Take-home pay on £30,000

## The full deduction breakdown

On a £30,000 salary in the 2025-26 tax year (England, Wales, or Northern Ireland):

| Deduction | Annual | Monthly | |-----------|--------|---------| | Gross salary | £30,000 | £2,500 | | Personal allowance | £12,570 | — | | Taxable income | £17,430 | — | | Income tax (20% on £17,430) | £3,486 | £291 | | Employee NI (8% on £12,570–£30,000) | £1,394 | £116 | | Take-home pay | £25,120 | £2,093 |

Your effective combined tax rate (income tax plus NI) is approximately 16.3%. You keep about 84p of every pound earned.

What to notice at this salary level

£30,000 is well within the basic-rate band (which runs to £50,270). All of your taxable income is taxed at 20%. There is no higher-rate tax at this level.

The gap between gross and net is £4,880 per year — nearly £407 per month goes to income tax and National Insurance. This is often where people first notice that the monthly number feels noticeably lower than dividing £30,000 by 12 would suggest (£2,500 gross vs £2,093 actual).

With a Plan 2 student loan

If you have a Plan 2 student loan (threshold £27,295 for 2025-26):

| | Annual | Monthly | |---|--------|---------| | Plan 2 repayment (9% of £2,705) | £243 | £20 | | Take-home pay with Plan 2 | £24,877 | £2,073 |

At this salary, the student loan repayment is relatively modest — £20 per month — because you are only £2,705 above the repayment threshold.

With Plan 1 or Plan 4

Plan 1 has a lower threshold (£24,990 in 2025-26), meaning higher repayments at this salary:

| | Plan 1 annual | Plan 2 annual | |---|--------|---------| | Repayment | £451 | £243 | | Monthly deduction | £38 | £20 |

Plan 4 (Scotland) has a threshold of £31,395 — which means at £30,000 you would pay nothing under Plan 4.

What a £2,000 salary sacrifice would do

If you directed £2,000 into your pension via salary sacrifice:

| | Without sacrifice | With £2,000 sacrifice | |---|------|------| | Gross taxable pay | £30,000 | £28,000 | | Income tax | £3,486 | £3,086 | | Employee NI | £1,394 | £1,234 | | Take-home pay | £25,120 | £23,680 | | Take-home reduction | — | £1,440 | | Pension value gained | — | £2,000 |

The £2,000 pension contribution costs you £1,440 in take-home — a 28% discount. You get £2,000 of pension for £1,440.

What a £5,000 raise would mean from here

A raise from £30,000 to £35,000 would increase take-home by approximately £3,490 per year (£291 per month). The full £5,000 stays within the basic-rate band, so you keep about 70% of the raise after tax and NI.

Best next step

Run the take-home pay calculator with your own region and student loan settings. To see how a raise changes this position, try the pay rise calculator.

See also: Take-home pay on £25,000 | Take-home pay on £35,000 | Take-home pay on £40,000