UK pay and tax guides
The calculators give you a number. These 17 guides explain where the number comes from, in plain English, on the 2026/27 rates checked 28 August 2026. They cover the questions people actually ask about their pay: how salary sacrifice works, why an emergency tax code is taking too much, which student loan plan you are on, what the personal allowance is worth, and whether your salary is a good one. Every figure in them is computed from the same engine that runs the calculators, so a guide and a calculator can never quietly disagree.
Tax on your pension in 2026/27
A quarter tax-free, the rest taxed as income. Why the first withdrawal is overtaxed, and how close the State Pension now sits to the tax threshold.
Read the guide
How salary sacrifice works in 2026/27
Give up gross pay, save tax and National Insurance on it. The mechanics, the real cost per £100, and the four things it quietly affects.
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Gross vs net pay UK: is net before or after tax?
The offer letter figure and the bank figure are never the same number. What comes out in between, and in what order.
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The personal allowance explained, 2026/27
The tax-free slice, what it saves you in cash, and the three situations where yours is smaller than the headline figure.
Read the guide
How to calculate take-home pay by hand, UK 2026/27
Five steps, in the order payroll does them. Follow it once and every payslip you ever get will make sense.
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What is a good salary in the UK in 2026?
Answered with the HMRC income distribution instead of vibes. Where each salary ranks, and what it leaves per month.
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How to read your UK payslip, line by line
Gross, taxable pay, NI letter, YTD columns. What each one means and the four checks that catch a payroll error early.
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Emergency tax codes UK: W1, M1, X and how to claim it back
W1, M1, X, BR and 0T. What each one does to a payslip, how much it costs, and how to get the overpayment back.
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Which student loan plan am I on? Plans 1, 2, 4, 5 compared
Five plans, five thresholds, one 9% rate. Which one you are on, and what it takes out of each month's pay.
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Scottish income tax vs England compared, 2026/27
Six bands against three: the salary where Scotland becomes more expensive, and the exact difference at each level.
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Personal savings allowance 2026/27: tax-free interest limits
£1,000, £500 or nothing, depending on a band your salary decides. Plus the separate £5,000 starting rate for low earners.
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Statutory sick pay 2026/27: what you actually get per week
Every guide on this topic is written for employers running payroll. This one answers the employee's question: what lands in my account, and how far below normal is it?
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How to get a UK certificate of residence
The document a foreign tax office wants before it will apply a treaty rate. What HMRC certifies, what it will not, and why your bank asks a different question entirely.
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What these jobs actually take home in 2026/27
Six jobs with a published pay scale rather than a survey average, each run through the same engine. What the scale says, and what reaches the bank.
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London weighting: what it is and how much you get
An allowance that is 20% of salary only in the middle of the range: a cash floor and ceiling flatten it at both ends. What the NHS pays, and what survives tax.
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Average salary UK in 2026: the median and after tax
Half of UK taxpayers earn less than the median and half earn more. What that figure is on HMRC's own table, why the mean runs higher, and what it leaves after tax.
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Cheapest places to live in the UK, ranked by rent
Hull, Stoke and Bradford rent for under a third of London. What matters more is what a salary leaves after rent and tax, which is not the same ranking.
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Common questions
Are these guides up to date?
Every figure in every guide is computed at build time from the 2026/27 rate tables, which were last checked against HMRC on 2026-08-28. Nothing is typed in by hand, so a guide cannot quietly go stale while the calculators move on. Each guide states its own published date and check date at the top.
Who writes these guides?
They are written and maintained by Hadi, who builds and runs True Take-Home. The name matters less than the process: every rate is traceable to a named gov.uk or HMRC source, the method is set out in full on the about page, and any correction is logged publicly with its date.
Do the guides give financial advice?
No. They explain how the UK pay and tax rules work and show what the arithmetic produces for a given set of inputs. That is general information, not advice about your situation, and it should not be the only basis for a financial decision. Where a topic has consequences beyond take-home pay, such as salary sacrifice affecting a mortgage application, the guide says so.
Can I quote a guide?
Yes, with attribution and a link to the page. Each figure states the tax year it applies to and when it was checked, so quote both. If you find a figure that disagrees with HMRC, HMRC is right and we would like to know so it can be corrected.
Why guides as well as calculators
A calculator answers “how much”. It does not answer “why is this number lower than last month” or “should I do this at all”. These guides take the second kind of question, show the arithmetic behind the answer, and hand you back to the take-home pay calculator for your own figures. They are written to be checkable: named sources, dated rates, and worked examples you can reproduce on paper. Our method page explains how the engine works, and the corrections page records anything we have got wrong.