Take home pay calculator Scotland
Your salary after Scottish income tax and UK National Insurance — what actually reaches your bank account, a year, a month and a week.
Calculator
Your pay before any deduction — the figure on your contract or job advert, not the amount that reaches your bank account, and before any pension contribution or salary sacrifice. This page taxes the figure you enter; it cannot tell a gross salary from a net one.
Paid monthly? Multiply by 12. The calculator works in annual figures because both HMRC and the Scottish Parliament publish annual thresholds, and it divides the answer back down for you below.
Scottish income tax rates are set by the Scottish Parliament each year. National Insurance is set at Westminster and applies across the whole UK.
National Insurance starts at £12,570 of pay and the rate falls above £50,270. Both figures are the same everywhere in the UK — National Insurance is not devolved.
Repayments come out of the same pay packet as income tax and National Insurance. If you are not sure which plan you are on, gov.uk has a checker — it depends on where you studied and when your course started, not on where you live now.
Check which repayment plan you are on at gov.uk.
A postgraduate loan is a second deduction with its own threshold and its own rate, charged alongside an undergraduate plan rather than instead of it.
This changes the student loan figure and nothing else. Each pay period is worked out on its own and rounded down to a whole pound, so more pay days mean more roundings.
Income tax and National Insurance on this page are annual figures divided down, so the pay frequency does not move them. It moves a loan repayment because HMRC works that one out per pay packet.
Your take-home pay, deduction by deduction
Take-home pay: £35,523.55 a year
That is £2,960.30 a month, or £683.15 a week, after £9,476.45 of income tax and National Insurance — an overall deduction rate of 21.06%.
If you are repaying a student loan, the figure above is too high. Repayments come out of the same pay packet as the income tax and National Insurance shown here, so what you actually keep is less than £35,523.55. Choose your plan above and the page will take them off — most Scottish graduates repay on Plan 4, whose threshold differs from the plans used elsewhere in the UK, and a postgraduate loan is a second deduction again.
Where the salary goes
| Figure | A year | A month | A week |
|---|---|---|---|
| Gross salary | £45,000.00 | £3,750.00 | £865.38 |
| Scottish income tax | £6,882.05 | £573.50 | £132.35 |
| Employee National Insurance | £2,594.40 | £216.20 | £49.89 |
| Take-home pay | £35,523.55 | £2,960.30 | £683.15 |
The monthly and weekly columns are the annual figure divided by 12 and 52, done here. They are not a payslip. PAYE is operated cumulatively across the year and National Insurance is worked out on each pay period separately and, for most employees, is not cumulative at all — so a month containing a bonus or a pay rise does not match the row above, and a part year does not either. What these columns answer is what this salary averages to, which is the question somebody comparing two offers is asking.
Income tax, band by band
Charged at Scottish rates, across six bands where England, Wales and Northern Ireland use three. This is the devolved half of the deduction — the part that would change if you moved. The income tax calculator for Scotland shows every band, including the ones this salary does not reach.
| Band | Income in this band | Rate | Tax |
|---|---|---|---|
| Starter rate | £3,967.00 | 19.00% | £753.73 |
| Basic rate | £12,989.00 | 20.00% | £2,597.80 |
| Intermediate rate | £14,136.00 | 21.00% | £2,968.56 |
| Higher rate | £1,338.00 | 42.00% | £561.96 |
| Income tax | £32,430.00 | £6,882.05 |
Your salary of £45,000.00 less £12,570.00 of personal allowance leaves £32,430.00 of taxable income. The allowance row is a subtraction, not a statutory constant: above £100,000 it tapers away, and the figure shown is the one this salary actually used. The allowance itself is set by the UK Parliament, not by Scotland.
Employee National Insurance, band by band
National Insurance is not devolved. Nothing in this table is Scottish: the £12,570 primary threshold, the £50,270 upper earnings limit and both rates are set at Westminster and are identical everywhere in the UK. A Scottish employee and an English one on the same salary pay National Insurance to the penny.
| Band | Pay in this band | Rate | National Insurance |
|---|---|---|---|
| Main rate | £32,430.00 | 8.00% | £2,594.40 |
| National Insurance | £2,594.40 |
Where your next pound of salary goes
- Scottish income tax on your next £1: 42.00%. Measured by the engine against your own salary, not read off a rate table — inside the personal allowance taper it is one and a half times whichever band rate applies, which is why it can be higher than any rate printed on this page.
