UK take-home pay calculator — 2026/27
| Gross annual pay | £34,258 |
| Pension contribution | −£1,401 |
| Income tax | −£4,057 |
| National Insurance | −£1,623 |
| Take-home pay | £27,177 |
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 £34,258 a year gross, you'd keep about £2,265 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: £34,258 bricklayer salary, 2026/27 (England, auto-enrolment on)
| Gross annual salary | £34,258.00 |
| Auto-enrolment pension (5%) | −£1,400.90 |
| Income tax (20% band) | −£4,057.42 |
| Employee National Insurance | −£1,622.97 |
| Annual take-home pay | £27,176.71 |
| Monthly take-home pay | £2,264.73 |
| Weekly take-home | £522.63 |
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
- Full-time employee — not a CIS subcontractor, price worker or self-employed
- No student loan repayments and no other deductions
- Full 2026/27 tax model explained in the 2026/27 tax guide
What bricklayer pay means in the bank
What £16.47 an hour means for a price worker
The ONS median is an hourly figure for employees, but most brickies never see an hourly rate — they see a price per thousand. To translate, pick a realistic output and multiply. As example arithmetic: a brickie laying 2,500 bricks in a week at £400 per 1,000 grosses £1,000 for the week. Over 46 laying weeks that is £46,000 a year of gross — comfortably above the £34,258 employed median, before CIS takes its 20% and before weather takes its days.
The conversion runs the other way too. A £200 price-work day divided by an eight-hour day is £25 an hour in gross terms — against the £16.47 employed median. The gap looks enormous until you remember what the price worker gives up for it: no paid holidays, no sick pay, no pension contributions, and the 20% CIS deduction off every payment. The hourly equivalent flatters price work; the package tells the fuller story.
This is why comparing a price worker's gross to an employed salary is a category error. The employed figure is salary after the employer has absorbed the risk of quiet weeks and bad weather. The price figure is turnover that still has to survive CIS, downtime and expenses. Run employed numbers through this calculator and price numbers through the CIS guide — they are different tax worlds.
The weather maths nobody does
Every bricklayer pay figure you see assumes the days happened. For price workers they often do not: frost and heavy rain stop laying, and the lost day pays nothing. Take an illustrative case — 20 lost days in a year at £200 a day is £4,000 of gross pay that never arrives. That is not a rounding error; it is more than a month's take-home gone to the sky.
The honest way to annualise price work is to start from laying weeks, not calendar weeks. A price worker grossing £1,000 a week who lays 44 weeks — losing the rest to weather, Christmas shutdown and gaps between jobs — grosses £44,000, not £52,000. The £8,000 difference is the price of the trade's seasonality, and it should be subtracted before any tax maths begins.
Employed brickies are insulated from this: the day rate is paid whether the mortar sets or not — worth roughly £2,000 to £4,000 a year of gross that a price worker has to earn twice, once in the good weeks to cover the bad ones.
Why the median understates the top price workers
ASHE measures employees, and in bricklaying the employees are the minority. The £16.47 median describes site-employed brickies on payrolls — competent, steady, paid by the hour. It says nothing about the price worker laying 600 bricks a day at £400 per thousand: £240 a day, £1,200 a week, £62,400 annualised before weather. That is 82% above the median, and it is a normal good week for a quick hand on a clean housing plot.
The spread exists because price work pays for output and output varies enormously between brickies. The trade's pay distribution has a long right tail: a minority of fast, reliable price workers earn far more than the median, while slower hands and those stuck on awkward remedial work earn less. An hourly median cannot capture a distribution shaped like that — it compresses it into a single number that flatters nobody and describes the top earners least of all.
Read the £34,258 default as a floor for experienced hands, not a ceiling. If you are pricing your own labour as a subcontractor, the median tells you what the employed alternative pays; your price-work gross should sit well above it to cover CIS, downtime, holidays and the risk you carry. If it does not, the employed route is arguably the better-paid one.
Reading a day-rate offer like an annual salary
Day rates are quoted because they sound big; annual salaries are what the mortgage lender reads. Convert before you compare: multiply the day rate by five for the week, then by the number of weeks you will actually work. At £132 a day — mid-band for the £130–£135 employed range — five days is £660 a week. Over 46 working weeks that is £30,360 a year gross; over 48 it is £31,680. The two-week difference is £1,320 of gross most people never notice in the quote.
Put that £30,360 through this calculator and the monthly take-home lands around £2,030 — roughly £235 a month less than the £34,258 default. Small differences in the day rate compound fast: £5 a day is £25 a week, £1,150 over 46 weeks, about £80 a month in the bank after tax.
For price workers the same discipline applies, with output in place of the day rate: bricks per day, times rate per thousand, times laying days. A quote is only a number; the annualised figure behind it — after weather, after CIS, after the gaps — is the pay.
About this calculator
How the tax engine works
The engine applies 2026/27 England bands to the gross you enter: the £12,570 Personal Allowance comes off first, then 20% income tax on taxable pay up to £50,270. Auto-enrolment pension at 5% of qualifying earnings (£6,240 to £50,270) is modelled as salary sacrifice, which is why it reduces National Insurance as well as income tax — on £34,258 the pension is £1,400.90, income tax £4,057.42 and employee NI £1,622.97.
