Second job tax calculator
What a second job actually adds to your tax bill — worked out the way the tax system works it out, on both jobs together — plus what the BR code on it collects instead, and why National Insurance is the one thing that really is charged per job.
Calculator
Gross pay before any deduction, from the employment your personal allowance is set against — usually the one with a tax code ending in L. If you are not sure which that is, your Personal Tax Account on gov.uk lists every employment HMRC has for you and which code each carries.
Gross pay from the other employment, before any deduction. This is the one that usually carries a BR, D0 or D1 code. If the money comes from self-employment rather than an employment, this page is the wrong one — the National Insurance is a different class entirely.
Income tax rates differ in Scotland, so the same pair of jobs costs a different amount there — and the code on the second job is SBR rather than BR. National Insurance is set at Westminster and is identical everywhere in the UK.
Rates and thresholds change every April. A second job started part-way through a year is charged on the whole year's income, not on the part of the year it ran for.
National Insurance is charged on each employment separately. Each employer starts again at £12,570 of pay and charges 8.00% above it, falling to 2.00% above £50,270 — of that job’s own pay. Income tax is not like that: it is charged once, on both jobs added together.
Each employer works your repayment out on its own payroll, against its own threshold, knowing nothing about the other job. If you are not sure which plan you are on, gov.uk has a checker — it depends on where and when you studied, not on where you live now.
Check which repayment plan you are on at gov.uk.
A second deduction with its own threshold and its own rate, charged alongside an undergraduate plan rather than instead of it — and, like the plan, charged separately by each employer.
This changes the student loan figures and nothing else. Each pay packet is worked out on its own and rounded down to a whole pound, and with two jobs that rounding happens twice.
What your second job costs, and what your tax code collects
Your second job costs £3,746.00 in income tax — 31.22% of it
Of £12,000.00 of pay, income tax takes £3,746.00 and employee National Insurance takes £0.00, leaving £8,254.00 a year.
That percentage is not a tax rate and you will not find it published anywhere. It is your whole tax bill with the second job, less your whole tax bill without it, divided by the second job’s pay — so it moves with the first job’s pay as much as with the second’s, and a slice that straddles a threshold is charged at more than one rate on the way up. The next pound you earn in the second job costs 40.00% in income tax and National Insurance together.
Both jobs, added and taxed once
England or Northern Ireland income tax for 2026/27, on £57,000.00 of combined pay. These are the bands your income actually occupies — there is no row for “second job” because the calculation does not have one.
| Band | Rate | Income in it | Tax |
|---|---|---|---|
| Personal allowance | 0.00% | £12,570.00 | £0.00 |
| Basic rate | 20.00% | £37,700.00 | £7,540.00 |
| Higher rate | 40.00% | £6,730.00 | £2,692.00 |
| Income tax on both jobs | £57,000.00 | £10,232.00 |
| Income tax on the main job alone | £6,486.00 |
|---|---|
| Income tax on both jobs | £10,232.00 |
| The difference — what the second job adds | £3,746.00 |
Subtracting one whole calculation from another is the only honest way to attribute tax to one of two incomes, because the tax system never attributes it: the pounds are not labelled. Working it out the other way round — the bill without the main job, subtracted from the total — would give a different and equally defensible answer, and would make the second job look cheap by charging the main one for the higher-rate band. The convention here is that the second job sits on top, which is the arrangement the reader is asking about.
What a BR code on the second job actually collects
A BR code (SBR in Scotland) tells the payroll to charge the basic rate of 20.00% on every pound of that employment — no personal allowance, nothing below it and nothing above it. It exists because the allowance has already been given against your main job and giving it twice would under-tax you by a whole allowance.
| What a BR code deducts from the second job (20.00% of £12,000.00) | £2,400.00 |
|---|---|
| Income tax the second job actually adds | £3,746.00 |
| Collected too little | £1,346.00 |
A BR code on these figures collects £1,346.00 less than the tax actually due. That is not this calculator disagreeing with your payroll — it is the code doing what it is told. BR charges one rate; your combined income has reached a band above it, and the code cannot see the other job. HMRC normally notices at the end of the tax year and collects the difference, often by changing a code the following year, and it can change your codes part-way through instead. The money is owed either way; what the code decides is when you notice.
D0 and D1 are the same mechanic at the next rates up, used when the second job is expected to sit entirely in a higher band. And a tax code is not a bill: whatever the code collects, the tax due is the figure in the table above it. gov.uk lists the codes used for a second job and your Personal Tax Account shows the codes HMRC currently has for you.
