Hourly rate to take-home pay
An hourly rate only becomes meaningful once you know how many hours you actually work and what tax leaves you with. The gap between £15 an hour and what £15 an hour pays for is larger than most people expect.
That is £21,520 a year after income tax, National Insurance and anything else coming off your pay.
- Income tax
- £2,486
- National Insurance
- £994
- Effective rate
- 13.9%
- Marginal rate
- 28.0%
| Year | Month | Week | Hour | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Gross pay | £25,000.00 | £2,083.33 | £480.77 | £12.82 |
| Income tax | £-2,486.00 | £-207.17 | £-47.81 | £-1.27 |
| National Insurance | £-993.92 | £-82.83 | £-19.11 | £-0.51 |
| Take-home pay | £21,520.08 | £1,793.34 | £413.85 | £11.04 |
What an hourly rate is worth
| Hourly rate | Annual gross | Take-home a year | A month | Net per hour |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| £12.71 | £24,785 | £21,365 | £1,780.41 | £10.96 |
| £14.00 | £27,300 | £23,176 | £1,931.34 | £11.89 |
| £16.00 | £31,200 | £25,984 | £2,165.34 | £13.33 |
| £18.00 | £35,100 | £28,792 | £2,399.34 | £14.77 |
| £20.00 | £39,000 | £31,600 | £2,633.34 | £16.21 |
| £25.00 | £48,750 | £38,620 | £3,218.34 | £19.81 |
| £30.00 | £58,500 | £44,488 | £3,707.33 | £22.81 |
| £40.00 | £78,000 | £55,798 | £4,649.83 | £28.61 |
The National Living Wage is £12.71 an hour for anyone 21 or over from 1 April 2026. At 37.5 hours that is £24,785 a year, which after tax and National Insurance leaves about £1,780.41 a month.
Your real hourly rate after tax
The last column above is the one worth looking at. At £20 an hour you keep roughly £16 of it; at £40 an hour you keep about £27. The higher your rate, the bigger the gap, which is why an overtime hour is always worth less than a basic hour to a higher-rate taxpayer.
If you are weighing extra hours against something else — childcare, travel, a second job — the net hourly figure is the only one that makes the comparison honest.
Questions people actually ask
How do I turn an hourly rate into a salary?
Multiply by your contracted hours a week and then by 52. For 37.5 hours, multiply the hourly rate by 1,950. For 40 hours, by 2,080. Term-time-only and shift patterns need a different sum — the pro rata calculator covers those.
What is the minimum wage in 2026?
£12.71 an hour for 21 and over, £10.85 for 18 to 20, and £8.00 for under 18s and apprentices, all from 1 April 2026. Note these change on 1 April rather than 6 April, so they straddle the tax year.
Related
Figures on this page are for the 2026/27 tax year (6 April 2026 to 5 April 2027) and were last checked on 29 August 2026. Every rate we use is listed on the sources page.