Salary to Hourly Converter
Convert your annual salary to an hourly rate and see your take-home pay after tax, National Insurance, and pension.
What does your salary actually pay per hour?
Most people know their annual salary. Far fewer know what that works out to per hour once tax, National Insurance, and pension contributions have been taken out. This calculator does that maths so you do not have to.
We take your annual gross salary and divide by your total working hours per year - hours per week multiplied by 52 - to find your gross hourly rate. We then apply Income Tax using the current UK bands and personal allowance, deduct employee Class 1 National Insurance, subtract any student loan repayments based on your plan and threshold, and remove your pension contribution. The result is your true take-home pay broken down hourly, monthly, and annually.
The personal allowance for 2026/27 is £12,570 - the amount you earn before paying any income tax. Above that, you pay 20% up to £50,270, 40% between £50,270 and £125,140, and 45% on anything above £125,140. National Insurance is charged at 8% on earnings between £12,570 and £50,270, and 2% above that.
Plan 5 applies to students who started an undergraduate or Advanced Learner Loan course on or after 1 August 2023. The repayment threshold is £25,000 for 2026/27, with repayments at 9% of income above that figure.
Pension contributions are treated as deducted before tax under the relief-at-source model, which means they reduce your taxable income. If your employer uses net pay arrangement instead, your actual take-home may differ slightly.
The hourly rate this calculator produces is useful for comparing job offers, understanding the real cost of unpaid overtime, or benchmarking against a freelance rate. A common use is comparing an employed salary with a freelance day rate - the freelance rate calculator on this site does exactly that comparison and shows the equivalent employed salary for any freelance rate you enter.
Frequently asked questions
Why does my take-home hourly rate look so much lower than my gross hourly rate?
Because tax, National Insurance, and pension contributions are all deducted from your gross pay before you receive it. For a salary in the basic rate band, these deductions typically amount to 30-35% of gross pay, meaning your take-home is around 65-70p in every pound earned. The higher your salary, the larger the gap between gross and net, because a greater proportion falls into the 40% tax band.
Does this calculator account for employer pension contributions?
No - the calculator deducts your employee pension contribution from your gross pay, which reduces your tax liability. Employer contributions go directly into your pension and do not affect your take-home pay, so they are not included. Your total pension contribution (employee plus employer) will be higher than the figure shown.
How does the calculator handle part-time hours?
Enter your actual contracted hours per week in the hours field. The calculator uses that figure to derive both your gross hourly rate and your annualised take-home. If you work 25 hours per week, enter 25. The tax and NI calculations are based on your full annual salary regardless of hours, since HMRC taxes your total income rather than your hourly rate.
The UK pay calculator that just gives you the answers.