Plan salary sacrifice outside pension with separate BIK, OpRA cash-foregone, and taxable benefit assumptions.
Salary sacrifice is not only pensions. This page keeps benefit-in-kind, OpRA cash foregone, employee payments made good, and custom employer taxable values separate so the estimate does not treat a non-cash benefit as take-home cash.
On £35,000 a year with a standard 2026/27 tax code, no pension, no student loan, the figures work out like this. Open a calculator to put your own numbers in.
| Tax/source year | 2026/27 |
|---|---|
| Region | England/Wales/Northern Ireland |
| Tax code basis | 1257L where the page uses PAYE defaults |
| Pension basis | No pension deduction unless this example says otherwise |
| Student loan basis | No student loan unless selected in this example |
| What is not decided here | PayBreakdown does not decide payroll correctness, lender approval, benefit entitlement or employer compliance, and does not give regulated financial, mortgage, debt, tax, payroll or legal advice. |
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The figures on this page are worked from salary sacrifice benefits, using the values below. Open the calculator if your example salary differs.
A pension sacrifice saves both Income Tax and National Insurance because pension contributions are not taxed on the way in. Most other sacrificed benefits do not get that treatment. Under the Optional Remuneration Arrangement rules, a benefit taken by giving up salary is generally taxed on the higher of the benefit's own taxable value and the salary you gave up for it — which removes the Income Tax advantage for most benefits and leaves, at best, a National Insurance saving. The exceptions Parliament chose to keep are the ones with their own policy goals: pension contributions, ultra-low-emission vehicles, cycle-to-work equipment, and employer-supported childcare under the older schemes.
The estimate on this page shows the payslip mechanics. Whether the arrangement is worth it depends on details only the scheme paperwork can answer.
This estimate is worked out on £35,000 annual gross. Change any of those and the take-home figure moves; pension method and student loan plan usually move it most. A payslip can differ from any calculator because payroll works pay period by pay period, so a tax-code change, a bonus, arrears or a refund can land in one month and not the next. See how each deduction is worked out.
No. It is an estimate worked from published HMRC and GOV.UK figures for the current tax year, using the assumptions shown on this page. It cannot see your tax code history, benefits in kind or employer payroll rules, so check important decisions against your payslip, official guidance or a qualified adviser.
Yes. Open the linked calculator to change the salary, pension, tax code, region or student loan plan and the figures update as you type.
Last updated 2026-08-28. Checked by Sean Elsmore. Rates last checked against GOV.UK on 2026-08-07. Estimates are for planning and should be checked against official records where the decision matters.