A free payroll calculator designed to show a true take-home figure for where you are in the tax year — plus a clear guide to umbrella companies, employment costs and salary sacrifice.
This calculator is built to show a true take-home figure — not a generic 52-week estimate. It uses the current tax month, the pay you have already received this year, and how many weeks remain until 5 April, then spreads your unused personal allowance across that remaining time. Umbrella providers almost always quote take-home as if you will work the full year from week one. Once you are part-way through the tax year, that estimate is wrong for the large majority of contractors. Enter your assignment rate and year-to-date details below; the results on the right (or beneath, on a phone) are the adjusted weekly, monthly and annual picture.
From your payslips so far. This is added into tax bands and remaining allowance.
1257L → £12,570 ÷ 52 ≈ £242 weekly free pay
Pension via salary sacrifice — reduces tax & NI
| Item | Weekly | Monthly (×4.333) | Annual (×52) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Assignment | — | — | — |
| Margin | — | — | — |
| Employer NI | — | — | — |
| Levy | — | — | — |
| Gross | — | — | — |
| Salary sacrifice | — | — | — |
| Income Tax | — | — | — |
| Employee NI | — | — | — |
| Take-home | — | — | — |
You are employed by the umbrella. The agency or client pays an assignment rate — that is not your salary. Margin, Employer NI and Levy come off first; what is left is taxable gross. PAYE is then applied week by week. HMRC does not give you 1/52 of your personal allowance in isolation and forget the rest of the year: unused allowance and remaining tax bands depend on how much you have already been paid and how many weeks are left until 5 April. This is the step most umbrella quotes skip. They divide a full-year salary by 52 and present that as “your weekly take-home”. If you start in September, or you have already used part of your allowance, that 52-week model is not what will appear on your payslip. Umbrella IQ applies the month you select, your year-to-date gross, and the weeks still left in the tax year, then shows weekly, monthly and annual figures from that true position.
Month 1 is April. This tells the calculator how much of the tax year is still left.
Pay already processed this tax year, so allowance already used is not given twice.
Daily or hourly rate paid to the umbrella, plus days or hours worked.
Margin, Employer NI, Levy, salary sacrifice and any extra pension from net pay.
For a plain-English guide to what an umbrella company is — employment, assignment rates and deductions — see How an umbrella company works.
Salary sacrifice (salary exchange) means you agree to lower cash pay. The umbrella pays that amount into your pension as an employer contribution — before Income Tax and National Insurance.
Instead of being paid £100 and then saving into a pension from take-home, you never receive that £100 as cash. It goes to the pension first.
Tax and Employee NI are then calculated on the lower cash salary. You keep more combined value (take-home + pension) than contributing from net pay.
On a basic-rate band, £100 sacrificed can cost you around £72 of take-home while putting £100 (or more, if ER NI is passed on) into the pension.
Paying £100 into a pension from net pay costs you £100 of take-home and only saves Income Tax if relief is added later. Paying £100 via salary sacrifice reduces taxable pay by £100, so you save tax and Employee NI immediately. Use the Salary sacrifice (£ / week) box in the calculator to see the effect on your figures.
For inside-IR35 or agency roles that will not engage a limited company, an umbrella is the standard compliant way to get paid.
You are an employee: statutory sick pay, maternity/paternity pay, holiday pay, and auto-enrolment pension. Between contracts you stay on the umbrella’s payroll rather than dissolving a company.
The umbrella runs PAYE, files RTI with HMRC, and handles Employer NI and Levy. You do not run your own payroll or file a company tax return for that assignment.
One employment can cover multiple agencies and clients. Tax code and YTD stay in one place, which is what the calculator’s tax month and YTD fields are for.
Many umbrellas let you sacrifice into a pension more tax-efficiently than a net-pay contribution — saving both Income Tax and NI.
Once you know assignment rate − employment costs = gross, payslips become easier to check. That is the model this calculator uses.
An umbrella will not match limited-company take-home on an outside-IR35 role. You pay PAYE like any employee. Choose FCSA / Professional Passport / SafeRec firms and read every deduction line.
An umbrella is an employer between you and the agency or client. It runs PAYE. The contract rate is an assignment rate, not a salary.
You get a tax code, payslip, holiday pay, statutory sick pay and auto-enrolment pension.
The agency pays the umbrella. Margin, Employer NI and Levy come off before your taxable gross.
Income Tax and Employee NI are taken from that gross. What remains is take-home.
Confirm current status on the live FCSA register. Lists change.
Confirm current status on the live SafeRec register. Lists change.
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