UK take-home pay calculator — 2026/27
| Gross annual pay | £31,200 |
| Pension contribution | −£1,248 |
| Income tax | −£3,476 |
| National Insurance | −£1,391 |
| Take-home pay | £25,085 |
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 £31,200 a year gross, you'd keep about £2,090 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: £31,200 LGV driver salary, 2026/27 (England, auto-enrolment on)
| Gross annual salary | £31,200.00 |
| Auto-enrolment pension (5%) | −£1,248.00 |
| Income tax (20% band) | −£3,476.40 |
| Employee National Insurance | −£1,390.56 |
| Annual take-home pay | £25,085.04 |
| Monthly take-home pay | £2,090.42 |
| Weekly take-home | £482.40 |
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)
- Employed LGV driver at 37.5 hours a week — NOT a limited-company owner-driver (different maths)
- No student loan repayments and no other deductions
- Nights-out (tramping) allowances are taxable earnings — include them in the gross you enter; overnight subsistence paid within HMRC limits is not taxable, so leave it out
- Overtime and night premiums are wages — include them in the gross you enter
- Scotland has its own bands — use the nation toggle under the calculator if you pay Scottish income tax
Making sense of LGV take-home pay
From £16.00 an hour to a yearly figure
The conversion is hourly rate × weekly hours × 52, and the hours are what moves the answer. £16.00 at 37.5 hours is £31,200 a year. At 40 hours it is £33,280. At 45 hours — the week a lot of trunking rotas are built on — it is £37,440. At 48 hours, the legal average ceiling, it is £39,936. At 55 hours, which sits inside the 60-hour single-week maximum, it is £45,760. Same median rate, five different salaries: the hours are the pay offer as much as the rate is.
Through the 2026/27 England model with auto-enrolment on, those gross figures become monthly take-home of £2,090.42 at 37.5 hours, £2,208.98 at 40 hours, £2,446.10 at 45 hours, £2,588.37 at 48 hours, and £2,920.34 at 55 hours. These are engine-computed, not estimated — and they assume the hours are all at the basic rate. Overtime premiums and allowances are separate additions, handled below.
Use the same conversion on job adverts in reverse. A £36,000 salary on a 48-hour rota is £14.42 an hour — below the £16.00 median. A £36,000 salary on a 40-hour rota is £17.31 an hour — above it. The advert quotes the figure that flatters the rota; divide it down to the hour before you compare it to anything.
Tramping allowances: what to add, and what to leave out
If you sleep in the cab, the nights-out allowance is part of your gross. It is taxable earnings — income tax, National Insurance and auto-enrolment pension all apply — so it goes in the calculator alongside the salary. A typical £25 a night, three nights a week, 46 working weeks is £3,450 a year: add it to the £31,200 baseline and the calculator works on £34,650, taking home £27,444.84 a year (£2,287.07 a month). Five nights a week is £5,750 extra, £36,950 gross, £29,018.04 a year (£2,418.17 a month).
The size of the effect is why the assumption matters: leaving a tramping allowance out of the gross understates the pay packet and the tax bill together. Night-shift premiums work the same way — a £2.50-an-hour premium on a 40-hour night week is £5,200 a year of gross, and it is wages like any other, so it goes in. The nights, overtime and tramping guide walks through how each extra is paid and taxed.
The one thing that stays out is overnight subsistence paid within HMRC limits — the tax-free allowance for the cost of being away — which is not earnings and does not belong in a take-home calculation. If the payslip folds an allowance into the wage line without splitting it out, ask the employer or payroll for the split: taxing a tax-free allowance costs money, and not taxing a taxable one stores up a bill.
Overtime and the 60-hour reality
Overtime in LGV work is bounded by law in a way office overtime is not. The 48-hour average over the reference period and the 60-hour single-week maximum from the Working Time Regulations set the walls; inside them, overtime is whatever the employer pays beyond contracted hours. Time and a half is the common structure — £16.00 becomes £24.00 — though some firms pay double on Sundays or bank holidays, and some pay a flat enhanced rate. Whatever the structure, the money is wages: gross it up by the annual overtime hours and put the total in the calculator.
