Last updated 18 June 2026
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NHS Take-Home Pay Calculator 2026/27
Most NHS pay calculators stop at your monthly take-home. This one keeps going. Enter your band and it shows the tax, National Insurance, pension and student loan coming off your pay — then how today’s choices shape the pension you retire on.
The figures are built from the official Agenda for Change pay scales and HMRC rates. Every rate is dated. Every rule is sourced.
Work out your take-home pay
Pick your band, pay point and region. The figure updates as you change them. Open the full calculator for the line-by-line breakdown and to model a decision.
HCAS zone: —
Gross salary
£25,272/ yr
What this calculator does
It covers Agenda for Change staff across the UK. Set a band and pay point, choose your region, and add anything that changes your pay. The result is your take-home, broken down — not a single headline figure.
- Take-home pay for any band and pay point
- Income tax, National Insurance, pension and student loan, line by line
- England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland rules
- High Cost Area Supplement for London and the fringe
- Part-time hours and salary sacrifice
- The effect of each choice on your future pension
Pay and pension in one place
A take-home figure on its own tells you half the story. A bigger pension contribution lowers your pay this month but builds the pension you retire on. Going part-time changes both. Most calculators can’t show you that trade-off, because they only model the payslip.
This one models your pension too. So you can see what a decision costs you now and what it’s worth later, in the same place. The tax and pension logic comes from a public library we maintain, checked against real NHS payslips.
See your own numbers
Set your band, pension and hours once, then compare two choices side by side — what each means for your pay now, and your pension later.
Open calculatorHow your take-home is worked out
Your gross salary goes in at the top. Pension comes off, then income tax on what is left, then National Insurance, then any student loan. What remains is your take-home. The order matters — where pension is deducted changes every number after it. We walk through the full chain in how UK take-home pay is calculated.
Take-home pay by band
Each Agenda for Change band has its own pay points, and you move up one a year. To read the figures for a single band, start here:
Different rules by nation
Where you work changes the result. Scotland sets its own income tax bands. Wales and Northern Ireland follow the rest-of-UK tax rates but run their own pay deals. England adds a High Cost Area Supplement in and around London. The calculator applies the right set for you.
How accurate is it?
We tested seven NHS calculators against five real pay scenarios. Most got pension tiers or part-time hours wrong. Ours is checked against actual payslips, and the tax and pension logic is open source, so anyone can inspect it. See how the NHS calculators compare.