England & Wales · 2026/27
£24,000 after tax
A salary of £24,000 in England, Wales & Northern Ireland leaves £20,799.60 a year — £1,733.30 a month. The next £100 you earn is taxed at 28%.
- Take-home a year
- £20,799.60
- £1,733.30 a month · £399.99 a week
- Total deductions
- £3,200.40
- 13.3% of gross pay
- On your next £100
- 28%
- You keep £72 of the next £100
- Cost to employ you
- £26,850
- Includes £2,850 of employer NI absent from your payslip
- The wedge
- 22.5%
- Share of that cost that never reaches you
What matters at £24,000
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 £5,385 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, £26,271 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 13.3% — well under the 28% headline — and that gap narrows steadily as pay rises.
Where the money actually goes
Your payslip shows £24,000 going in and £20,799.60 coming out. It does not show the £2,850 your employer pays in National Insurance on top — money spent to employ you that you never see. Counting it, the job costs £26,850 and 22.5% of that never reaches you.
- Take-home £20,799.60 77.5%
- Your NI £914.40 3.4%
- Income tax £2,286 8.5%
- Employer NI £2,850 10.6%
The arithmetic, step by step
| Step | Applied to | Rate | Amount |
|---|---|---|---|
| Gross pay | — | — | £24,000 |
| Personal allowance | tax-free | 0% | −£12,570 |
| Taxable income | — | — | £11,430 |
| Basic rate | £11,430 of it | 20% | £2,286 |
| Income tax | — | — | £2,286 |
| National Insurance — main rate | £11,430 of it | 8% | £914.40 |
| National Insurance | — | — | £914.40 |
| Take-home pay | — | — | £20,799.60 |
Adding the deductions gives £3,200.40, and £24,000 less that is the £20,799.60 take-home above. National Insurance is charged per pay period rather than annually, so a month containing a bonus can pay more than this.
£24,000 a month, a week, an hour
| Period | Gross | Deductions | Take-home |
|---|---|---|---|
| A year | £24,000 | £3,200.40 | £20,799.60 |
| A month | £2,000 | £266.70 | £1,733.30 |
| Four-weekly | £1,846.15 | £246.18 | £1,599.97 |
| Fortnightly | £923.08 | £123.09 | £799.98 |
| A week | £461.54 | £61.55 | £399.99 |
| An hour (37.5h week) | £12.31 | £1.64 | £10.67 |
A four-weekly payroll pays £1,599.97 thirteen times a year rather than £1,733.30 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 £24,000 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 £12.31 is worth £8.86. 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 £24,000
£24,000 sits between two things that matter. £3,000 below you is the Postgraduate Loan repayment threshold, and £1,000 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 | +£1,000 | ahead |
| Plan 1 repayment threshold | £26,900 | +£2,900 | ahead |
| Postgraduate Loan repayment threshold | £21,000 | −£3,000 | passed |
| Plan 2 repayment threshold | £29,385 | +£5,385 | ahead |
| Plan 4 (Scotland) repayment threshold | £33,795 | +£9,795 | ahead |
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 £1,000 more, and then 9% of the excess.
- £26,900 — Plan 1 has not started. A borrower pays nothing until £2,900 more, and then 9% of the excess.
- £21,000 — Postgraduate Loan takes 6% of the £3,000 above its threshold. It is not a tax, but it leaves the same pay on the same day.
- £29,385 — Plan 2 has not started. A borrower pays nothing until £5,385 more, and then 9% of the excess.
- £33,795 — Plan 4 (Scotland) has not started. A borrower pays nothing until £9,795 more, and then 9% of the excess.
If your pay moved
A swing of ten per cent either way from £24,000 does not cross a single band: the rate on further pay stays at 28% across the whole range from £21,600 to £26,400. 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% | £21,600 | £19,071.60 | −£1,728 | 28% |
| −5% | £22,800 | £19,935.60 | −£864 | 28% |
| +5% | £25,200 | £21,663.60 | +£864 | 28% |
| +10% | £26,400 | £22,527.60 | +£1,728 | 28% |
What a pension contribution buys here
There is no threshold within reach below £24,000, 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 £24,000 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 | £20,799.60 | £20,799.60 |
| Take-home a month | £1,733.30 | £1,733.30 |
| Repayment a year | — | £0 |
| Rate on your next £100 | 28% | 28% |
Which plan, and what each one takes
1 of the five repayment thresholds are behind £24,000 and 4 are still ahead — Plan 5 at £25,000, Plan 1 at £26,900, Plan 2 at £29,385, Plan 4 (Scotland) at £33,795. Which plan you are on is not a choice, and the difference between them at this salary is £0 a year, so it is worth knowing which one your payslip is deducting.
| Plan | Starts at | Repaid a year | A month | Your next £100 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Postgraduate Loan | £21,000 | £180 | £15 | 34% |
A postgraduate loan is repaid alongside an undergraduate one rather than instead of it, so someone with both pays both.
£24,000 elsewhere in the UK
Income tax is devolved to Scotland; National Insurance is not. At £24,000 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 | £2,286 | £20,799.60 | — | 28% |
| Scotland | £2,246.33 | £20,839.27 | +£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 £24,000 a year after tax?
£20,799.60 a year — £1,733.30 a month. That is after £2,286 of income tax and £914.40 of National Insurance on the 2026/27 rates for England, Wales & Northern Ireland.
How much is £24,000 a month after tax?
£1,733.30 if you are paid monthly. A four-weekly payroll pays £1,599.97 thirteen times a year instead, and a fortnightly one pays £799.98.
What is the tax rate on £24,000?
Two different numbers, and confusing them is the usual mistake. Your effective rate — total tax and NI over gross pay — is 13.3%. 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 £24,000 cost my employer?
£26,850. On top of your salary they pay £2,850 of employer National Insurance, which never appears on your payslip. Of that total, 22.5% goes in tax and National Insurance rather than to you.
How much is £24,000 after tax with a student loan?
£20,799.60 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 £24,000 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 £24,000; on the others, nothing.
How much more would I keep from a £1,000 rise at £24,000?
£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 →