A concrete example: a driver on a 40-hour contract at £16.00 (£33,280 a year) who works 8 overtime hours a week at time and a half (£24.00) adds £9,984 a year, taking the gross to £43,264 and the monthly take-home to £2,778.07. That is a real figure for a busy trunking depot — and it is legal, at 48 hours a week on average. Push the average past 48 and the rota, not the maths, is the problem.
The 60-hour single-week maximum also answers the question every agency driver asks in December: can I do 70 hours in the Christmas peak? No — not as an LGV driver. The law caps it, the tachograph records it, and the pay that looks available at those hours is pay you cannot legally earn.
The Scotland toggle and the higher-rate boundary
Scotland runs its own income tax bands — 19%, 20%, 21%, 42%, 45% and 48% across six thresholds — while National Insurance and the personal allowance of £12,570 work the same UK-wide. At the £31,200 baseline the Scottish bands are a touch kinder than England's flat 20%: the 19% starter band means a Scottish LGV driver takes home £2,093.37 a month against England's £2,090.42. The difference is small, but it is real, and the nation toggle under the calculator applies the Scottish bands automatically.
The boundary that matters more is the 40% threshold at £50,270. An LGV driver working the legal maximum — 60-hour weeks, heavy overtime, five nights out tramping — can push gross toward or past it: £16.00 an hour at 60 hours is £49,920, and with a £5,750 tramping allowance it is £55,670. Above £50,270 every extra pound is taxed at 40% instead of 20%. None of the worked examples here cross the line, but a driver on maximum hours with allowances should know it is there — the calculator handles it, and it is worth checking which side of the line a heavy rota lands on.
What the median does not tell you
The £16.00 median is the middle of every LGV driver on a payroll: trunking artics and multidrop rigids, London and the regions, the twenty-year veteran and the newly passed. It does not split any of that out. Geography moves it — the South East and London typically sit above the regions — and so do licence and pattern: C+E tramping work pays more than Cat C multidrop, and nights pay more than days.
It also leaves out the self-employed entirely. ASHE covers employees, so owner-drivers running their own limited companies are not in the £16.00 — their maths is different: corporation tax, dividends, Class 1 versus Class 2 National Insurance, and the vehicle costs sitting on the company. If you drive as an owner-driver, this calculator models the wrong employment structure for you; its engine is built for PAYE employees.
Read the median as a starting point and a negotiating reference, not a verdict. Newly passed on days, £16.00 is roughly where you land. Experienced, on nights, tramping, or on agency — it is the number to beat, and the extras are where the beating happens.
About this calculator
How the tax engine works
The worked example runs the £31,200 median through the 2026/27 England model in deduction order. First the pension: 5% of qualifying earnings (£31,200 minus the £6,240 lower limit = £24,960), which is £1,248.00. The model is salary-sacrifice: income tax and National Insurance are charged on pay after the pension comes out, so £31,200 − £1,248.00 = £29,952.00 of taxable pay. Income tax is 20% of pay above the £12,570 personal allowance: (£29,952.00 − £12,570) × 20% = £3,476.40. Employee National Insurance is 8% between £12,570 and £50,270: (£29,952.00 − £12,570) × 8% = £1,390.56. Subtract all three from £31,200 and the take-home is £25,085.04 — £2,090.42 a month, £482.40 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 and the 2026/27 England tax model. Put your real rate, your real hours and your real allowances in — a calculator fed with the advert's version of the job returns the advert's version of the pay.
LGV driver take-home pay FAQs
What is the take-home pay of an LGV driver on £16.00 an hour?
At a 37.5-hour week — £31,200 a year — the take-home is £25,085.04 a year, £2,090.42 a month, £482.40 a week, under the 2026/27 England model with auto-enrolment pension on. That is after £3,476.40 of income tax, £1,390.56 of National Insurance and £1,248.00 of pension contributions.