Bricklayer pay sits well inside the 20% band, so the higher rate rarely bites employed brickies — £50,270 is a long way above £34,258. Price workers grossing over £50,000 in a strong year do cross into 40% territory, but only the slice above £50,270 is taxed at 40%. Scotland-based brickies should use the Scotland option: the Scottish 42% band starts at £43,663, which reaches further down the pay scale than England's 40% band.
Reviewed and updated
The £34,258 default and the worked example were last reviewed on 23 September 2026 against ONS ASHE 2025 provisional data. The tax model covers 6 April 2026 to 5 April 2027. If you are comparing offers, enter the actual day rate and your realistic laying weeks — the annualised figure is only as honest as the weeks behind it. Subcontractors on CIS should read the CIS and pay guide alongside this page: the 20% deduction changes every number on it.
Bricklayer take-home pay FAQs
How much does an employed bricklayer take home per month in 2026?
On the £34,258 ONS-derived median: £2,264.73 a month, £27,176.71 a year, £522.63 a week — after £4,057.42 income tax, £1,622.97 National Insurance and £1,400.90 auto-enrolment pension, all on 2026/27 England bands.
At a £132 day rate over 46 working weeks (£30,360 gross), monthly take-home is around £2,030. Enter your actual day rate and weeks in the calculator for your own figure.
I am paid per 1,000 bricks — can I use this calculator?
Not directly. This calculator models a full-time employee on PAYE with auto-enrolment pension. Price workers sit inside CIS: 20% is deducted from each payment before it reaches you, there is no employer pension, and weather days pay nothing — all of which this calculator assumes away.
Convert your price work to an annual gross first (bricks per day × rate per thousand × realistic laying days, minus weather losses), then read the CIS and pay guide to see how the 20% deduction changes the picture.
What is the day-rate equivalent of the ONS bricklayer median?
£131.76 a day: £16.47 an hour multiplied by eight. In practice the employed day-rate band sits around £130 to £135, which is the figure quoted on the pay hub.
Price-work day equivalents run higher — £180 to £220 a day is typical in example arithmetic — but that gross still has to survive the 20% CIS deduction, unpaid weather days and zero paid holidays before it can be compared to a day rate.
How many bricks a week does £34,258 a year imply on price?
As pure example arithmetic: £34,258 a year is £659 a week, which at £400 per 1,000 bricks means laying about 1,650 bricks a week. A brickie laying 2,500 bricks a week at the same rate grosses £1,000 a week — £52,000 annualised before weather and CIS.
Price work pays for output, not hours, which is why price workers out-gross the employed median. But the price gross is turnover — CIS, expenses and lost days all come out of it before it resembles a salary.
I lay bricks in Scotland — does this calculator work for me?
Yes. Tick the Scotland option under the calculator and the engine switches to Scottish income tax bands: 19% to £16,537, 20% to £29,526, 21% to £43,662, 42% to £75,000, 45% to £125,140 and 48% above £125,140. The Personal Allowance of £12,570 is the same UK-wide.
A £34,258 salary leaves slightly less in Scotland than in England because of the 21% and 42% bands. National Insurance and auto-enrolment pension work identically in both nations.
Does the calculator include pension contributions?
Yes — auto-enrolment at 5% of qualifying earnings (£6,240–£50,270) is switched on by default, treated as salary sacrifice. On £34,258 that is £1,400.90 a year, and it reduces both income tax and National Insurance.
If you have opted out, your take-home will be higher than shown — but you also lose the employer contribution, so opting out is rarely the bargain it looks like on the payslip. CIS subcontractors have no auto-enrolment at all and must arrange their own pension.
What about student loan repayments?
This calculator does not deduct student loan repayments — the worked examples assume no student loan. In reality, repayments come off after tax and National Insurance as a percentage of earnings above the threshold, which lowers the monthly figure shown here.
If you have a Plan 1, Plan 2 or postgraduate loan, run your salary through the student loan calculator as well and subtract the monthly repayment from the take-home shown here.
How accurate is the monthly take-home figure?
It is exact for the inputs you give, under the stated assumptions: England (or Scotland) 2026/27 bands, auto-enrolment on, no student loan, full-time employed work at the same rate all year. What it cannot know is your real pattern — bonuses, overtime, unpaid weeks and, for price workers, CIS deductions and weather losses all move the true figure.
Use it as the baseline for comparing employed offers, then adjust for your reality. The worked example (£34,258 → £2,264.73/month) is engine-computed, not estimated, so you can trust the arithmetic.
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Sources
- ONS — Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings (ASHE) 2025 provisional. Bricklayers and masons (SOC 2020 5313), all employees: median gross hourly pay £16.47; median gross weekly pay £640.00. Pay period April 2025. Calculator default £34,258 = £16.47 × 40 hours × 52 weeks. Accessed 23 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 23 September 2026.
- GOV.UK — National Insurance rates 2026/27. Employee Class 1: 8% on £12,570–£50,270, 2% above. Accessed 23 September 2026.
- GOV.UK — What you must do as a CIS subcontractor. CIS deduction rates: 20% for registered subcontractors; 30% where unregistered or unverifiable; 0% with gross payment status. This calculator models employed PAYE pay, not CIS. Accessed 23 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.