Pay rise calculator
A pay rise is taxed entirely at your marginal rate, so what reaches your pocket is always less than the headline, 72% of it for a basic-rate taxpayer, 58% at higher rate, under 40% inside the £100k taper. Enter both salaries and see what the pay increase is actually worth.
Calculator
Pay rise calculator
A £3,000 rise (8.6%) puts in your pocket
£2,160.00 a year
£180.00 a month, you keep 72% of the rise. Take-home goes from £28,720 to £30,880.
2026/27 rates. Assumes the standard 1257L code, no pension or student loan, a student loan takes a further 9% of the rise.
Can a pay rise leave you worse off?
Through income tax alone, never, bands only tax the pounds above each line, so more gross always means more net. The genuine exceptions are cliff-edge benefits: crossing £100,000 of adjusted net income forfeits free childcare and Tax-Free Childcare in full, and crossing £60,000 starts the Child Benefit clawback. For parents near those lines, a salary sacrifice of the excess turns a losing rise back into a winning one. When negotiating, remember the conversion runs both ways: employers talk in gross while your budget runs on net, and because the whole rise is taxed at the top of your income, the gross figure you need to ask for is usually larger than instinct suggests, the reverse tax calculator starts from the take-home you want and hands you that number.
What a £2,000 rise is worth at different salaries
The same rise is worth very different amounts depending where it lands. These are the actual figures on the 2026/27 rates:
| Salary before | You keep | Why |
|---|---|---|
| £25,000 | £1,440.00 (72%) | basic rate throughout |
| £45,000 | £1,440.00 (72%) | basic rate throughout |
| £49,000 | £1,337.80 (67%) | straddles the higher-rate threshold |
| £60,000 | £1,160.00 (58%) | higher rate throughout |
| £99,000 | £960.00 (48%) | crosses into the personal allowance taper |
| £110,000 | £760.00 (38%) | inside the taper, the 62% band |
The £49,000 row is the one people do not expect: a rise that straddles a threshold is taxed partly at one rate and partly at the next, so it lands between the two clean percentages rather than at either. The £110,000 row is worse than the additional rate above £125,140, because each pound there also removes 50p of personal allowance — see the £100k tax trap calculator.
2026/27 rates, checked 28 August 2026 by Hadi. Method on the about page.
How to use the pay rise calculator
- 1
Enter your current salary and either the new salary or the percentage rise.
- 2
Add pension and student loan, both of which take a share of the increase.
- 3
Read what the rise adds to your monthly take-home rather than to your gross.
- 4
Check the marginal rate, which is the rate the whole rise is taxed at.
When should you use the pay rise calculator?
Use it when a rise is offered or requested, since the whole increase is taxed at your top rate rather than your average one.
You have been offered a rise
The rise is taxed entirely at your top rate, so the headline is never what lands.
Your rise crosses a threshold
Crossing £50,270 or £100,000 means part of the rise is taxed far harder.
You are asking for a rise
Knowing the take-home effect helps you ask for a figure that actually changes things.
You want to beat inflation
A rise below inflation is a real-terms cut, and frozen thresholds make it worse.
Where to go next
- Fiscal drag calculatorTo what frozen thresholds cost on top.Open
- £100k tax trap calculatorTo if the rise takes you into the 62% band.Open
- Salary sacrifice calculatorTo divert the rise into a pension instead.Open
All 51 calculators share one tested engine, so a figure from the pay rise calculator agrees with every other page here. See the full calculator index or the pay and tax guides.