Pension take-home pay calculator

The same salary under all three methods

The calculator above runs relief at source, on qualifying earnings rather than your whole salary. These figures come from the same engine, at £35,000 a year and 5%, England, standard tax code, no student loan, 2026/27 rates. The method that leaves the most in your pocket is also the one that puts the least in the pot.

• Relief at source: £1,150 leaves your pay after Income Tax has been worked out, the provider reclaims basic-rate relief from HMRC, and £1,438 reaches the pension. Taxable pay and National Insurance do not move. Take-home is £27,569, about £2,297 a month.
• Net pay: the rate is applied to full gross pay and the contribution comes off before Income Tax, so £1,750 reaches the pension and relief lands at your highest rate at once. National Insurance is still charged on the full amount. Take-home is £27,320.
• Salary sacrifice: contractual pay falls and the employer pays the same £1,750 in. Income Tax matches net pay, and National Insurance is charged on the reduced pay. Take-home is £27,460, which is £140 a year more than net pay.

Why relief at source shows the higher take-home

Take-home is £249 higher under relief at source than under net pay in that comparison, and that is not a saving. It is the effect of a smaller contribution: £1,438 reaches the pension under relief at source against £1,750 under net pay, and the take-home difference is what is left of that gap once basic-rate relief is taken off it. Put the same cash amount in under either method and the net cost per pound reaching the pension is the same.

• That equivalence holds for a basic-rate taxpayer. It does not hold for someone earning too little to pay Income Tax: relief at source still adds basic-rate relief to the pot, within a limit set for non-taxpayers, while net pay would give relief against tax that was never due, so there is nothing to give.

The gap between salary sacrifice and net pay

The £140 is the sacrificed amount multiplied by the employee National Insurance rate applying to that slice of pay, and nothing else, which is why the Income Tax figures for the two methods match. On the part of pay above the upper earnings limit a lower National Insurance rate applies, so the saving on that slice is smaller.

The band of pay a contribution can be worked out on

Automatic enrolment sets its minimum contributions on a slice of pay called qualifying earnings: the part of gross pay above a lower limit and up to an upper limit, both set for the tax year. In 2026/27 that band runs from £6,240 to £50,270, so on £35,000 the band is £28,760 rather than the whole salary. Working on a band keeps one minimum percentage comparable across very different salaries. Which basis a scheme uses is a separate question from which relief method it uses, and a scheme may use a better basis such as full basic pay, which is why a payslip percentage can look right while the cash amount does not match.

What salary sacrifice can cost elsewhere

Sacrifice depends on an employer scheme and on a change to your contract, so it is not something you can switch on by yourself. Reducing contractual pay can lower statutory maternity, paternity and sick pay, contribution-based benefits, and the salary figure a lender or referencing agency works from. It also cannot take cash pay below the National Minimum Wage or National Living Wage for the pay period, and this page does not check that floor for you.

What this page does not decide

This is a modelling tool. It estimates a payslip under the assumptions stated above and does not confirm that your scheme is run the way you assume. It does not model the annual allowance, which caps what can be paid into all your pensions with tax relief in one tax year, and it does not model an employer contribution, which is money on top of anything shown here.