Estimate pro rata salary and take-home pay for reduced hours, part-time work, furlough-style comparisons, and changed working patterns.
Pro rata pay scales a full-time salary by the hours actually worked, so 60% of the hours — 22.5 against 37.5 — is 60% of the gross. Take-home does not follow that line: on the figures below it comes to 65.4% of the full-time take-home, not 60%. The Personal Allowance and the National Insurance threshold are fixed cash amounts rather than percentages, so they do not shrink with the hours and the smaller salary keeps a larger share of itself.
Enter the full-time equivalent as an hourly rate and your actual hours. If the cut is to your pay rather than your hours, leave the hours alone and set the percentage of full pay instead.
Of £18,720.00 gross a year: Income Tax £1,230.00, National Insurance £492.00, Take-home £16,998.00.
Saving £70 a month — about 5% of this take-home — becomes £4,632.53 in five years at an example 4%: try the savings calculator.
2026/27 rates, England, Wales and Northern Ireland, no student loan. Open the full calculator to change region, student loan or pension method.
Payslip showing different figures? The payslip checker works out what your pay and tax code should have produced and shows which assumption could explain the gap.
| 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 |
| Gross pay | Employment pay before PAYE deductions and pension or loan settings. |
|---|---|
| Income Tax | Tax estimated from the selected tax-year, region, tax code and taxable-pay assumptions. |
| National Insurance | Employee NI is calculated separately from Income Tax and may not follow the same bands. |
| Pension and loans | Pension method and student-loan plan can change take-home pay and payslip comparisons. |
| Pension contribution | Changing the rate or method can change taxable income, National Insurance and take-home pay. |
|---|---|
| Tax code and region | Scottish Income Tax, Welsh codes, emergency tax or a non-standard tax code can move the result. |
| Student loan plan | A different plan can change deductions because each plan uses its own threshold and repayment rate. |
| Bonus, overtime or second job | Extra pay and payroll timing can make a real payslip differ from the smooth annual estimate. |
| Tax code | HMRC tax-code changes, K codes, BR/D codes, or emergency markers can change PAYE deductions. |
|---|---|
| Cumulative basis | Week 1, Month 1 or non-cumulative payroll can differ from a smooth annual calculator estimate. |
| Pension method | Relief at source, net pay and salary sacrifice can affect taxable pay and take-home pay differently. |
| Payroll timing | Bonus, overtime, arrears, refunds, cut-off dates and corrections can all move a single payslip. |
| Why is the tax on my payslip higher than expected? | payslip difference |
|---|---|
| What do the main payslip lines mean? | payslip explainer |
| What tax code should I use for modelling? | tax code |
| How much does pension reduce take-home pay? | pension comparison |
| How does this affect a monthly budget? | budget planning |
| 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. |
|---|
The figures on this page are worked from pro rata salary, using the values below. Open the calculator if your example salary differs.
Pro rata pay is the full-time equivalent multiplied by your share of the full-time hours. At £16 an hour a 37.5-hour week is £31,200 a year. The table takes that same rate down from there.
Gross pay follows the hours exactly. Take-home does not: the last column never falls as far as the second one does.
| Hours a week | Share of full-time hours | Gross a year | Take-home a year | Share of full-time take-home |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 37.5 | 100% | £31,200 | £25,984 | 100% |
| 30 | 80% | £24,960 | £21,491 | 82.7% |
| 22.5 | 60% | £18,720 | £16,998 | 65.4% |
| 15 | 40% | £12,480 | £12,480 | 48% |
Two things move when hours come down, and they move differently.
Statutory holiday scales, but it counts days rather than hours. It is set in weeks, so it converts to whatever your working week is: 28 days for a five-day week, 16.8 for a three-day week. Cutting hours without cutting days changes nothing — five shorter days is still 28 days of leave, each one shorter.
Two limits sit on that. Entitlement stops rising at 28 days, so a 6-day week gets no more leave than a five-day one. And irregular hours or part-year work accrue as a percentage of the hours actually worked rather than as a share of a standard week, which is a different calculation again.
The Personal Allowance does not scale at all. It is the same cash amount whatever the hours, so as the salary falls the allowance covers more and more of it. That is the whole of the effect in the table: the tax and National Insurance fall faster than the hours do, and the take-home column keeps a larger share of itself at every step down.
Read the bottom row. Its gross is £12,480, under the £12,570 Personal Allowance, so there is no Income Tax and no National Insurance to pay: gross and take-home are the same number, and the share of full-time take-home stops falling in step with the hours entirely.
That holds while the hours are the same every pay period. Income Tax on a cumulative code settles over the year either way, but National Insurance is charged on each period on its own and is not reconciled afterwards, so a heavier week can carry National Insurance that a lighter week does not give back.
That is the end of a curve, not a cliff. Every step down the table keeps a larger share of itself than the one above, and the last step is much the largest, and the bottom row is simply where there is nothing left to deduct. It is also why comparing two part-time offers on gross alone can mislead: the gap between them after tax is narrower than the gap before it.
A pro-rata salary is usually quoted two ways: the full-time equivalent, which is the number in the advertisement, and the actual figure, which is what gets paid. They are not alternatives and both are correct — the first describes the rate, the second describes the job.
The box works from the rate and the hours rather than from the two salaries, because that is the form a part-time offer usually arrives in. If you have been given a full-time equivalent and a fraction instead, divide the equivalent by the full-time hours to get the rate first.
This estimate is worked out on £18,720 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.
It starts from the question on this page, shows the useful salary assumptions, and opens PayBreakdown's calculator so gross pay, take-home pay, tax, National Insurance, pension, student loan, region, and tax-code settings can be adjusted.
Yes. Open the calculator from this page to change salary, hours, pension, student loan, tax year, region, tax code, bonus, and other pay settings.
Last updated 2026-08-27. 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.