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2026/27 Tax Year

UK Take-Home Calculator Comparison

Looking at The Salary Calculator or Listentotaxman and wondering how they stack up? Here's an honest, side-by-side view of the main UK take-home pay tools and what sets each apart.

Feature Comparison

All three use published HMRC thresholds, so core figures agree. The difference is in depth and role-specific modelling.

FeatureUK Take Home CalculatorThe Salary CalculatorListentotaxman
Scottish 6-band tax✅ Auto (S code)✅✅
NHS / Teacher / Police tiers✅ Dedicated tools⚠️ Generic⚠️ Generic
HICBC & Marriage Allowance✅⚠️ Limited⚠️ Limited
Student Loan Plans 1/2/4/5 + PG✅✅✅
Plain-English guides✅ 20+ guides⚠️ Few⚠️ Few
💡 Our Focus
🔧We build role-specific calculators (NHS, Teacher, Police, Locum, Contractor) on top of the same HMRC engine, so public-sector pay scales and pension tiers are built in rather than estimated.

Will the Numbers Match?

For a straightforward salary with no extras, expect agreement to within a pound or two across all three tools. Divergence shows up when you add pensions, Scottish residency, child benefit or Marriage Allowance — areas where modelling choices differ.

If you want to cross-check, the established tools are The Salary Calculator and Listentotaxman. We link them for transparency; we don't control their output.

Which Should You Use?

  • Public-sector roles (NHS, teaching, police): use a role-specific calculator for accurate pension tiers.
  • Scottish taxpayers: confirm the tool applies all six bands and the S-code logic.
  • Contractors / IR35: use the contractor calculator with inside/outside IR35 switching.

Frequently asked questions

Are all UK take-home calculators accurate for 2026/27?

Most reputable tools (including ours, The Salary Calculator and Listentotaxman) use the same published HMRC tax, NI and student loan thresholds, so headline take-home figures are usually within a few pounds. Differences appear in extras like Scottish bands, pension tiers, the High Income Child Benefit Charge and Marriage Allowance, which not every tool models.

Which calculator handles Scottish tax best?

Any tool that models the six Scottish bands (19/20/21/42/45/48%) is suitable. Our calculator auto-detects the 'S' tax-code prefix and switches to Scottish rates, matching HMRC's PAYE behaviour described in our tax code guide.