Know the take-home pay you want? Find the gross salary you need to earn for it.
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| Band | Taxable income | Rate |
|---|---|---|
| Personal Allowance | Up to £12,570 | 0% |
| Basic rate | £12,571 to £50,270 | 20% |
| Higher rate | £50,271 to £125,140 | 40% |
| Additional rate | Over £125,140 | 45% |
Personal Allowance reduces by £1 for every £2 earned above £100,000, reaching £0 at £125,140. Employee National Insurance is separate: 8% between £12,570 and £50,270, then 2% above that.
What this calculator covers and how the numbers are worked out
Most calculators start with your gross salary and work forwards to net pay. This one works backwards: tell it the take-home pay you want to end up with each year, and it finds the gross salary that would produce it, once tax, National Insurance, pension and student loan deductions are all applied.
There's no single formula for this, because UK tax and NI are both progressive - the rate charged on each extra pound depends on how much you've already earned that year. Instead, the calculator tests a gross salary, works out what it would produce after deductions, compares that to your target, and adjusts - repeating this process (grossing up) until the net figure it calculates matches what you asked for, to within a few pence.
A useful thing to understand is that going from a net figure to a gross figure always needs more extra gross pounds than the tax rate alone would suggest, because National Insurance stacks on top of income tax. If you're a basic-rate taxpayer paying 20% tax and 8% NI, each extra £1 of gross pay only adds about 72p to your net pay, so you need roughly £1.39 of extra gross salary for every £1 of extra net pay you want.
Say your target is a net income of £40,000 a year, with no pension or student loan, in England, Wales or Northern Ireland. A first guess of £48,000 gross turns out too low - after £7,086 of tax and £2,834.40 of NI, that leaves only £38,079.60. A second guess of £51,000 gross turns out slightly too high, giving £40,137.40 after £7,832 of tax and £3,030.60 of NI. Narrowing the range between these two brings the answer to a gross salary of around £50,760, which produces a net figure very close to the £40,000 target.
The calculation gets more involved whenever your target net pay implies a gross salary near a tax band boundary, since the marginal rate jumps as soon as you cross £50,270 (from 20% tax and 8% NI, to 40% tax and 2% NI). The iterative approach handles this automatically, so you don't need to work out which band you'll land in yourself.
If you enter a pension percentage or student loan plan, they're built into the same process - the calculator finds the gross salary that leaves you with your target net income after those deductions too, rather than working them out separately.
Because this is a reverse calculation, small changes in your target - or in assumptions like your tax code or region - can shift the required gross salary by a meaningful amount, especially near a tax band edge. Treat the result as a close estimate for negotiating a salary or planning a budget, not an exact figure to quote in a contract.
It repeatedly tests a gross figure, works out the resulting net pay using the same tax, NI, pension and student loan rules as the rest of the site, and adjusts the guess until the net pay matches your target to within a few pence.
Because tax and NI rates change at different income thresholds, so the relationship between gross and net pay isn't a straight line - the exact formula depends on which bands your final salary falls into, which is what's being solved for.
In England, Wales or Northern Ireland with no pension or student loan, around £50,760 gross produces a net figure very close to £40,000.
Above £50,270 your marginal tax rate jumps from 20% to 40%, while NI actually drops from 8% to 2% - overall your marginal rate still rises, so each extra £1 of net pay you want costs more in gross salary once you're in the higher-rate band.
Yes - enter your contribution percentage and the calculator finds the gross salary that leaves you with your target net income after that pension contribution as well as tax and NI.
Yes, choose your plan and the required gross salary is adjusted upward to also cover the 9% (or 6% for Postgraduate) repayment above your plan's threshold.
It's accurate to within a few pence for a standard 1257L tax code, but your real payslip may differ slightly depending on your exact tax code and pay pattern.
Yes - select Scotland as your tax region and the calculator uses the six Scottish income tax bands instead, which will usually mean a somewhat higher gross salary is needed for the same net target above the basic-rate threshold.
These results are estimates for general guidance and are not financial advice. Always confirm important figures with an official source.
Rates last reviewed: 2 October 2026 · Built around the 2026/27 UK tax year
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