UK Salary & Pay Calculators

UK salary structure runs on Pay As You Earn (PAYE), the world's oldest source-deducted income tax system. The standard tax code 1257L applies your £12,570 Personal Allowance evenly across 12 monthly paychecks. National Insurance gets deducted separately (8% main, 2% upper). Employer NI sits on top at 15% (raised from 13.8% in April 2025) — invisible to you but a real cost to the business. This category covers everything from gross-to-net conversion (Take-Home Pay, Salary Sacrifice, Overtime, Holiday Entitlement) to statutory pay regimes: Statutory Sick Pay (£118.75/wk, 28 weeks max), Statutory Maternity / Paternity / Shared Parental Pay (£187.18/wk or 90% of average earnings if lower), and Statutory Redundancy Pay (capped at £719/wk × up to 30 weeks). The National Living Wage now sits at £12.21/hr for 21+, £10.00/hr for 18-20, and £7.55/hr for under-18 or apprentices. We also cover the High Income Child Benefit Charge (HICBC), which claws back 1% per £200 over £60,000 — fully recovered by £80,000 — catching single-earner couples who don't realise both spouses earning £30k each is more tax-efficient than one earning £60k. Tax-Free Childcare offers up to £2,000/year per child (£500/quarter), and Universal Credit has a 55% taper above the work allowance (£411 if no housing element, £684 if claiming for housing). Auto-enrolment kicks in between £6,240 and £50,270 earnings, with 5% employee + 3% employer minimum contributions. Salary sacrifice into pension is one of the most efficient tax structures available: you save your marginal IT rate plus 8% NI, while your employer also saves 15% NI (often shared, sometimes pocketed — worth asking). This category is for employees, agency workers, and umbrella contractors. For Ltd company directors paying themselves a mix of salary + dividends, see the Finance category — there the optimisation maths is quite different.