National Insurance is charged per job — and that changes the total
| Employment | Pay | Employee National Insurance |
|---|---|---|
| Main job | £45,000.00 | £2,594.40 |
| Second job | £12,000.00 | £0.00 |
| Across both jobs | £57,000.00 | £2,594.40 |
| The same pay from one employer would cost | £57,000.00 | £3,150.60 |
Two employments pay £556.20 a year less National Insurance than one job paying the same £57,000.00. The reason is that £12,570 of pay is free of National Insurance in each employment, so a second job gets a second run at it. This is not a loophole and not a scheme — it is what charging a tax per job rather than per person does, and it is why the same money earned two ways costs two different amounts.
This assumes the two employers are genuinely separate. Where a reader holds two jobs with the same employer, or with employers “carried on in association” with one another, HMRC requires the earnings to be aggregated and National Insurance worked out on the combined figure — which removes the difference above entirely. This page cannot tell whether that applies to you and does not ask. If both jobs are with the same group, treat the one-job row as your figure. The National Insurance calculator prices a single employment properly, including the employer’s side, and this page does not repeat it.
The same total pay, as one job and as two
Employee National Insurance only — income tax is identical in every row, because income tax does not care how many payslips the money arrived on. The last column changes sign, and where it does is the £50,270 upper earnings limit.
| Total pay | As one job | Split evenly across two | Two jobs cost |
|---|---|---|---|
| £20,000 | £594.40 | £0.00 | −£594.40 |
| £30,000 | £1,394.40 | £388.80 | −£1,005.60 |
| £45,000 | £2,594.40 | £1,588.80 | −£1,005.60 |
| £60,000 | £3,210.60 | £2,788.80 | −£421.80 |
| £90,000 | £3,810.60 | £5,188.80 | +£1,378.20 |
| £140,000 | £4,810.60 | £6,821.20 | +£2,010.60 |
A minus sign means the split costs less. Nothing in this table is advice about how to arrange your working life, and none of it is available to choose from in most people’s circumstances — it is the arithmetic of a tax charged per employment, shown so that a reader who notices the difference on their own payslips knows it is real and knows why.
Five things this figure does not know
It assumes both jobs run for the whole tax year
Every figure above is an annual one. A second job started in October is charged on the income it actually produces in that tax year, not on its annualised salary, so the tax on it in the first year is usually lower than shown — and PAYE, which is operated cumulatively across the year, will not deduct a twelfth of the annual figure each month either. Enter the pay you expect to receive in the tax year if you want the first year’s answer rather than a full year’s.
It does not know whether your employers are connected
National Insurance is charged per employment, which is what produces the difference in the panel above — but only where the employments are with genuinely separate employers. Two jobs with the same employer, or with employers carried on in association with each other, have their earnings aggregated and National Insurance worked out on the total. This page has no way to ask, and the answer changes one of its two findings entirely.
It has no tax code and nothing else from a payslip
Student loan repayments are modelled — choose a plan above and both employers’ deductions come off. What is not here is any pension contribution, salary sacrifice, benefit in kind, company car, or the adjustment an existing tax code may be carrying for an earlier year’s underpayment. Nor is the loan itself: no balance, no interest, no write-off date. A student loan is written off after a set period and is enforceable only against income, so a payoff schedule beside a tax bill would invite the wrong comparison entirely.
It is two employments, and nothing that is not an employment
A second income from self-employment, a side business, freelancing or a sole trade is not an employment: it is charged Class 2 and Class 4 National Insurance on profit rather than Class 1 on pay, it is reported through Self Assessment rather than PAYE, and none of the arithmetic on this page applies to it. The self-employed tax calculator covers that case. Savings interest, dividends, rental profit and a pension in payment are all outside this page too.
It prices income tax and employee National Insurance, and stops there
Your combined pay of £57,000.00 is the figure a great many other things are worked out from, and this page prices two of them. It says nothing about the High Income Child Benefit Charge, about whether a second job affects tax credits or Universal Credit, or about the terms of your employment contract — a second job can require your main employer’s permission, and some contracts prohibit one outright. None of that is a tax question and none of it is answered here.
Worked example: the same pay, one job and two
Amara and Ben both earn £57,000 a year in England. They pay exactly the same income tax — £10,232.00 — and Amara pays £556.20 less National Insurance. The only difference between them is the number of payslips.
Ben has one job paying £57,000. His personal allowance is set against it, the rest runs through the bands, and his employee National Insurance is £3,150.60 — charged at 8.00% from £12,570 up to £50,270, and at 2.00% on the pay above that.
