UK take-home pay calculator — 2026/27
| Gross annual pay | £39,520 |
| Pension contribution | −£1,664 |
| Income tax | −£5,057 |
| National Insurance | −£2,023 |
| Take-home pay | £30,776 |
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 £39,520 a year gross, you'd keep about £2,565 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: £39,520 electrician salary, 2026/27 (England, auto-enrolment on)
| Gross annual salary | £39,520.00 |
| Auto-enrolment pension (5%) | −£1,664.00 |
| Income tax (20% band) | −£5,057.20 |
| Employee National Insurance | −£2,022.88 |
| Annual take-home pay | £30,775.92 |
| Monthly take-home pay | £2,564.66 |
| Weekly take-home | £591.84 |
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 (different maths; see the CIS and pay page)
- No student loan repayments and no other deductions
- Scotland has its own bands — use the nation toggle under the calculator if you pay Scottish income tax
Making sense of electrician pay
From £19 an hour to a yearly figure
The ONS median of £19 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 37.5 hours that gives £37,050 a year; at 40 hours, £39,520; at 45 hours, £44,460; at a 50-hour week, £49,400. Ten extra hours a week at the same rate is worth £9,880 of gross pay — more than most pay rises.
That is why two sparkies on £19 an hour can have very different lives. The maintenance electrician on a 37.5-hour contract grosses £37,050; the site sparkie doing 50-hour weeks grosses £49,400 — and the second one is flirting with the 40% tax band (£50,270) once overtime and call-out payments are added. Always convert to the annual figure with honest hours before comparing offers.
The same formula works in reverse. Take any salary, divide by 52, then divide by your weekly hours, and you get the true hourly rate. A £42,000 salary on a 45-hour week is £17.95 an hour — below the £19 median. A £38,000 salary on a 37.5-hour week is £19.49 an hour — above it. A salary without the hours attached always makes long weeks look better than they are.
Day rate vs salary: the unpaid-weeks maths
The median day-rate equivalent is about £152 a day (£19 × 8). Quoted across a full 52-week year, five days a week, that is £39,520 — exactly the employed median. But day-rate workers are not paid for weeks they do not work, and the honest year for a day-rate sparkie who takes four weeks off is 48 weeks: £152 × 5 × 48 = £36,480.
Set that against the employed £39,520. The £3,040 gap is the price of 28 days of paid holiday, statutory sick pay and the employer pension contribution — the package that comes with the salary. A day rate needs to sit clearly above £152 a day to beat the employed deal in real terms: at £170 a day across 48 weeks (£40,800) you are ahead on gross, but you are still funding your own pension and your own sick days.
None of this makes day rates bad — flexibility has real value, and good weeks can far exceed the median. It makes uninformed comparison bad. When an agency quotes a day rate, multiply by five, multiply by 48, and ask whether the result beats the employed number once the missing benefits are priced in. If it does not, the rate needs to move.
What the median hides
The £19 median is the middle of everyone, and everyone includes electrician's mates on a typical £13 to £15 an hour — a full third below the median — and approved electricians with testing tickets earning well above it. If you are a qualified sparkie with an ECS gold card and the 18th Edition, the median is not your number; it is the number you should be beating.
It also hides geography and hours. London and the South East sit above the regions; the weekly median of £776.60 implies about 40.9 hours at £19 an hour, so overtime and call-out payments are baked into what people actually earned. And it hides the self-employed entirely: ASHE covers employees only, so CIS subcontractors and limited-company sparkies — often the highest earners on site — are not in the figure at all.
Read the median as a ladder, not a verdict. Mates at £13–£15 at the bottom, the £19 middle covering the broad mass of employed sparkies, approved electricians with tickets above it, and testing specialists and commercial contractors above them again. The worked example shows the middle rung in full; the calculator shows any rung worth testing.
