UK take-home pay calculator — 2026/27
| Gross annual pay | £26,228 |
| Pension contribution | −£999 |
| Income tax | −£2,532 |
| National Insurance | −£1,013 |
| Take-home pay | £21,684 |
Uses 2026/27 rates: Personal Allowance £12,570, employee NI 8% to £50,270 then 2%. Pension is modelled as salary sacrifice: it reduces taxable pay for income tax and National Insurance.
At a glance
On £26,228 a year gross, you'd keep about £1,807 a month after income tax, National Insurance and pension.
How reliable is this figure?
This is an estimate, not a payslip preview. It runs on the 2026/27 tax model (Personal Allowance £12,570; employee National Insurance at 8% up to £50,270, then 2%) and the pay dataset named on this page, reviewed 23 September 2026.
Your actual take-home depends on your tax code, contract terms, overtime patterns and any benefits or deductions your employer applies. If a figure here looks surprising, check it against your latest payslip and the HMRC guidance linked under Sources below.
Scotland uses different income tax bands — toggle your nation in the calculator above. Wales follows the England bands.
Worked example: £26,227.50 care worker salary, 2026/27 (England, auto-enrolment on)
| Gross annual salary | £26,227.50 |
| Auto-enrolment pension (5%) | −£999.38 |
| Income tax (20% band) | −£2,531.62 |
| Employee National Insurance | −£1,012.65 |
| Annual take-home pay | £21,683.85 |
| Monthly take-home pay | £1,806.99 |
| Weekly take-home | £417.00 |
Assumptions and pay data
- England income tax bands for 2026/27 (6 April 2026 – 5 April 2027)
- Auto-enrolment pension at 5% of qualifying earnings (£6,240–£50,270), salary-sacrifice treatment
- Employed care worker at 37.5 hours a week — NOT a self-employed live-in carer (different maths)
- No student loan repayments and no other deductions
- Sleep-in payments are taxable earnings — include them in the gross you enter; mileage paid at HMRC approved rates is tax-free, so leave it out
- Scotland has its own bands — use the nation toggle under the calculator if you pay Scottish income tax
Making sense of care worker pay
From £13.45 an hour to a yearly figure
The ONS median of £13.45 an hour is a rate, not a salary — the salary depends on the hours behind it. The formula is simple: hourly rate × weekly hours × 52. At 20 hours that gives £13,988.00 a year; at 24 hours, £16,785.60; at 30 hours, £20,982.00; at 37.5 hours, £26,227.50; at 40 hours, £27,976.00. In care, the hours vary more than the rate does — two carers on identical pay can have very different incomes.
Run through the 2026/27 England model with auto-enrolment on, those gross figures become monthly take-home of £1,109.34 at 20 hours, £1,268.80 at 24 hours, £1,507.99 at 30 hours, £1,806.99 at 37.5 hours and £1,906.65 at 40 hours. Every one of those is engine-computed, not estimated — and every one assumes the hours are paid hours. For domiciliary carers, that means contact hours; the travel gaps between visits are a separate question, covered on the sleep-in and travel pay page.
The same formula works in reverse and it is worth using on job adverts. A £24,000 salary on a 35-hour week is £13.19 an hour — below the £13.45 median. A £24,000 salary on a 30-hour week is £15.38 an hour — comfortably above it. Adverts quote the salary that flatters the rota; divide it back down before comparing.
The weekly figure and the part-time truth
The ONS weekly median of £457.60 is the figure that confuses people, because it looks like a full-time wage and is not one. It blends full-time and part-time workers together: £457.60 divided by £13.45 implies about 34 hours, but that is a statistical middle, not a rota anyone works. A full-time 37.5-hour week at the median rate is £504.38 a week gross — nearly £47 above the weekly median.
Annualised, £457.60 a week is £23,795.20 a year gross — and through the 2026/27 England model with auto-enrolment on, that leaves £20,020.15 a year: £1,668.35 a month, £385.00 a week. That is the take-home of the statistically median week, part-time workers included. If your own week is longer or shorter, the weekly median is not your number — your hours are.