Few LGV drivers work 37.5 hours, though: at 45 hours the monthly figure is £2,446.10, and at 48 hours it is £2,588.37 — before any tramping allowance or night premium is added.
I tramp — do I include my nights-out allowance in the calculator?
Yes. Nights-out allowances are taxable earnings — income tax, National Insurance and auto-enrolment pension all apply — so add the year's allowance to the gross you enter. A typical £25 a night, three nights a week over 46 working weeks, is £3,450: put in £34,650 and the monthly take-home comes out at £2,287.07.
Overnight subsistence paid within HMRC limits is the exception: it is tax-free, so leave it out. If the payslip does not split the two, ask payroll for the breakdown.
How do I enter overtime in the calculator?
Gross it up to an annual figure and enter that as your salary. Multiply your overtime hourly rate by the overtime hours you typically do per week, then by 52 (or by the number of weeks you actually work overtime), and add it to the base salary.
For example: 40 hours at £16.00 (£33,280) plus 8 overtime hours a week at time and a half (£24.00 × 8 × 52 = £9,984) is £43,264 gross — the calculator turns that into £2,778.07 a month. Keep the legal ceiling in mind: overtime is bounded by the 48-hour average and the 60-hour single-week maximum.
I pay Scottish income tax — does the calculator work for me?
Yes — use the nation toggle under the calculator. Scotland's six-band system (19% to 48%) replaces England's 20/40/45% bands; the £12,570 personal allowance, National Insurance and auto-enrolment pension are UK-wide and unchanged.
At £31,200 the Scottish bands leave you slightly better off: £2,093.37 a month against England's £2,090.42, thanks to the 19% starter band. The calculator switches the bands automatically when you toggle.
I am an owner-driver — can I use this calculator?
No — the maths is different. This calculator models an employed driver: PAYE income tax and Class 1 National Insurance, auto-enrolment pension, hourly or salaried pay. Owner-drivers typically operate through a limited company or as sole traders, with corporation tax or self-assessment, dividend tax, Class 2 and Class 4 National Insurance, and vehicle and running costs set against the income.
Running owner-driver income through an employee calculator misstates every deduction. The ONS median does not include owner-drivers either — ASHE covers employees only.
Does the calculator include my pension?
Yes — auto-enrolment at 5% of qualifying earnings (£6,240–£50,270) is switched on by default. On the £31,200 baseline that is £1,248.00 a year.
Agency drivers should check whether their agency or umbrella is actually enrolling them and paying the employer contribution — the pension line on an agency payslip is worth reading, because missing employer contributions are money quietly lost.
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.
On the £31,200 baseline, a Plan 5 loan (threshold £25,000) would take about £46.50 a month off the £2,090.42 figure; a Plan 2 loan (threshold £28,470) would take about £20.48. Work out your exact repayment on the student loan page and subtract it from the take-home shown here.
How many hours can I legally work as an LGV driver?
Two caps apply. The assimilated drivers' hours rules limit driving to 9 hours a day (10 hours twice a week), 56 hours in a week and 90 hours over any two consecutive weeks, with tachograph recording. The Road Transport Working Time Regulations 2005 cap total working time at an average of 48 hours a week over the reference period and 60 hours in any single week — with no opt-out for mobile workers.
When you enter hours in the calculator, keep them inside those walls: the pay at 70 hours is pay the law does not allow you to earn.
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Sources
- ONS — Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings 2025 (provisional). SOC 2020 code 8211 (large goods vehicle drivers), all employees, pay period including April 2025: median £16.00 per hour, £781.50 per week; £31,200 is £16.00 × 37.5 hours × 52. 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 — Drivers' hours: rules for goods vehicles. Assimilated drivers' hours rules: 9h daily driving (10h twice a week), 56h weekly max, 90h over two consecutive weeks — the legal frame around the hours LGV drivers can be paid for. Accessed 24 September 2026.
- GOV.UK — Working time rules for lorry, bus and coach drivers. Road Transport Working Time Regulations 2005: 48h average over reference period, 60h max in any single week, no opt-out for mobile workers. 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.