- National Insurance on that same £1: 8.00%. Measured by asking the National Insurance engine what one more pound of pay costs, rather than by comparing your salary to the limits and picking a rate — at exactly the £50,270 limit those two answers differ, and the measured one is right.
- Both together: 50.00% of your next £1 goes in deductions, leaving 50.00% of it.
This is a stretch of salary with no equivalent in the rest of the UK. Your income tax has already stepped above the rate charged on the same pay in England, Wales and Northern Ireland — Scotland has bands they do not — while National Insurance is still at its main 8.00% rate, because your pay has not reached the £50,270 upper earnings limit. The two land on the same pound. Earn past that limit and the combined rate falls, because the National Insurance part drops to 2.00% while the income tax part stays where it is. The gap is widest above the Scottish higher-rate threshold, which sits below the upper earnings limit — in the rest of the UK the two are the same salary, so the stretch does not exist at all.
Another £30,000 of salary takes you into the Advanced rate income tax band.
The engine measures that gap as £30,000 of taxable income, which is a different figure and not the one to act on. Here your allowance is fully used and your salary is outside the taper, so the two happen to coincide. It is an income tax band. National Insurance has thresholds of its own — the two named above — and they are not folded into this figure.
Five things this figure does not know
It knows the repayment, not the loan
The deduction is modelled: choose a plan above and it comes off the figure, worked out on each pay packet the way PAYE does it. What is not here is the loan itself — no balance, no interest, no write-off date and no projection of when it clears. That is deliberate rather than pending. A student loan is written off after a set period and is never enforced against anything but income, so a payoff schedule of the kind a mortgage gets would invite exactly the wrong comparison. Nor is the year-end position: PAYE deductions are provisional, and a second job, a bonus or self-employment is reconciled by HMRC rather than here.
It does not know about your pension
There is no pension input on this page. Auto-enrolment takes a percentage of qualifying earnings from most employees’ pay before it reaches them, so real net pay is lower than the figure here — while a net pay arrangement or salary sacrifice also reduces the income tax, and salary sacrifice reduces the National Insurance too. None of that is modelled here: the income tax engine accepts a pension contribution and extends the rate limits for relief at source, but this page passes it nothing. The salary sacrifice calculator compares sacrifice against a relief-at-source personal pension.
It does not know your tax code
The calculation assumes the standard personal allowance and no other adjustment. A tax code carrying a benefit in kind — a company car, medical insurance — or an underpayment being collected through PAYE reduces the allowance and raises the tax. A code beginning with S is what tells an employer to use the Scottish rates, and getting it wrong is a common enough payroll error to be worth checking on your own payslip.
It divides a year rather than modelling a payslip
Both engines work in annual figures, on HMRC’s published annual thresholds. Real PAYE is cumulative across the year and real National Insurance is worked out per pay period and is not cumulative for most employees, so a month with a bonus in it, a mid-year pay rise or a part year will not match the monthly column above.
It is one employment, and only employment
No second job, no self-employed profit alongside the salary, no benefits in kind, no redundancy payment. It also computes nothing the employer pays: employer National Insurance is a cost on top of your salary and is not a deduction from it.
Worked example
The same £1,000 pay rise is worth different amounts to two Scottish employees, and the better-paid one keeps more of it. That is not a quirk of rounding. It is what happens when income tax steps up before National Insurance steps down, which is the arrangement Scotland has and the rest of the UK does not.
