Calculator · 2026/27
National Insurance calculator
National Insurance has two halves and your payslip shows one of them. This works out both — the 8% and 2% taken from your pay, and the 15% your employer pays on everything above £5,000.
Your result
Worked example: £35,000
| Who pays | On what | Rate | Amount |
|---|---|---|---|
| You | £22,430 of your pay | 8% | £1,794.40 |
| You, in total | — | — | £1,794.40 |
| Your employer | pay above £5,000 | 15% | £4,500 |
| Both together | — | — | £6,294.40 |
Employer National Insurance has no upper limit, so unlike your own contributions it does not fall to 2% on higher pay. That is why the two halves diverge as salary rises.
The three thresholds that matter
- £12,570 — the primary threshold. Below it you pay no National Insurance at all.
- £50,270 — the upper earnings limit. Your rate drops from 8% to 2% above it. This is the only major UK deduction that gets cheaper at the margin as you earn more.
- £5,000 — the secondary threshold. Where your employer's 15% starts. Far lower than your own, which is why employer NI is due on very nearly every job.
It is charged per pay period, not per year
Income tax is cumulative across the year and self-corrects. National Insurance is not: each pay period is assessed on its own, and there is no year-end correction. A month containing a large bonus can push earnings above the upper earnings limit for that month only, so the NI paid over the year comes out higher than an annual calculation implies. Every NI figure on this site is the annual view, and this is the one case where it is a floor rather than the answer.
Where £35,000 sits in the system
Every calculator on this site runs on the same thresholds, and the reason a figure surprises people is almost always that it sits near one of them. This is what is closest to the worked example above — the thresholds that decide what the next pound is worth, rather than what the last one was.
Everything that changes near £35,000 is behind it. The most recent was the Plan 4 (Scotland) repayment threshold, at £33,795, which you passed £1,205 ago.
| What changes | At | From here | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Plan 4 (Scotland) repayment threshold | £33,795 | −£1,205 | passed |
| Plan 2 repayment threshold | £29,385 | −£5,615 | passed |
| Plan 1 repayment threshold | £26,900 | −£8,100 | passed |
| Plan 5 repayment threshold | £25,000 | −£10,000 | 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.
- £33,795 — Plan 4 (Scotland) takes 9% of the £1,205 above its threshold. It is not a tax, but it leaves the same pay on the same day.
- £29,385 — Plan 2 takes 9% of the £5,615 above its threshold. It is not a tax, but it leaves the same pay on the same day.
- £26,900 — Plan 1 takes 9% of the £8,100 above its threshold. It is not a tax, but it leaves the same pay on the same day.
- £25,000 — Plan 5 takes 9% of the £10,000 above its threshold. It is not a tax, but it leaves the same pay on the same day.
What a ten per cent move would do
A swing of ten per cent either way from £35,000 does not cross a single band: the rate on further pay stays at 28% across the whole range from £31,500 to £38,500. 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% | £31,500 | £26,199.60 | −£2,520 | 28% |
| −5% | £33,250 | £27,459.60 | −£1,260 | 28% |
| +5% | £36,750 | £29,979.60 | +£1,260 | 28% |
| +10% | £38,500 | £31,239.60 | +£2,520 | 28% |
And what a pension contribution would buy
There is no threshold within reach below £35,000, so a pension contribution here is not about ducking under anything — it is simply the ordinary trade. Sacrificing £2,000 costs you £1,440 in take-home, because 28% of it was never going to reach you anyway, and puts the full £2,000 into the pot. That is £2,000 of saving for £1,440 of spending power — a ratio of 1.39 to one, and it is the same ratio for every pound until the next band.
Student loans on the same figure
A student loan is not a tax and it is not in any headline rate, but it leaves the same pay packet on the same day — so it belongs in any figure used to make a decision. This is what each plan takes at the worked example above.
Every one of the five repayment thresholds is behind this salary, so whichever plan you are on, you are repaying. Which plan you are on is not a choice, and the difference between them at this salary is £731.55 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 | £840 | £70 | 34% |
| Plan 5 | £25,000 | £900 | £75 | 37% |
| Plan 1 | £26,900 | £729 | £60.75 | 37% |
| Plan 2 | £29,385 | £505.35 | £42.11 | 37% |
| Plan 4 (Scotland) | £33,795 | £108.45 | £9.04 | 37% |
A postgraduate loan is repaid alongside an undergraduate one rather than instead of it, so someone with both pays both.
One engine behind all eleven
Every calculator on this site runs the same tax engine, and the engine file your browser downloads is byte-identical to the one that generated these pages — a test asserts it, because two implementations of a tax rule is one too many. So the figures here cannot disagree with the salary tables, the hourly pages or any other calculator: they are the same arithmetic asked a different question. The method page sets out how the bands are discovered rather than typed, and sources lists every parameter with the government page and the date it was read from.
Questions people actually ask
How much National Insurance will I pay?
8% of everything between £12,570 and £50,270, then 2% above that. On £35,000 that is £1,794.40 a year, or £149.53 a month.
How much National Insurance does my employer pay?
15% of everything you earn above £5,000, with no upper limit. On £35,000 that is £4,500 — more than you pay yourself, and it appears nowhere on your payslip. Why that matters →
Do I pay National Insurance on a pension contribution?
Not on a salary sacrifice contribution — sacrificed pay is not earnings, so neither side pays NI on it. On a personal contribution from net pay you do, because the salary itself is unchanged.
What this calculation assumes
- 2026/27 rates for England, Wales & Northern Ireland.
- One employment, paid through payroll, taxed on the standard code with no adjustments carried in.
- Employment income only — no dividends, savings interest, rental or self-employment income.
- No taxable benefits in kind, no company car, no unpaid leave.
- National Insurance category A: the standard case for an employee over 21 and under State Pension age.
- Income Tax is annual, but National Insurance is charged per pay period — a large one-off bonus can pay more NI than this annual view shows.
- No student or postgraduate loan repayment.
- No salary sacrifice and no workplace pension contribution.