Pay Rise / Salary Increase Calculator
See how much of a pay rise you actually keep after tax, National Insurance, pension and student loan — including the “60% trap” if the rise pushes you between £100,000 and £125,140.
Start here
How to use this calculator
Enter your current salary, then describe the rise however you know it.
Enter your current salary
Your annual gross salary before the rise, as it stands today.
Describe the rise
Switch between entering the new salary directly, a £ amount, or a percentage — whichever matches what you’ve been offered.
Check the keep-rate
The headline figure shows what share of the raise actually reaches your take-home pay, after tax, National Insurance, pension and student loan.
Why it matters
Why a raise can be taxed at more than your normal rate
Your average tax rate — tax and NI as a share of your whole salary — isn’t the same as the marginal rate on a raise, which is what matters for working out how much of a pay rise you’ll actually see. A raise is taxed at the rate that applies to the top slice of your income, not your average rate across the whole salary.
This matters most between £100,000 and £125,140, where the Personal Allowance is withdrawn at £1 for every £2 earned — on top of 40% tax and 2% National Insurance, that produces an effective marginal rate often quoted as around 60%. A raise that pushes you into or through this band can leave you keeping far less of it than a raise of the same size lower down the income scale. This calculator flags it directly when your rise crosses into a different band.
Nearby
Different-sized rises, same starting salary
Based on your current salary and settings above, at a few common rise percentages. Your own figure is highlighted.
| Rise | New salary | Extra take-home, per year | You keep |
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Questions
Common questions
How much of a pay rise do I actually keep?
It depends which tax band the rise falls in. In the basic-rate band, you typically keep around 72p of every extra £1 (after 20% tax and 8% National Insurance). In the higher-rate band it drops to around 58p, and in the £100,000–£125,140 Personal Allowance taper zone it can fall to around 38p, before recovering slightly to around 53p above £125,140.
What is the 60% tax trap?
Between £100,000 and £125,140, you lose £1 of Personal Allowance for every £2 you earn above £100,000. Combined with 40% tax and 2% National Insurance on that income, the effective marginal rate on earnings in this band is often quoted as roughly 60% — meaning a £1,000 raise in this range can add only around £400 to your take-home pay.
Does a pension contribution help with a pay rise that crosses £100,000?
Sacrificing part of a raise into a pension reduces the income used to test the Personal Allowance taper, so it can avoid or reduce the 60% trap — this calculator lets you set a pension percentage to see the effect, though the exact strategy depends on your own circumstances.
Is a percentage rise or a £ amount rise better?
Neither is inherently better — they’re just two ways of describing the same change. A 10% rise on a £30,000 salary is £3,000; the same £3,000 rise on a £60,000 salary is only 5%. What matters for your take-home is the resulting new salary and which tax band it falls in.
Does this include National Insurance as well as tax?
Yes — the keep-rate shown accounts for Income Tax, National Insurance, pension contributions and student loan repayments on the 2026/27 rates, not tax alone.
Where these figures come from. Income tax, National Insurance and student loan rates are taken from gov.uk for the 2026/27 tax year, including the Personal Allowance taper between £100,000 and £125,140. All figures were checked on 23 September 2026.
Income Tax rates and Personal Allowances · Income over £100,000 and the Personal Allowance
How we calculate · Editorial policy. This is general information, not tax or financial advice.