Amara has a main job paying £45,000 and a second paying £12,000. Her income tax is identical to Ben’s, because income tax does not care how many employers she has: the two salaries are added, one personal allowance is deducted, and the same bands apply. Her National Insurance is not identical. Her second job’s pay is below the £12,570 threshold in that employment, so it bears none at all, and she pays £2,594.40 in total against Ben’s £3,150.60.
| Figure | Amara — £45,000 + £12,000 | Ben — £57,000 in one job |
|---|---|---|
| Income tax | £10,232.00 | £10,232.00 |
| Employee National Insurance | £2,594.40 | £3,150.60 |
| Personal allowance used | £12,570.00 | £12,570.00 |
| Take-home pay | £44,173.60 | £43,617.40 |
Amara’s payslips will not show that. Her second job is on a BR code, which deducts 20.00% on the whole of it — £2,400.00 a year. The income tax that job actually adds is £3,746.00, because her combined income reaches the higher rate and the code cannot see the other job. The difference, £1,346.00, is not a saving: it is tax she owes that has not been collected yet, and HMRC will ask for it.
Neither figure includes a pension contribution or anything a tax code might be carrying from an earlier year, and both assume the two employers are separate rather than connected — see the note beside the National Insurance panel above. A student loan repayment is included once you choose your plan, and it behaves like the National Insurance above with one important difference: the amount two jobs save is reclaimed after the year ends.
Methodology and sources
The calculation, in order
- Add the two salaries together. This is the whole income tax mechanism. Income tax is charged on a person’s income, and two employments are one person’s income.
- Work out income tax on that combined figure, once, with one personal allowance and the ordinary bands for where you live.
- Work out income tax on the main job alone. The difference between the two is what the second job adds — the only defensible way to attribute a bill that the tax system never attributes.
- Work out employee National Insurance twice, separately. Once on each job’s own pay, because Class 1 is charged per employment: each employer applies the thresholds to the pay it gives and nobody adds them up.
- For the comparison, work out what the same combined pay would cost in National Insurance in a single employment. The gap is the effect of the split, and it can go either way.
Income tax is charged on the person; National Insurance is charged on the employment. That single asymmetry produces everything on this page. It is why a second job cannot have a tax rate of its own, and why it can nevertheless change how much National Insurance the same money costs. Employee National Insurance runs from £12,570 at 8.00% and falls to 2.00% above £50,270 — in each job.
Rates and thresholds
| Figure | 2025/26 | 2026/27 |
|---|---|---|
| Personal allowance | £12,570 | £12,570 |
| Personal allowance taper starts at | £100,000 | £100,000 |
| Employee National Insurance — threshold, main rate, upper limit, upper rate | £12,570, 8.00%, £50,270, 2.00% | £12,570, 8.00%, £50,270, 2.00% |
| Income tax bands — England, Wales and Northern Ireland | Basic rate 20.00% from £0; Higher rate 40.00% from £37,700; Additional rate 45.00% from £125,140 | Basic rate 20.00% from £0; Higher rate 40.00% from £37,700; Additional rate 45.00% from £125,140 |
| Income tax bands — Scotland | Starter rate 19.00% from £0; Basic rate 20.00% from £2,827; Intermediate rate 21.00% from £14,921; Higher rate 42.00% from £31,092; Advanced rate 45.00% from £62,430; Top rate 48.00% from £125,140 | Starter rate 19.00% from £0; Basic rate 20.00% from £3,967; Intermediate rate 21.00% from £16,956; Higher rate 42.00% from £31,092; Advanced rate 45.00% from £62,430; Top rate 48.00% from £125,140 |
| The rate a BR code collects (England, Wales and Northern Ireland) | Basic rate 20.00% | Basic rate 20.00% |
| The rate an SBR code collects (Scotland) | Basic rate 20.00% | Basic rate 20.00% |
The BR row is looked up by name in each region’s own schedule rather than by position, because the basic-rate band is the first entry in the England, Wales and Northern Ireland schedule and the second in the Scottish one — Scotland opens with a starter rate. A calculator that took the first band would charge a Scottish reader the wrong rate, and would do it silently. Today that lookup finds Basic rate at 20.00% in England.
What this page does not model
- Part-year employment. Every figure is a full tax year at the salaries entered.
- Aggregation of connected employments. Where two employers are the same or are carried on in association, National Insurance is charged on the combined earnings and the difference this page shows disappears.
- The student loan itself — the balance, the interest and the write-off date. The repayment each employer deducts is modelled, including the way two jobs deduct less than one and HMRC reclaims the difference later.
- Pension contributions, salary sacrifice, benefits in kind and any adjustment an existing tax code is carrying.
- Anything that is not an employment — self-employment, savings interest, dividends, rental profit or a pension in payment.
- Employer National Insurance, which each employer pays on its own payroll and which the National Insurance calculator shows.
Where the figures come from
- gov.uk — Tax codes: if you have more than one job
- gov.uk — Income Tax rates and Personal Allowances
- gov.uk — National Insurance: how much you pay
- gov.uk — Rates and thresholds for employers
- gov.uk — Check your Income Tax for the current year
- gov.uk — Income tax rates and allowances: current and past
The rates and allowances in the table above were verified against gov.uk on 12 August 2026. That check covers the published figures this page computes with. It does not verify any result the page produces, and it has not yet been signed off by a person — the verification recorded in the source repository is an automated one. Check anything that matters against gov.uk or with an accountant.
