Salary Scales and Take-Home Pay: How UK Pay Is Worked Out

Salary scales explained: gross pay versus take-home pay

Salary scales are the published pay structures that employers, sectors and governments use to set out what a job pays at each level. They might be the statutory National Living Wage, an NHS Agenda for Change band, a teacher pay range, or a private company's internal grade structure. Whatever form it takes, a salary scale gives you a gross figure — the pay before deductions. The money that actually reaches your bank account is take-home pay, or net pay, and it is usually noticeably smaller.

This guide explains how the main deductions work, using published figures from the ONS, GOV.UK and HMRC. You can apply the same logic to your own contract with our take-home calculator, and the wider figures are gathered in our salary data pages.

What comes off a gross salary

Your employer operates PAYE and deducts, broadly in this order:

• Income Tax
• employee National Insurance contributions (NICs)
• any workplace pension contribution
• student loan repayments, where you have one
• other items such as benefits in kind or a salary sacrifice arrangement

Income Tax and NICs are calculated separately, each against its own threshold — they do not stack on top of one another. What remains after everything is your take-home pay.

Where UK salary scales figures come from

ONS ASHE

The ONS Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings is the definitive annual measure of full-time pay. The latest complete survey put the median full-time salary at £39,039 a year. That single figure sits behind most discussion of UK salary scales, and it is why a full-time worker on the median takes home roughly £2,636 a month on the standard assumptions.

HMRC PAYE Real Time Information

For a more timely read, HMRC's PAYE RTI data, published monthly by the ONS, shows median monthly pay across all payrolled employees at £2,632, up 4.3% on a year earlier. Because it covers part-time as well as full-time staff, it sits below the full-time median — useful for spotting direction of travel, less useful as a target figure.

Employer salary scales

Beyond the national statistics, individual salary scales matter more for your own pay: NHS bands, teacher pay ranges, civil service grades and private-sector pay bands all set gross pay at each step.

Income Tax: how the bands work

For England, Wales and Northern Ireland, the bands are:

Band	Income	Rate
Personal Allowance	Up to £12,570	0%
Basic rate	£12,571 to £50,270	20%
Higher rate	£50,271 to £125,140	40%
Additional rate	Over £125,140	45%

Tax is charged in slices. Only the part of your pay inside a band is taxed at that band's rate, so moving up a salary scale into a higher band never reduces your take-home pay — it simply means a larger share of the extra is taxed at the higher rate. Above £100,000 the Personal Allowance tapers away, by £1 for every £2 of income, which pushes the effective rate up sharply in that range.

Employee National Insurance

NICs are charged at 8% on earnings between £12,570 and £50,270, then 2% above that. They are worked out on each pay period rather than annually, and they stop when you reach State Pension age. Your contributions also build entitlement to the State Pension and certain benefits.

On a £35,000 salary, that means £4,486 in Income Tax and £1,794.40 in NICs, leaving £28,719.60 a year — about £2,393 a month, and roughly 82p kept from every £1 earned.

Pension and student loan deductions

Workplace pension contributions can come out before tax if your scheme uses salary sacrifice or net pay, which means each £1 into your pension costs you less than £1 of take-home pay. Under relief at source, you pay first and the provider claims basic-rate relief on your behalf.

Student loan repayments are separate again and depend on your plan:

Plan	Threshold	Rate
Plan 1	£26,900	9%
Plan 2	£29,385	9%
Plan 4 (Scotland)	£33,795	9%
Plan 5	£25,000	9%
Postgraduate Loan	£21,000	6%

A pay rise that lifts you above a threshold, or increases your repayment, changes your take-home figure even though your gross salary scale figure has moved by only a modest amount.

What different salary scales pay after tax

Approximate figures for a single person on the standard Personal Allowance, with no pension and no student loan:

Gross salary	Income Tax	NICs	Take-home a year	A month
£25,000	£2,486	£994	£21,520	£1,793
£30,000	£3,486	£1,394	£25,120	£2,093
£35,000	£4,486	£1,794	£28,720	£2,393
£39,039 (median)	£5,294	£2,118	£31,627	£2,636
£40,000	£5,486	£2,194	£32,320	£2,693
£50,000	£7,486	£2,994	£39,520	£3,293
£60,000	£11,432	£3,211	£45,357	£3,780
£75,000	£17,432	£3,511	£54,057	£4,505

Public sector salary scales: NHS and teaching

NHS staff in England are paid under Agenda for Change. The 2026/27 rates show Band 5 at £32,073 to £39,043, Band 6 at £39,959 to £48,117, Band 7 at £49,387 to £56,515, Band 8a at £57,528 to £64,750 and Band 9 at £112,782 to £129,783. Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland operate separate NHS pay frameworks with different rates, so the same job title can sit on a different salary scale depending on where you work.

State school teachers in England have pay ranges of roughly £31,650 to £49,084 depending on point and responsibility. Role-level figures are indicative only — a registered nurse sits around £36,000, a classroom teacher around £40,000 and a software developer around £55,000, but actual pay varies widely by employer, sector and region.

Minimum wage salary scales

GOV.UK National Living Wage and National Minimum Wage rates from 1 April 2026 set the statutory floor:

Worker category	Hourly rate	Approx. annual (36 hrs)
21 and over (National Living Wage)	£12.71	£23,800
18 to 20	£10.85	£20,300
Under 18	£8.00	£15,000
Apprentice	£8.00	£15,000

At 37.5 hours a week, the National Living Wage comes to roughly £24,785 gross a year — broadly £1,780 a month after Income Tax and NICs on the standard assumptions.

Scotland, tax codes and checking your payslip

Scotland sets its own Income Tax bands, running from 19% to 48%, so two employees on identical salary scales can take home different amounts depending on where they live. NICs and student loan repayments are the same across the UK.

Your tax code determines how much tax-free pay you receive. The standard code is 1257L, meaning £12,570 of tax-free pay. A different code usually means HMRC is collecting tax on a benefit, adjusting for an earlier underpayment, or applying extra allowances. Our salary articles cover more deduction scenarios, and the take-home calculator will run your own figures against your tax code, pension and student loan plan.