England & Wales · 2026/27
£21,000 after tax
A salary of £21,000 in England, Wales & Northern Ireland leaves £18,639.60 a year — £1,553.30 a month. The next £100 you earn is taxed at 28%.
- Take-home a year
- £18,639.60
- £1,553.30 a month · £358.45 a week
- Total deductions
- £2,360.40
- 11.2% of gross pay
- On your next £100
- 28%
- You keep £72 of the next £100
- Cost to employ you
- £23,400
- Includes £2,400 of employer NI absent from your payslip
- The wedge
- 20.3%
- Share of that cost that never reaches you
What matters at £21,000
At this salary the arithmetic is about as simple as UK pay gets, and two thresholds are doing all the work. The first £12,570 you earn is free of income tax and National Insurance alike; everything above it is taxed at 28% combined. There are no tapers here, no charges and no cliffs — which is worth knowing, because it means a rise at this salary is worth more in your hand than the same rise almost anywhere higher up the scale.
Two things are close enough to plan around. A Plan 2 student loan starts taking 9% at £29,385, which is £8,385 above this salary — so if you have one, a rise of that size costs more at the margin than it looks. The higher rate of income tax starts at £50,271, £29,271 away.
Because the personal allowance is a fixed amount rather than a share of your pay, it is worth proportionally more the less you earn. Your effective rate here is 11.2% — well under the 28% headline — and that gap narrows steadily as pay rises.
Where the money actually goes
Your payslip shows £21,000 going in and £18,639.60 coming out. It does not show the £2,400 your employer pays in National Insurance on top — money spent to employ you that you never see. Counting it, the job costs £23,400 and 20.3% of that never reaches you.
- Take-home £18,639.60 79.7%
- Your NI £674.40 2.9%
- Income tax £1,686 7.2%
- Employer NI £2,400 10.3%
The arithmetic, step by step
| Step | Applied to | Rate | Amount |
|---|---|---|---|
| Gross pay | — | — | £21,000 |
| Personal allowance | tax-free | 0% | −£12,570 |
| Taxable income | — | — | £8,430 |
| Basic rate | £8,430 of it | 20% | £1,686 |
| Income tax | — | — | £1,686 |
| National Insurance — main rate | £8,430 of it | 8% | £674.40 |
| National Insurance | — | — | £674.40 |
| Take-home pay | — | — | £18,639.60 |
Adding the deductions gives £2,360.40, and £21,000 less that is the £18,639.60 take-home above. National Insurance is charged per pay period rather than annually, so a month containing a bonus can pay more than this.
£21,000 a month, a week, an hour
| Period | Gross | Deductions | Take-home |
|---|---|---|---|
| A year | £21,000 | £2,360.40 | £18,639.60 |
| A month | £1,750 | £196.70 | £1,553.30 |
| Four-weekly | £1,615.38 | £181.57 | £1,433.82 |
| Fortnightly | £807.69 | £90.78 | £716.91 |
| A week | £403.85 | £45.39 | £358.45 |
| An hour (37.5h week) | £10.77 | £1.21 | £9.56 |
A four-weekly payroll pays £1,433.82 thirteen times a year rather than £1,553.30 twelve times — the same annual total, arriving in smaller and more frequent amounts. Hourly assumes 37.5 paid hours a week for 52 weeks.
The rate on your next £100
At £21,000 the rate on further pay is 28%, so the next £100 you earn is worth £72 in your hand and £28 to the Exchequer. An hour of overtime at the implied rate of £10.77 is worth £7.75. Those are the figures a take-home total cannot give you, and they are what a rise, a bonus or a pension contribution is actually priced at.
A £1,000 rise on this salary is worth £720 in your hand — 72.0% of it — or £60 a month. It costs your employer £1,150.
What is close to £21,000
£21,000 sits between two things that matter. £8,430 below you is the personal allowance, and £4,000 above you is the Plan 5 repayment threshold — so this salary is already past one change and approaching another.
| What changes | At | From here | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Plan 5 repayment threshold | £25,000 | +£4,000 | ahead |
| Plan 1 repayment threshold | £26,900 | +£5,900 | ahead |
| Plan 2 repayment threshold | £29,385 | +£8,385 | ahead |
| Personal allowance | £12,570 | −£8,430 | passed |
Measured against the 2026/27 parameters for England, Wales & Northern Ireland. Distances are on gross pay before any salary sacrifice, because that is the figure every one of these thresholds is tested against.