Every calculation runs in your browser. There is no application server and no database, so nothing you type is transmitted or stored. A share link is the exception: it carries your figures in the URL. More on what that means. Information, not advice.
Second job tax questions
- What is the tax rate on a second job?
There is not one. Income tax is charged on your total income for the year, not on individual jobs, so both salaries are added together, one personal allowance is deducted from the total, and the ordinary bands apply. The idea that second jobs have their own rate comes from the tax code used on them — usually BR — which tells that employer to deduct the basic rate on every pound it pays you. That is an instruction about where tax is collected, not a rate the law imposes, and it is frequently the wrong amount in one direction or the other.
- Why does my second job feel like it is taxed so heavily?
Because your personal allowance has already been given against your main job, so nothing in the second job is tax-free — the first pound of it is charged at whatever rate your income has reached. Under a BR code that is the basic rate on the whole of it from the first pound, where the main job had £12,570 coming in untaxed first. The money is not being taxed at a special rate; it is being taxed without an allowance in front of it, because the allowance was used elsewhere.
- Do I pay more National Insurance with two jobs?
Usually less, and sometimes more. Employee National Insurance is charged per employment rather than per person: each employer applies the £12,570 threshold to the pay it gives you, so a second job gets a second run at it. On £45,000 plus £12,000 the total is £2,594.40, against £3,150.60 for the same money in one job — £556.20 less. Above the £50,270 upper earnings limit it reverses, because the 2.00% rate is a discount a single large salary reaches and two medium ones do not: two jobs of £70,000 pay £6,821.20 where one of £140,000 pays £4,810.60.
- What does a BR tax code mean?
It tells your employer to deduct basic rate income tax from all of the pay from that employment, with no personal allowance applied. SBR is the Scottish equivalent. It is used on a second employment because your allowance is normally set against the first one, and giving it in both places would under-tax you by a whole allowance. D0 and D1 do the same thing at the next rates up, and are used where the second job is expected to sit entirely in a higher band.
- Will I owe tax at the end of the year because of my second job?
You can, and it is the most common unpleasant surprise a second job produces. A BR code collects one flat rate on the second employment; if your combined income reaches a band above that rate, it has collected too little and HMRC will ask for the difference — usually by changing your code the following year, sometimes by changing it part-way through. On £45,000 plus £12,000 a BR code deducts £2,400.00 where £3,746.00 is due. Nothing has gone wrong; the code simply cannot see the other job.
- Can I get a refund because of my second job?
Yes, and this is the case nobody warns people about. A BR code gives no personal allowance at all on the second employment. If your main job does not use the whole allowance — part-time work, a job started mid-year, a career break — then tax is being deducted from money that is not taxable. You can ask HMRC to split your personal allowance across both employments so it stops happening, and reclaim what has already been over-deducted. Your Personal Tax Account on gov.uk shows which code is against which employer.
- Does it matter which job HMRC treats as my main one?
For income tax the total is the same either way, so the bill does not change — but which job carries the allowance decides how much is deducted from each payslip through the year, and therefore whether you finish the year owing or owed. HMRC does not automatically put the allowance against the larger job; by default it goes against the employment it has known about longest. If your second job is now the bigger one, that is worth asking them to change.
- What if my second income is self-employment rather than a job?
Then none of the National Insurance arithmetic on this page applies to it. Self-employed profit is charged Class 4 National Insurance, with Class 2 relevant to your contribution record, and it is reported through Self Assessment rather than PAYE — there is no employer, no tax code and no per-employment threshold. The income tax half is still the same idea: the profit is added to your employment income and taxed as one total. The self-employed tax calculator on this site covers that case properly.
- Do my employers know about each other?
Not directly, and that is precisely why the arithmetic on this page matters. Each employer operates the code HMRC gives it and knows nothing else about your income. HMRC sees both through PAYE reporting and reconciles them, but it reconciles them after the fact. The one place the separation is substantive rather than administrative is National Insurance, where the charge genuinely is per employment — unless the two employers are the same or are carried on in association with one another, in which case the earnings must be aggregated and treated as one.
- What does the calculator show on the figures it opens with?
On £45,000 from a main job and £12,000 from a second, in England for 2026/27, income tax on the combined £57,000 is £10,232.00 — of which £3,746.00 is what the second job adds. Employee National Insurance is £2,594.40 across both jobs, against £3,150.60 if the same pay came from one employer. A BR code on the second job would deduct £2,400.00, which is £1,346.00 short of the tax due.