£paycalculate.co.uk

Salary Sacrifice Calculator

Compare your take-home pay before and after salary sacrifice for pension, an EV car scheme or cycle-to-work, using 2026/27 UK Income Tax and National Insurance.

£
Pension sacrifice as
%
£
£

Take-home after sacrifice

£40,863.04

Take-home without sacrifice£42,457.96
Change in take-home-£1,594.92
Total sacrificed£2,750.00
Tax + NI saved£1,155.08
Real cost of the benefit£1,594.92
Income Tax (after)£8,332.00
National Insurance (after)£3,054.96
Pension contribution (gross)£2,750.00

Salary sacrifice reduces your gross pay in exchange for a non-cash benefit. Because Income Tax and employee National Insurance are charged on gross pay, sacrificing £1 typically saves 20p, 40p or 45p of Income Tax plus 8p or 2p of NI, depending on which band the sacrificed £ came from.

Figures use 2026/27 England / Wales / NI Income Tax bands, National Insurance letter A on monthly pay, and the standard 1257L tax code. For Scotland, student loans, taxable benefits or the High Income Child Benefit Charge, run the numbers through the main take-home calculator.

This tool is an estimate. It does not model the pension annual allowance, tapered allowance, employer NI rebates or scheme-specific admin fees, and it assumes the sacrifice does not take pay below the National Minimum Wage.

How salary sacrifice works

  1. You agree with your employer to give up part of your gross salary.
  2. The employer redirects that amount to a benefit — pension, EV lease or cycle-to-work bike.
  3. PAYE Income Tax and employee NI are calculated on the reduced gross pay.
  4. Your take-home falls by less than the amount sacrificed — the difference is your tax + NI saving.

Which sacrifices are supported here?

  • Pension — employer-run salary-sacrifice pension. Saves Income Tax and NI on the sacrificed amount.
  • EV car scheme — an ultra-low-emission-vehicle lease via your employer. Enter the annual gross sacrifice; the small Benefit-in-Kind charge (2% of list price in 2025/26, rising each year) is not modelled here.
  • Cycle-to-work — bike + safety kit via a hire agreement. Usually a 12-month sacrifice; enter the annual amount for a like-for-like comparison.