- £25,000 — Plan 5 has not started. A borrower pays nothing until £4,000 more, and then 9% of the excess.
- £26,900 — Plan 1 has not started. A borrower pays nothing until £5,900 more, and then 9% of the excess.
- £29,385 — Plan 2 has not started. A borrower pays nothing until £8,385 more, and then 9% of the excess.
- £12,570 — Above it income tax starts, and the first pound over is taxed while the ones under it are not.
If your pay moved
A swing of ten per cent either way from £21,000 does not cross a single band: the rate on further pay stays at 28% across the whole range from £18,900 to £23,100. That makes this an unusually predictable place to be paid, and it means the arithmetic below scales — a rise of any size in that range is worth the same proportion in your hand.
| If pay moved | Gross | Take-home | Change | Next £100 taxed at |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| −10% | £18,900 | £17,127.60 | −£1,512 | 28% |
| −5% | £19,950 | £17,883.60 | −£756 | 28% |
| +5% | £22,050 | £19,395.60 | +£756 | 28% |
| +10% | £23,100 | £20,151.60 | +£1,512 | 28% |
What a pension contribution buys here
There is no threshold within reach below £21,000, so a pension contribution here is not about ducking under anything — it is simply the ordinary trade. Sacrificing £1,000 costs you £720 in take-home, because 28% of it was never going to reach you anyway, and puts the full £1,000 into the pot. That is £1,000 of saving for £720 of spending power — a ratio of 1.39 to one, and it is the same ratio for every pound until the next band.
With a student loan
A Plan 2 loan takes 9% of everything above £29,385 — which at £21,000 means £0 a year, or £0 a month. It is not a tax, but it leaves the same pay on the same day, so it belongs in the rate you use to decide anything: it moves your next £100 from 28% to 28%.
| No loan | Plan 2 loan | |
|---|---|---|
| Take-home a year | £18,639.60 | £18,639.60 |
| Take-home a month | £1,553.30 | £1,553.30 |
| Repayment a year | — | £0 |
| Rate on your next £100 | 28% | 28% |
Which plan, and what each one takes
No student loan repays anything at £21,000. The lowest threshold of the five is Postgraduate Loan at £21,000, which is £0 above this salary, so a borrower on any plan pays nothing at all here. That changes the moment pay crosses it, and it changes by 6% of the excess rather than by a flat amount.
£21,000 elsewhere in the UK
Income tax is devolved to Scotland; National Insurance is not. At £21,000 the two regimes differ by £39.67 a year in take-home and 0 percentage points at the margin — and neither gap is constant, because the two sets of bands cross each other rather than running parallel.
| Where you live | Income tax | Take-home | Difference | Next £100 taxed at |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| England & Wales | £1,686 | £18,639.60 | — | 28% |
| Scotland | £1,646.33 | £18,679.27 | +£39.67 | 28% |
National Insurance is identical everywhere in the UK, so the whole difference is income tax.
Questions people actually ask
How much is £21,000 a year after tax?
£18,639.60 a year — £1,553.30 a month. That is after £1,686 of income tax and £674.40 of National Insurance on the 2026/27 rates for England, Wales & Northern Ireland.
How much is £21,000 a month after tax?
£1,553.30 if you are paid monthly. A four-weekly payroll pays £1,433.82 thirteen times a year instead, and a fortnightly one pays £716.91.
What is the tax rate on £21,000?
Two different numbers, and confusing them is the usual mistake. Your effective rate — total tax and NI over gross pay — is 11.2%. Your marginal rate, on the next £100 you earn, is 28%. The marginal one is what decides whether a rise or a pension contribution is worth it.
What does £21,000 cost my employer?
£23,400. On top of your salary they pay £2,400 of employer National Insurance, which never appears on your payslip. Of that total, 20.3% goes in tax and National Insurance rather than to you.
How much is £21,000 after tax with a student loan?
£18,639.60 on Plan 2 — £0 a year less. Repayment is 9% of everything above £29,385, and it pushes the rate on your next £100 from 28% to 28%.
Is £21,000 enough to pay student loan repayments?
Not on Plan 2, Plan 4 or Plan 1: all three start above this salary, the lowest at £25,000 for Plan 5. If you are on Plan 5 you would repay £0 a year at £21,000; on the others, nothing.
How much more would I keep from a £1,000 rise at £21,000?
£720 — 72% of it, because your marginal rate here is 28%. That is one of the better rates on the whole scale.
One PAYE job, standard tax code, 2026/27 rates, employment income only. What this does and does not model →