Take-Home Pay Methodology

The take-home formula

Take-home pay = gross salary − Income Tax − employee National Insurance − pension contribution − student-loan repayment. Disposable income = take-home − council tax. Every input is a real published figure or a clearly-stated user assumption (the pension %). No number is modelled or interpolated.

Income Tax (2026/27, rest of UK)

• Personal Allowance £12,570, reduced by £1 for every £2 of income over £100,000 (zero at £125,140).
• Basic rate 20% on taxable income up to £50,270 gross.
• Higher rate 40% from £50,270 to £125,140 gross.
• Additional rate 45% above £125,140.

Source: GOV.UK — Income Tax rates and Personal Allowance (Open Government Licence v3.0). Scottish Income Tax differs and is out of scope; NI is the same UK-wide.

Employee National Insurance (Class 1, category A)

• 8% on earnings between the Primary Threshold (£12,570) and the Upper Earnings Limit (£50,270).
• 2% on earnings above the Upper Earnings Limit.

Source: GOV.UK — Rates and thresholds for employers 2026 to 2027 (OGL v3.0).

Pension, student loan and council tax

The pension contribution is your own chosen percentage of gross salary; 5% is the automatic-enrolment minimum employee rate. Student-loan repayment uses your GOV.UK plan threshold and rate (9% / 6% of income above the plan threshold). Council tax uses the real average Band D area figure for each English region (MHCLG, Council Tax levels 2026 to 2027, including all precepts). House prices are the HM Land Registry UK House Price Index regional average (April 2026). Council-tax and house-price data cover England's 9 Government Office Regions; Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland publish council tax on a different basis and are excluded rather than approximated.

The Gera proprietary metrics

Gera Take-Home Index = 100 × (gross − Income Tax − employee NI) ÷ gross — the pence in each £1 of gross salary you keep after the two mandatory deductions.

Gera Real Job Value = take-home (after Income Tax and NI) − the region's real Band D council tax — the disposable income a salary actually leaves in a given English region, so two regions can be compared on a true "what's left" basis.

Both are deterministic functions of the real published rates above and are fully reproducible from this page.