The practical rule: never budget from £457.60. Work out your contracted or typical weekly hours, multiply by your hourly rate, and put that annual figure in the calculator. The weekly median describes the workforce; it does not describe you.
Domiciliary: the visit maths
Home care pay needs translating before it goes in the calculator. A domiciliary carer doing six 45-minute visits a day at £13.45 is paid for 4.5 contact hours: £60.53 for the day. Five such days is £302.65 a week gross — £15,737.80 a year — even though the carer was out of the house for far longer once travel between visits is counted.
That is the number to put in the calculator: paid contact hours only. The travel gaps are real working time for minimum-wage purposes — Regulation 20 of the NMW Regulations 2015 says time travelling between appointments counts — but unless the employer pays for them separately, they do not add to the gross. If your employer does pay travel time or mileage, add the taxable part to the gross: mileage paid at the HMRC approved rates (55p a mile for the first 10,000 business miles in 2026/27) is tax-free, so it stays out of the calculator entirely.
Bank and agency carers should do the same translation with their own pattern: paid hours in, everything else out, then compare the monthly figure against a substantive post's contracted hours. An agency rate of £16 an hour sounds like a big step up from £13.45 — across 25 paid hours a week it is £20,800 a year gross, which the calculator turns into about £1,498 a month — before the unpaid gaps are even considered.
What the median hides
The £13.45 median is the middle of everyone, and everyone includes domiciliary carers on tight visit rates and residential carers on 12-hour shifts, London carers and rural ones, the newly inducted and the ten-year veterans. It does not split any of that out. Geography moves it — London and the South East typically pay above the regions — and premiums move it: night shifts, weekend enhancements and specialist care all sit above the median rate.
It also hides the self-employed entirely. ASHE covers employees only, so live-in carers — usually self-employed, paid by the week — are not in the £13.45 at all, and neither are agency carers in the weeks they are not placed. And it hides the floor it sits on: at £13.45, the median is 74p above the £12.71 National Living Wage, which means a large share of the workforce is clustered within a pound of the legal minimum.
Read the median as a starting point, not a verdict. New to care on a standard rota, £13.45 is roughly where you land. With an NVQ Level 3, night premiums or specialist work, it is the number to beat — the senior care worker step above it is covered on the senior care worker pages.
About this calculator
How the tax engine works
The worked example runs the £26,227.50 median through the 2026/27 England model in deduction order. First the pension: 5% of qualifying earnings (£26,227.50 minus the £6,240 lower limit = £19,987.50), taken by salary sacrifice, which is £999.38 — and because salary sacrifice reduces pay before tax is calculated, income tax and National Insurance are worked out on £25,228.12.
Income tax is 20% of taxable pay above the £12,570 personal allowance: (£25,228.12 − £12,570) × 20% = £2,531.62. Employee National Insurance is 8% between £12,570 and £50,270: (£25,228.12 − £12,570) × 8% = £1,012.65. Subtract all three from £26,227.50 and the take-home is £21,683.85 — £1,806.99 a month, £417.00 a week. Every figure in the worked example is engine-computed, not estimated.
Reviewed and updated
Pay figures and the worked example were checked on 24 September 2026 against the ONS ASHE 2025 provisional release. The tax model covers 6 April 2026 to 5 April 2027. Put your real rate and your real hours in — a calculator fed with guesses returns guesses.
Care worker take-home pay FAQs
What is the average care worker salary in the UK?
Strictly, £26,227.50 is a median, not an average: the ONS ASHE 2025 provisional figure (all employees, pay period April 2025) puts the middle of care worker pay at £13.45 an hour, which annualises to £26,227.50 at a full-time 37.5-hour week.
After tax, National Insurance and pension that leaves £21,683.85 a year (£1,806.99 a month) under the 2026/27 England rules. But most care workers are part-time — the weekly median of £457.60 blends part-timers in — so the honest figure for most carers is lower and depends on their hours.
How much is £13.45 an hour per year?
It depends on the hours. £13.45 × 20 hours × 52 weeks = £13,988.00. £13.45 × 24 × 52 = £16,785.60. £13.45 × 30 × 52 = £20,982.00. £13.45 × 37.5 × 52 = £26,227.50. £13.45 × 40 × 52 = £27,976.00.
