pension contribution you make. Our tool needs you to put in this figure as a percentage (%) of your pay. The minimum contribution you need to make is 5% of your income. This is set at 5% under the law. However, you may voluntarily be contributing more than this. If you do not have a number for your percentage pension contribution, then use the 5% figure.

Pension Type

When you save into a pension, the government likes to give you a bonus as a way of rewarding you for doing so. The government wants you to save for your future. This comes in the form of tax relief. It means the more you put into a pension, the more the government gives you ‘relief’ on the money you’re investing. So it’s taken out of the tax system too.

You can make your pension contributions in two ways. For the net pay arrangement, contributions are deducted as a gross amount from gross pay before income tax is calculated. They are termed ‘net pay’ in our calculator.

As an alternative, sometimes contributions are deducted as a net amount from net pay after income tax has been calculated. This is called ‘relief at source’ in our salary calculator.

We have a drop-down box that lets you choose which of these types applies to you.

Blind or severely sight-impaired

If you are blind or severely sight-impaired, you need to tick this box. That’s because if you are disabled in this way the government wants to make sure you have extra money to live. They do this by increasing the personal allowance that applies to you. A personal allowance is the amount of money the government will let you keep without it being taxed. If you are blind or severely sight-impaired the government adds around £2,600 to your personal allowance.

Living in Scotland

Most income tax is decided by the UK Government in Westminster. If you live in Wales or Scotland, the governments there can vary the rates of income tax a little. The rates in England and Wales are currently the same. If you live in Scotland, however, there are different rates of income tax charged. That’s why our calculator asks you if you are based in Scotland.

Show Advanced Options

Using Advanced Options

If you tick the ‘Show Advanced Options’ box, a series of extra boxes will open up. The first will let you tell the net salary calculator what your tax code is if you know it.

The second set of boxes only applies if you have a Student Loan. These boxes will let you choose which type of Student Loan repayment plan applies to you.

Tax Codes

Every taxpayer has something called a tax code. Tax codes are issued by the government and are then used by your employer and pension provider to work out how much Income Tax to take from your pay or pension. You will be able to get your tax code from your employer if you don’t know it.

Tax codes are important because they set different rules if you have more than one job or more than one pension fund.

You can still use our tool if you don’t have your tax code – we will just treat you as a standard taxpayer and apply the normal ‘1257L’ tax code. 1257L is the tax code currently used for most people who have one job or pension.

Student Loans

The other thing we cover under Advanced Options is whether you are paying back a Student Loan. The Student Loan system takes money directly from your pay if you took out a loan and still haven’t paid it all back. It kicks in once you start earning a certain amount of money. The repayments come directly from your salary or wage.

There are different options for different types of Student Loan arrangements:

• Plan 1 repayments are charged on all student loans taken out between September 1998 and August 2012, or any time since September 1998 in Northern Ireland.
• Plan 2 applies to students who took out loans after 2012 in England and Wales.
• Scottish students use Plan 4 because Higher Education in Scotland is funded differently.

You keep paying back your Student Loan until the whole debt you have is paid off – unless your income is too low to pass the repayment threshold.

We have designed our net salary calculator to make sure that it covers Student Loan charges because for ex-students that is part of their net salary calculations.

How accurate is our UK salary calculator?

We use up-to-date information to let calculate your take home salary or your take home wage. This means you can use our wage calculator with confidence.

Do we hold on to your information after you’ve inputted it?

Absolutely not. We respect data privacy. We’ve built this tool to help you correctly work out your take home pay. We won’t hold on to any data you share.

And because we don’t ask you for any personal details such as your name, your email or your National Insurance Number. We are only interested in helping you work out your take home pay.

Is our tool updated regularly?

Our tool is always updated when there is a change in the tax system in the UK. This is usually done a couple of times per year through a Budget or a financial statement by the government. These announcements will often change tax rates and this can affect your pro rata pay.

FAQs

What is tax?

In general terms, tax is money charged by the government to pay for things which the country needs.

Why are taxes collected?

Modern countries all collect taxes. The UK’s tax take is used to pay for essential goods and services such as defence, road and rail infrastructure, health care, social security, and education. Tax is collected by governments in order to help create a prosperous, functional, and orderly society.

What types of tax are there?

There are different types of taxes. Income tax which is taken from your wage or salary is known as a direct tax. Indirect taxes also exist. They are based on charging you tax for the goods and services you choose to buy. This can include VAT (Value Added Tax) on food costs and energy bills. It can also include extra charges put on things like alcohol or cigarettes.

Who much tax does the UK Government get?

The total amount of money raised through taxation changes year on year, but it is roughly £800 billion. Of the total amount of tax raised by the UK Government roughly 25-30% of it comes from income tax according to recent figures. This makes income tax one of the most important sources of income for the UK Government.

Who sets the rate of income tax for the UK?

Most income tax is decided by the UK Government in Westminster. If you live in Wales or Scotland, the governments there can vary the rates of income tax a little. At the moment the rates in England and Wales are the same. If you live in Scotland, however, there are different rates of income tax charged. That’s why our calculator asks you if you are based in Scotland.

Does everyone pay the same income tax?

People pay different rates of tax depending on the amount of money they earn. There are things called tax bands which split income into different groups. There are also some differences based on age and whether or not you live in Scotland.

Does tax change?

Governments change taxes in different ways regularly. The reasons for this can vary. It could be because they might want to spend more, or there could be a situation where more people are not working and paying tax. Alternatively, there might be an income tax cut.

Governments change income tax by updating the percentage of tax they take. These are also called tax rates. Governments can also alter the thresholds between tax bands, or they can alter personal allowances. All of these things have an impact on the amount of tax the government takes – and which you pay if you are working.

What is a personal allowance?

A personal allowance is the amount of money the government will let you keep without it being taxed. Your personal allowance is set by the government. This personal allowance is currently around £12,500 per year in the UK. Our tax calculator takes a personal allowance into account before giving a figure for your take home pay. You don’t have to input it into the system: we know what it is already.

What is National Insurance?

National Insurance is a social security system in the UK. You pay National Insurance contributions to qualify for certain benefits and the State Pension. The government takes National Insurance on top of income tax.

Does our net salary calculator include National Insurance?

Yes, we include National Insurance as well as income tax so that the figure given in our net pay calculator is accurate.

What is gross pay?

Gross pay describes your wage or salary before income tax or anything else is taken from it.

What is net pay?

Net pay is a phrase that describes the amount of money you have left after you have paid your income tax, National Insurance and pension contributions. Our UK take home salary calculator gives you the net pay figure.