Iona earns £45,000. Her take-home is £35,523.55 a year — £2,960.30 a month — after £6,882.05 of Scottish income tax and £2,594.40 of National Insurance. Her next pound is charged 42.00% income tax and the main National Insurance rate together: 50.00%.
| Band | Income in band | Rate | Tax |
|---|---|---|---|
| Starter rate | £3,967.00 | 19.00% | £753.73 |
| Basic rate | £12,989.00 | 20.00% | £2,597.80 |
| Intermediate rate | £14,136.00 | 21.00% | £2,968.56 |
| Higher rate | £1,338.00 | 42.00% | £561.96 |
| Total | £6,882.05 |
Fraser earns £60,000 — above the £50,270 National Insurance upper earnings limit. His take-home is £43,607.35, and his next pound is charged 42.00% income tax but only 2.00% National Insurance: 44.00% in total.
| Band | Pay in band | Rate | National Insurance |
|---|---|---|---|
| Main rate | £37,700.00 | 8.00% | £3,016.00 |
| Upper rate | £9,730.00 | 2.00% | £194.60 |
| Total | £3,210.60 |
Give each of them a £1,000 rise and Iona keeps £500.00 of it while Fraser keeps £560.00, even though Fraser earns £15,000 more. The difference is entirely National Insurance: Iona is still paying the main rate on her extra pay, and Fraser is past the upper earnings limit, so his is charged at the lower one. Their income tax bands are the same Scottish ones; their National Insurance is the same UK one; only where each of them sits on the two scales differs.
Neither figure includes a pension contribution or anything a tax code might be carrying. Both would reduce what actually reaches the bank account, and neither is modelled here. A student loan repayment does come off, once you tell the calculator which plan you are on.
Methodology and sources
The calculation, in order
- Start from the gross annual salary you entered.
- Deduct the personal allowance that applies to it — £12,570, set by the UK Parliament and not by Scotland. Above £100,000 it tapers away, and the engine handles that rather than this page subtracting a fixed figure.
- Charge what is left across the six Scottish bands, in order. This is the devolved half of the deduction.
- Charge employee Class 1 National Insurance on the whole salary, not on taxable income: the personal allowance has nothing to do with it. It starts at £12,570, runs at 8.00% to £50,270, and then drops to 2.00% above it. These rates and thresholds are UK-wide.
- Subtract both from the salary. That is take-home pay.
- Divide by 12 and 52 for the monthly and weekly columns. That division is arithmetic done here, not a payslip — see below.
National Insurance is charged on gross pay, and income tax on pay after the personal allowance. The two happen to start at the same £12,570 figure this year, which makes them look like one threshold. They are not, they have moved independently before, and the National Insurance one is not reduced by anything that reduces the personal allowance.
Rates and thresholds
| Figure | 2025/26 | 2026/27 |
|---|---|---|
| Personal allowance | £12,570 | £12,570 |
| Personal allowance taper starts at | £100,000 | £100,000 |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| National Insurance primary threshold (UK-wide) | £12,570 | £12,570 |
| National Insurance upper earnings limit (UK-wide) | £50,270 | £50,270 |
| National Insurance rate — main / above the upper limit | 8.00% / 2.00% | 8.00% / 2.00% |
Those National Insurance figures are HMRC’s published annual thresholds and not the weekly ones multiplied by 52. The same gov.uk table states both and they disagree — £242 a week times 52 is not the published annual primary threshold — and it is the annual figure that governs an annual calculation.
What this page does not model
- The student loan itself — the balance, the interest, the write-off date and when it clears. The repayment coming off each pay packet is modelled, for every plan including Plan 4; the debt behind it is not.
- Pension contributions of any kind. Auto-enrolment reduces net pay; a net pay arrangement or salary sacrifice reduces income tax too, and salary sacrifice reduces National Insurance as well. There is no pension input in this software.
- Your tax code, benefits in kind, underpayments collected through PAYE, the marriage allowance and the blind person’s allowance.
- Pay periods. The monthly and weekly figures are the annual answer divided; real PAYE is cumulative and real National Insurance is per period.
- Anything but one employment. No second job, no self-employed profit, no savings interest or dividends — and no employer National Insurance, which is a cost on top of your salary rather than a deduction from it.
Where the figures come from
- gov.uk — Income tax in Scotland
- gov.scot — Scottish income tax rates and bands
- gov.uk — Rates and thresholds for employers
- gov.uk — National Insurance rates and categories
- gov.uk — Income tax rates and allowances: current and past
The rates and allowances in the table above were verified against gov.uk and gov.scot 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.
