A salary is quoted as a yearly gross figure, but you live on the monthly net one. The gap between the two is income tax plus employee National Insurance, and because both are banded, the gap is not a fixed percentage. It grows as you earn more, and it grows in steps.
Every number below comes from our UK take-home pay calculator, using the 2026/27 thresholds for England, Wales and Northern Ireland: a £12,570 personal allowance, 20% basic rate to £50,270, 40% to £125,140 and 45% above that, with employee NI at 8% between £12,570 and £50,270 and 2% above. No pension, no student loan, standard tax code. Scotland sets its own income tax bands, so Scottish figures differ.
Nine salaries, side by side
| Gross salary | Income tax | National Insurance | Take-home per year | Take-home per month | Effective rate |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| £25,000 | £2,486 | £994 | £21,520 | £1,793 | 13.9% |
| £30,000 | £3,486 | £1,394 | £25,120 | £2,093 | 16.3% |
| £35,000 | £4,486 | £1,794 | £28,720 | £2,393 | 17.9% |
| £40,000 | £5,486 | £2,194 | £32,320 | £2,693 | 19.2% |
| £45,000 | £6,486 | £2,594 | £35,920 | £2,993 | 20.2% |
| £50,000 | £7,486 | £2,994 | £39,520 | £3,293 | 21.0% |
| £60,000 | £11,432 | £3,211 | £45,357 | £3,780 | 24.4% |
| £80,000 | £19,432 | £3,611 | £56,957 | £4,746 | 28.8% |
| £100,000 | £27,432 | £4,011 | £68,557 | £5,713 | 31.4% |
Two things stand out. First, a £30,000 salary is £2,093 a month, not the £2,500 that dividing by twelve suggests. Second, doubling gross pay from £50,000 to £100,000 does not double take-home: it goes from £3,293 to £5,713 a month, a 73% increase.
Why each extra £1,000 keeps shrinking
The effective rate in the last column is the average across your whole salary. What matters for a pay rise is the marginal rate, the tax on the next pound:
- £12,570 to £50,270: 20% tax + 8% NI = 28%. A £1,000 rise leaves £720 in your pocket.
- £50,270 to £100,000: 40% tax + 2% NI = 42%. A £1,000 rise leaves £580.
- £100,000 to £125,140: the personal allowance is withdrawn at £1 for every £2 earned, which is another 20% on top. 40% + 2% + 20% = 62%. A £1,000 rise leaves £380.
- Above £125,140: the allowance is gone, so the rate drops back to 45% + 2% = 47%.
That 62% band between £100,000 and £125,140 is why salary sacrifice into a pension is so popular at that level: every £1 sacrificed avoids 62p of deductions.
The £50,270 line
The jump from 28% to 42% is the biggest single step in the system, and it sits just above £50,000. Someone on £48,000 offered a £6,000 rise keeps £720 on the first £2,270 of it and £580 on the rest. The rise is still worth taking; it is just worth less than the headline. Our calculator shows both the annual and monthly figure for any salary, so you can price a specific offer rather than a round number.
Student loans change the picture
Student loan repayments come off gross pay above a plan threshold, at 9% for Plans 1, 2, 4 and 5 and 6% for the Postgraduate Loan. On £35,000 with a Plan 2 loan (threshold £29,385), the repayment is £505 a year, which takes the monthly figure from £2,393 to £2,351. The UK student loan calculator works this out for each plan, and the take-home calculator lets you add a plan alongside a pension percentage so all three deductions show on one screen.
What the table leaves out
These figures assume the standard 1257L tax code with no benefits in kind, no bonus, and no pension contribution. A workplace pension at the auto-enrolment minimum of 5% employee contribution reduces taxable pay, so the tax and NI lines fall and take-home falls by a bit less than the contribution itself. Company cars, private medical cover and childcare vouchers each shift the numbers in their own way; a payslip is the only authoritative source for your specific case.
If you are comparing a UK offer against one abroad, the same site has the equivalent calculators for Canada and the United States, each built on that country's current brackets.