Through the 2026/27 England model with auto-enrolment on, those become monthly take-home of £1,109.34, £1,268.80, £1,507.99, £1,806.99 and £1,906.65 respectively. Never compare an hourly rate to a salary without fixing the hours first.
I work part-time — what will I take home?
Put your actual weekly hours in the calculator — but as a guide, at the £13.45 median with auto-enrolment on, a 20-hour week leaves £1,109.34 a month (£256.00 a week) and a 24-hour week leaves £1,268.80 a month (£292.80 a week), under the 2026/27 England rules.
At the shortest rotas the tax system barely touches the pay: a 16-hour week is £11,190.40 a year, below the £12,570 personal allowance, so there is no income tax and no National Insurance — only the £247.52 auto-enrolment pension comes off, leaving £911.91 a month.
I work in Scotland — does this calculator work for me?
Yes — use the nation toggle under the calculator. Scotland runs its own six-band income tax system (19% to £16,537, 20% to £29,526, 21% to £43,662, 42% to £75,000, 45% to £125,140, 48% above), while the personal allowance of £12,570, National Insurance and auto-enrolment pension work the same UK-wide.
At £26,227.50 the Scottish bands leave you slightly better off than England's £1,806.99 a month: the 19% starter band beats England's flat 20% at this income, giving £1,810.29 a month — about £3.30 more. The calculator switches the bands automatically.
I am a live-in carer — can I use this calculator?
No — the maths is different. This calculator models an employee: PAYE tax and National Insurance, auto-enrolment pension, hourly pay. Live-in carers are usually self-employed, paid a weekly fee for round-the-clock availability, with Class 2 and Class 4 National Insurance, expenses set against income, and no auto-enrolment pension.
Running self-employed income through an employee calculator misstates the deductions. The ONS median does not include live-in carers either — ASHE covers employees only.
Do sleep-in payments and mileage go in the calculator?
Sleep-in payments, yes: they are taxable earnings like any other wages, so add the year's sleep-in payments to the gross you enter and the calculator will tax them correctly. Mileage, no — payments at the HMRC approved rates (55p a mile for the first 10,000 business miles in 2026/27, 25p after) are tax-free, so leave them out.
If your employer pays mileage below the approved rate, you may be able to claim tax relief on the shortfall — but that is a relief on tax already paid, not income to add here.
Does the calculator include my pension?
Yes — auto-enrolment at 5% of qualifying earnings (£6,240–£50,270), treated as salary sacrifice, is switched on by default. On the £26,227.50 median that is £999.38 a year, and it reduces both income tax and National Insurance.
Opting out raises the monthly figure — but you lose the employer contribution too, and on care worker pay the employer's 3% is proportionally one of the best deals in the package.
What about student loan repayments?
This calculator does not deduct student loan repayments — the worked example assumes no student loan. Repayments come off after tax and National Insurance as 9% of earnings above your plan's threshold, which lowers the monthly figure shown here.
On the £26,227.50 median, a Plan 5 loan (threshold £25,000) would take about £9.21 a month off the £1,806.99 figure. Work out your exact repayment on the student loan page and subtract it from the take-home shown here.
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Sources
- ONS — Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings 2025 (provisional). SOC 2020 code 6135 (care workers and home carers), all employees, pay period including April 2025: median £13.45 per hour, £457.60 per week. Accessed 24 September 2026.
- GOV.UK — Income Tax rates and allowances 2026/27. Personal Allowance £12,570; 20% to £50,270, 40% to £125,140, 45% above; bands frozen to 5 April 2031. Accessed 24 September 2026.
- GOV.UK — National Insurance rates 2026/27. Employee Class 1: 8% on £12,570–£50,270, 2% above. Accessed 24 September 2026.
- GOV.UK — National Minimum Wage and National Living Wage rates. From 1 April 2026: £12.71 an hour for workers aged 21 and over. The £13.45 median sits 74p above the floor. Accessed 24 September 2026.
These are estimates for guidance only, not financial advice. Figures are taken from the sources listed above and were correct when this page was reviewed. Your actual pay depends on your contract, hours and tax code — check your payslip and HMRC guidance if anything looks off.