About this calculator
How the tax engine works
The worked example runs the £39,520 median through the 2026/27 England model in deduction order. First the pension: 5% of qualifying earnings (£39,520 minus the £6,240 lower limit = £33,280), taken by salary sacrifice, which is £1,664 — and because salary sacrifice reduces pay before tax is calculated, income tax and National Insurance are worked out on £37,856.
Income tax is 20% of taxable pay above the £12,570 personal allowance: (£37,856 − £12,570) × 20% = £5,057.20. Employee National Insurance is 8% between £12,570 and £50,270: (£37,856 − £12,570) × 8% = £2,022.88. Subtract all three from £39,520 and the take-home is £30,775.92 — £2,564.66 a month, £591.84 a week. Every figure in the worked example is engine-computed, not estimated.
Reviewed and updated
Pay figures and the worked example were last reviewed on 23 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.
Electrician take-home pay FAQs
What is the average electrician salary in the UK?
Strictly, £39,520 is a median, not an average: the ONS ASHE 2025 provisional figure (all employees, pay period April 2025) puts the middle of employed electrician pay at £19.00 an hour, which annualises to £39,520 at a 40-hour week.
After tax, National Insurance and pension that leaves £30,775.92 a year (£2,564.66 a month) under the 2026/27 England rules. It covers employees only — mates at a typical £13–£15 an hour sit below it, approved electricians with tickets sit above it, and CIS subcontractors are not counted at all.
How much is £19 an hour per year?
It depends on the hours. £19 × 37.5 hours × 52 weeks = £37,050. £19 × 40 × 52 = £39,520. £19 × 45 × 52 = £44,460. £19 × 50 × 52 = £49,400.
The ten-hour gap between a 40-hour and a 50-hour week is worth £9,880 of gross pay a year. Never compare an hourly rate to a salary without fixing the hours first — it is the commonest way pay offers get misjudged.
What is £152 a day as an annual salary?
£152 × 5 days × 52 weeks = £39,520 — exactly the employed median, which is no coincidence since £152 is the £19 median times eight hours. But day-rate workers are not paid for weeks off: across an honest 48-week year (four weeks unpaid), it is £36,480.
That £3,040 shortfall against the employed figure is roughly the value of 28 days of paid holiday plus the employer pension contribution. A day rate has to clear £152 by a visible margin to beat the salary in real terms.
Is a £150 day rate better than a £39,520 salary?
On gross, no. £150 × 5 × 48 working weeks = £36,000 — £3,520 below the salary, and that is before the missing pension, sick pay and paid holidays are priced in. Even at 52 paid weeks it only reaches £39,000.
Day rates start to win when they sit clearly above the £152 median equivalent and the worker prices the gaps: at £170 a day across 48 weeks (£40,800 gross) the flexibility starts paying for itself. Below that, the salary is usually the better deal in money-kept terms.
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 £39,520 a Scottish sparkie keeps slightly less each month than the £2,564.66 England figure, because the 21% intermediate band starts at £29,527 in Scotland while England charges a flat 20% all the way to £50,270. The calculator switches the bands automatically.
I am a CIS subcontractor — can I use this calculator?
No — the maths is different. This calculator models an employee: PAYE tax and National Insurance, auto-enrolment pension, a full 52-week year. A CIS subcontractor has 20% deducted from labour payments at source (30% if unregistered), no auto-enrolment pension, unpaid gaps between contracts, and a Self Assessment bill or rebate at year end.
Running CIS income through an employee calculator understates the deductions and overstates the security. The CIS and pay page works through the subcontractor maths properly, including the year-end rebate most sparkies end up owed.
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 £39,520 median that is £1,664 a year, and it reduces both income tax and National Insurance.
Opting out raises the monthly figure — but you lose the employer contribution too, so it is rarely the bargain the payslip makes it look.
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 a percentage of earnings above your plan's threshold, which lowers the monthly figure shown here.
If you have a Plan 1, Plan 2 or postgraduate loan, work out the monthly 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 5241 (electricians and electrical fitters), all employees, pay period including April 2025: median £19.00 per hour, £776.60 per week. 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.
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.