Break down a UK salary into income tax, National Insurance, pension contributions and student loan repayments. Adjust gross pay and pension % to see exactly where every pound goes.
Illustrative, approximate 2025/26 figures. Personal allowance £12,570, tapered £1 for every £2 earned above £100,000 and fully gone by £125,140. Income tax: 0% up to the allowance, 20% up to £50,270, 40% up to £125,140, 45% above. Employee National Insurance: 0% below £12,570, 8% up to £50,270, 2% above. Pension contributions are deducted from gross pay before tax and NI are calculated (salary-sacrifice style).
Between £100,000 and £125,140, the personal allowance shrinks by £1 for every £2 of income, so each extra pound in that band effectively faces a combined 40% income tax plus a lost sliver of tax-free allowance — often quoted as an effective marginal rate near 60%. Raising pension contributions to keep taxable pay under £100,000 avoids this band entirely, which is why higher earners are often advised to increase pension contributions around this threshold.
If enabled, Plan 2 student loan repayments take 9% of income above £27,295 a year, calculated after the pension deduction in this model. Student loan repayments are collected alongside tax and NI through PAYE but are not themselves a tax — they stop once the loan balance is repaid or written off after the plan's term.
This simulation models how a UK gross annual salary splits into take-home pay, income tax, employee National Insurance, and (if enabled) pension contributions and student loan repayments, using illustrative, approximate 2025/26 tax-year bands. Pension contributions come off the top of your salary before tax and National Insurance are calculated, which is why increasing the pension slider always increases total take-home-plus-pension value even as visible cash pay falls slightly.
A single stacked bar splits your gross salary into take-home pay (teal), income tax (red), employee NI (yellow), pension contribution (blue) and, if the student loan box is checked, Plan 2 repayments (purple). Each segment's width is proportional to its share of gross pay, with the exact £ amount and percentage labelled directly on wide-enough segments and in the legend below.
Drag the Gross annual salary slider from £15,000 to £200,000 and watch every segment resize in real time. Adjust the Pension contribution % slider to see how pre-tax pension saving shrinks your tax and NI bill as well as your take-home pay. Tick the Student Loan Plan 2 box to add a 9% repayment above £27,295. Four presets — Graduate, Median earner, Higher-rate and Over £100k — jump to realistic scenarios instantly.
Above £100,000 the personal allowance taper means each extra pound earned between £100,000 and £125,140 can face an effective marginal tax rate of around 60% once the lost allowance is accounted for — higher than even the 45% additional rate that applies well above that band.
HMRC tapers the £12,570 personal allowance down by £1 for every £2 of income above £100,000, so it reaches zero once income hits £125,140. This was designed to claw back the tax-free allowance from higher earners, but it creates an unusually steep effective tax rate in that £25,140 band, since income tax and the shrinking allowance both bite at the same time.
Both are deducted from pay through PAYE, but they are legally separate. Income tax is general government revenue with bands of 20%, 40% and 45% in this model. Employee National Insurance nominally funds state benefits and the state pension, uses different thresholds (starting at the same £12,570 but stepping down from 8% to 2% rather than up), and unlike income tax, NI contributions build entitlement to the state pension.
In this model, pension contributions are deducted from gross salary before income tax and National Insurance are calculated — the same effect as salary-sacrifice or "net pay" workplace schemes. That means a £1 pension contribution can cost a basic-rate taxpayer only 80p and a higher-rate taxpayer only 60p in reduced take-home pay, because the tax and NI that would have applied to that pound are never charged.
No. Student Loan Plan 2 repayments (9% of income above £27,295 in this model) are collected through PAYE alongside tax and NI, but they repay a personal loan balance rather than fund general public spending. Repayments stop once the loan is fully repaid or, for most Plan 2 borrowers, are written off automatically after 30 years.
No — this is a simplified, illustrative model of the 2025/26 tax year for a single PAYE employee with no other income, reliefs or tax code adjustments. Real payslips can differ due to specific tax codes, benefits in kind, Scottish income tax rates (which differ from the rest of the UK), employer pension matching, and other individual circumstances. Always check HMRC's official guidance or a payslip for exact figures.