Frequently asked questions
- How is take-home pay worked out in Scotland?
Two deductions come off a salary, and they are set by two different parliaments. Income tax is devolved: Scotland charges earned income across six bands rather than three, so a Scottish employee's income tax differs from an English one on the same salary. Employee National Insurance is not devolved: it starts at £12,570 of pay, runs at 8.00% up to £50,270 and 2.00% above that, everywhere in the UK. Take-home pay is the salary less both. This calculator shows each of them band by band rather than blending them into one rate, because they are charged on different amounts — National Insurance on the whole salary, income tax on the salary after the personal allowance.
- Do people in Scotland pay different National Insurance?
No. National Insurance is reserved to the UK Parliament and is not devolved to any part of the UK. The primary threshold, the upper earnings limit and both rates are identical in Scotland, England, Wales and Northern Ireland, so two employees on the same salary in Glasgow and in Manchester pay National Insurance to the penny. Only the income tax half of the deduction differs.
- Why does my next pound of pay cost 50.00% on £45,000?
Because two deductions land on the same pound. The Scottish higher rate on income tax begins below the £50,270 National Insurance upper earnings limit, so between those two salaries a pound of pay is charged 42.00% income tax and 8.00% National Insurance at the same time. There is no equivalent stretch in the rest of the UK, where the higher-rate threshold and the upper earnings limit sit at the same salary. Earn past the upper earnings limit and the combined rate falls, because the National Insurance part drops to 2.00%.
- Is the monthly figure what my payslip will say?
Close, but not exactly. The monthly and weekly figures here are the annual answer divided by 12 and 52. A real payslip is produced differently: PAYE is operated cumulatively across the tax year, and National Insurance is worked out on each pay period on its own and is not cumulative for most employees. So a month containing a bonus, a mid-year pay rise, or a part year of employment will not match. What the figures here answer is what a salary averages to over a full year, which is the question somebody comparing two job offers is asking.
- Does this include my student loan repayments?
Yes, once you choose your plan. Repayments come out of the same pay packet as income tax and National Insurance, and the calculator works them out the way PAYE does: on each pay packet separately, at 9% of the pay above your plan threshold, rounded down to a whole pound, with a postgraduate loan charged alongside at 6% of the pay above its own lower threshold. Most Scottish graduates repay on Plan 4, whose threshold is not the same as the plans used elsewhere in the UK — but which plan you are on depends on where and when you studied rather than where you live now, so gov.uk has a checker and the page links to it. Leave the plan set to "not repaying one" and nothing is deducted.
- Does it account for pension contributions?
No, and there is no box for them. Auto-enrolment takes a percentage of qualifying earnings from most employees before their pay reaches them, so real net pay is lower than the figure here. A net pay arrangement or salary sacrifice also reduces the income tax, and salary sacrifice reduces National Insurance as well. None of it is modelled on this page: the income tax engine accepts a pension contribution and extends the rate limits for relief at source, but this page passes it nothing. The salary sacrifice calculator compares sacrifice against a relief-at-source personal pension.
- What does a tax code beginning with S mean?
It tells your employer to operate the Scottish rates on your pay. Which rates apply depends on where you live rather than where you work, HMRC decides it from the address it holds for you, and a code that has not been updated after a move is a common payroll error worth checking on your own payslip. This calculator assumes the standard personal allowance and no other adjustment: a code carrying a benefit in kind or an underpayment being collected through PAYE changes the answer.
- What is take-home pay on the default salary shown here?
On £45,000 a year in 2026/27, Scottish income tax is £6,882.05 and employee National Insurance is £2,594.40, leaving £35,523.55 a year or £2,960.30 a month. That is the default state, with no student loan selected: choose a plan and the repayment comes off too. It is also before any pension contribution or tax code adjustment, both of which reduce it further. Change the salary above to see your own figures.
- Does employer National Insurance come out of my pay?
No. Employer National Insurance is a separate charge the employer pays on top of your salary, on a lower threshold and at a higher rate than yours. It is a cost of employing you rather than a deduction from your pay, so it is not in the figures on this page — and it is UK-wide, like the employee charge.