Reverse Take-Home Calculator

The short answer

• To take home £2,000 a month in England, Wales or Northern Ireland in 2026/27 you need a salary of about £28,445.
• For £2,500 a month you need about £36,778, and for £3,000 a month about £45,112.
• Above about £50,000 each extra pound of take-home costs much more salary, because the 40% higher rate starts.
• A student loan, a pension contribution or living in Scotland all raise the salary you need.

How the calculator works backwards

There is no simple formula that turns take-home pay back into a salary, because tax and National Insurance change rate at several points: the Personal Allowance, the National Insurance thresholds, the higher rate, the student loan threshold and the taper above £100,000.

So the calculator searches. It runs our normal take-home calculation, the same one behind the salary calculator, on a range of salaries and narrows in until it finds the lowest salary whose take-home reaches your target, to the penny. Because it uses the full calculation, every rule the salary calculator applies is included automatically.

Salary needed for common take-home pay

For 2026/27, with a standard 1257L tax code, no student loan and no pension contribution:

Notice how the gaps grow. Going from £2,000 to £2,500 a month needs about £8,300 more salary; going from £5,000 to £6,000 needs almost £24,000 more.

Worked example: £3,000 a month

At this salary you are still a basic-rate taxpayer, so 28p of every extra pound goes in Income Tax and National Insurance. Asking for £1,000 more salary would add about £720 a year to your take-home.

Why you cannot just add 25%

A common shortcut is to add a quarter to your target. It works roughly for basic-rate pay but goes wrong elsewhere:

• Low pay: if your target is under the £12,570 Personal Allowance, you need no extra at all. £1,000 a month of take-home needs a salary of exactly £12,000.
• Middle pay: for £2,500 a month (£30,000 a year) the salary is £36,778, about 23% more than the take-home.
• Higher pay: for £5,000 a month (£60,000 a year) the salary is £85,246, 42% more, because everything over £50,270 is taxed at 40% plus 2% National Insurance.

If you live in Scotland

Scotland sets its own Income Tax bands: starter 19%, basic 20%, intermediate 21%, higher 42%, advanced 45% and top 48%. National Insurance is the same across the UK. On modest salaries Scottish taxpayers pay slightly less, so the salary needed is a little lower: £28,390 rather than £28,445 for £2,000 a month. From around £30,000 the intermediate and higher rates take over, and for £4,000 a month a Scottish taxpayer needs about £3,300 more salary than someone in England.

Student loans

Student loan repayments come out of your pay like a tax: 9% of income above your plan’s threshold (6% for postgraduate loans). For 2026/27 the thresholds are £26,900 for Plan 1, £29,385 for Plan 2, £33,795 for Plan 4 and £25,000 for Plan 5.

With a Plan 2 loan, a take-home of £3,000 a month needs £47,358 rather than £45,112: over £2,200 more, because the loan takes 9p of every pound over the threshold. The higher your salary, the bigger the gap. Choose your plan under More options to include it.

Pension contributions

The calculator treats your pension contribution as salary sacrifice, which comes off your pay before tax and National Insurance. That means a 5% contribution does not cost you the full 5% of take-home:

• without a pension, £2,500 a month needs a salary of £36,778;
• with 5% going into your pension, it needs £38,714, and £1,936 a year also goes into your pension pot.

If your scheme takes contributions from net pay or as relief at source instead, your take-home is slightly different, but the difference is small for basic-rate taxpayers. See the workplace pension calculator for the detail.

The £100,000 trap

Above £100,000 your Personal Allowance is reduced by £1 for every £2 of income, until it has gone at £125,140. On income in that range you pay 40% tax, plus 20% more as the allowance disappears, plus 2% National Insurance: you keep only 38p in the pound.

In numbers: a salary of £100,000 gives a take-home of £68,557; a salary of £125,140 gives £78,111. That is £25,140 more salary for £9,553 more in your pocket. If your target take-home puts you in this range, the calculator warns you. Salary sacrifice into a pension is the usual way out, because it lowers the income the taper is measured on.

Turning it into an hourly rate

The calculator divides the yearly salary by 52 weeks and your paid hours a week (37.5 unless you change it). For £2,000 a month that is £14.59 an hour; for £3,000 a month, £23.13 an hour. Compare it with the National Living Wage of £12.71 an hour for people aged 21 and over from April 2026, using the minimum wage checker.

If you are paid for fewer weeks, for example as a supply worker, divide by the number of weeks you actually work instead, or use the hourly to salary converter.

Using it in a pay negotiation

• Work out your monthly budget first, then the take-home that covers it with some left over.
• Use the salary from the calculator as your minimum. Job offers are almost always quoted before tax.
• Compare offers on take-home, not salary: a higher employer pension contribution or a salary sacrifice scheme can be worth more than a slightly higher salary.
• Remember that a pay rise is taxed at your marginal rate. Use the tax bracket checker to see it.

What the calculator leaves out

The result is for one job, paid evenly through the year, with the standard 1257L tax code. It does not include benefits in kind such as a company car, other income such as rent or self-employment, Marriage Allowance, or a tax code that collects tax owed from earlier years. Any of these change the salary you need. If you are on Universal Credit, a pay rise also reduces your award by 55p in each extra pound you take home: see the UC earnings taper calculator.

Two jobs or extra income

The calculator assumes one job with the standard 1257L tax code. If you have a second job, your Personal Allowance is usually used up by the first, so the second is taxed from its first pound, often with a BR (20%) tax code. National Insurance is worked out on each job separately, so two smaller jobs can mean less National Insurance than one bigger one with the same total pay.

Other income, such as rent from a lodger above the £7,500 Rent a Room limit, self-employed profits or savings interest over your allowance, is taxed through Self Assessment or your tax code. Any of it pushes up the salary you need from your main job for the same spending money.

What it costs your employer

Your salary is not the whole cost of employing you. On top of it, your employer pays 15% employer National Insurance on pay above £5,000 a year, at least 3% into your workplace pension on qualifying earnings, and sometimes the Apprenticeship Levy. A salary of £45,112, the figure for £3,000 a month take-home, costs an employer about £6,017 in National Insurance alone.

That is why salary sacrifice can work well for both sides: pay given up for a pension saves employer National Insurance too, and some employers add that saving to your pension. See the employer NI calculator.

If you are self-employed

This calculator is for employees. Self-employed people pay Income Tax on profit at the same rates, but Class 4 National Insurance of 6% between £12,570 and £50,270 and 2% above, rather than 8%. So the profit you need for a given take-home is a little lower. Use the sole trader tax calculator to check.

Weekly and four-weekly pay

If you are paid weekly or every four weeks, divide the yearly take-home by 52 or 13 instead of 12. A take-home of £36,000 a year is £692 a week or £2,769 every four weeks. Four-weekly pay means 13 pay days a year, so one month each year has two.

Key numbers