What Us Minimum Wage UK Means for Gross and Take-Home Pay

What "what us minimum wage uk" means in practice

People searching for what us minimum wage uk are usually after two things at once: the statutory hourly floor, and the money that actually reaches a bank account. Those are not the same number. GOV.UK National Living Wage and National Minimum Wage rates set the legal hourly minimum an employer must pay. Income Tax and employee National Insurance are then collected through PAYE, alongside any pension contribution or student loan repayment. A job advert quotes gross salary; a payslip shows net, or take-home, pay.

The hourly floor is set nationally and applies in England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. What varies around the UK is the tax treatment, most visibly in Scotland, and, further up the scale, how far a salary has climbed above the minimum.

The rates in force from April 2026

GOV.UK National Living Wage and National Minimum Wage rates are:

• 21 and over: £12.71 an hour, up from £12.21
• 18 to 20: £10.85, up from £10.00
• 16 to 17: £8.00, up from £7.55
• Apprentices: £8.00

The apprentice rate covers apprentices under 19 and those aged 19 or over in the first year of their apprenticeship; after that they move to the rate for their age. The National Living Wage applies from age 21, and younger workers sit on National Minimum Wage rates.

Gross pay versus take-home pay

At £12.71 an hour over 37.5 paid hours a week, gross pay is £476.63 a week, £2,065.38 a month or £24,784.50 a year. Forty hours a week lifts gross pay to £26,436.80, while 35 hours gives £23,132.20. The annual figure assumes 52 paid weeks, with holiday paid at the same rate.

Income Tax at this level is easy to follow. The Personal Allowance of £12,570 is untaxed, and the remaining £12,214.50 is charged at the basic rate of 20%, giving £2,442.90. Employee National Insurance is 8% of the same £12,214.50, giving £977.16. Take-home pay is therefore £21,364.44 a year, £1,780.37 a month or about £10.96 an hour after deductions.

The effective deduction rate is roughly 14%. That is far lower than a higher earner pays, largely because the Personal Allowance absorbs so much of a minimum-wage salary. Income Tax and National Insurance are calculated separately on the same pay using their own thresholds, so the two can simply be added together.

Hours a week	Gross annual	Income Tax	National Insurance	Take-home annual	Take-home monthly
35 hours	£23,132.20	£2,112.44	£844.98	£20,174.78	£1,681.23
37.5 hours	£24,784.50	£2,442.90	£977.16	£21,364.44	£1,780.37
40 hours	£26,436.80	£2,773.36	£1,109.34	£22,554.10	£1,879.51

Younger workers on the National Minimum Wage

At 37.5 hours a week, the 18 to 20 rate of £10.85 gives £21,157.50 gross, £1,717.50 of Income Tax and £687.00 of National Insurance, leaving £18,753.00 a year or £1,562.75 a month. At £8.00, gross pay is £15,600 a year, tax is £606.00, National Insurance is £242.40, and take-home is £14,751.60, or £1,229.30 a month. Anyone earning under £12,570 pays no Income Tax at all.

Scotland pays the same minimum wage but different Income Tax

Scotland sets its own Income Tax bands and rates, running from 19% to 48%, while National Insurance and student loan repayments stay UK-wide. At National Living Wage earnings the 19% Scottish starter rate reduces the bill: income tax is about £39.67 lower across the year, so take-home is around £1,783.68 a month, a little ahead of the rest of the UK.

The advantage reverses higher up. The Scottish higher rate starts at a lower threshold than the UK 40% band, so a Scottish taxpayer on £50,000 takes home roughly £1,496 a year less than someone on the same salary in England, Wales or Northern Ireland. Once the 42% Scottish higher rate is combined with 8% National Insurance, additional earnings are hit at around 50p in the pound. Lower and middle earners see very little difference: on £35,000 the gap is only about £15 a year.

Does the minimum wage differ by region?

Not the rate itself. The statutory floor applies in every nation and region, and no employer may pay below the rate for the worker's age band. Regional differences show up elsewhere, in how many local jobs sit at or just above the minimum, and in typical pay levels for the area. ONS ASHE publishes median full-time earnings by region and nation, and those medians do vary, with some areas well above and others below the UK figure. Precise regional medians are not reproduced here; the ONS ASHE release is the place to check them.

For context, UK median full-time gross pay is around £39,039 a year, which is roughly £2,636 a month after Income Tax and National Insurance. That is a useful yardstick when comparing a minimum-wage role with a more senior one.

Seniority: what moving above the minimum is worth

Minimum-wage work sits at the bottom of the pay ladder, and some common roles cluster close to it. Care work is typically around £24,000 gross, and retail assistance around £23,000, both barely above the £24,785 full-time National Living Wage figure. Moving up a step, HGV and delivery driving is around £32,000, an NHS registered nurse around £36,000 and a police constable around £38,000. Further up, a classroom teacher is around £40,000, an accountant around £42,000 and a software developer around £55,000. These are indicative gross figures from public pay scales and pay surveys; your own salary depends on employer, region and experience.

The step up in take-home pay is not proportional to the step up in gross pay, because the 8% National Insurance band and higher-rate tax start to bite. Indicative take-home figures on the standard tax code, with no pension or student loan, look like this:

Gross salary	Income Tax	National Insurance	Take-home annual	Take-home monthly
£20,000	£1,486	£594	£17,920	£1,493
£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
£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

You can run your own figures through the take-home calculator, and compare broader patterns in the salary data.

Pensions and student loans change the picture

Auto-enrolment applies from age 22 to anyone earning over £10,000 a year, so most full-time workers on the National Living Wage are enrolled. A 5% employee contribution is around £103 a month on 37.5-hour gross pay, and the reduction in take-home pay is smaller than that headline figure because pension contributions attract tax relief. Salary sacrifice arrangements also reduce National Insurance, so each pound into a pension costs less than a pound of net pay.

Student loans are a smaller factor at minimum-wage pay. Plan 1 (£26,900), Plan 2 (£29,385) and Plan 4 (£33,795) thresholds all sit above full-time National Living Wage earnings. Plan 5 bites at £25,000, so 9% repayments start on the excess, and the Postgraduate Loan threshold of £21,000 means 6% repayments apply at National Living Wage earnings. Repayments are based on income above the threshold, not on the balance outstanding, and they stop once the loan is cleared.

Checking your own figures

Your tax code tells your employer how much tax-free pay to give you; the standard code is 1257L, worth £12,570. A different code may mean HMRC is collecting tax on a benefit, recovering underpaid tax or giving you extra allowances. When you compare a job offer, compare gross with gross, then work out the net figure using your own pension rate, student loan plan and, if you live in Scotland, Scottish Income Tax bands. Our salary articles cover the common deductions in more detail.

Figures quoted here are public-statistics or calculator estimates for a single person with the standard Personal Allowance, no pension contributions and no student loan. Actual take-home pay varies by tax code, pension, Scottish rates, benefits in kind and other deductions, so always check your payslip and official GOV.UK guidance.