A salary sacrifice only makes sense once you can see the numbers, so here is a quick calculator. Put in an annual salary and the amount to sacrifice, and it estimates how much income tax and National Insurance you save, how much your take-home pay actually falls, and what the employer saves in National Insurance. It uses current rates for England, Wales and Northern Ireland, and it is a guide rather than a payslip. When you want the exact figures for your staff, we run them properly.
This tool sits within our salary sacrifice service. For how each scheme works, see the pension, electric car and cycle to work pages.
Salary sacrifice calculator
How the calculator works
The calculator works out your income tax and National Insurance on your full salary, then again on your salary after the sacrifice, and shows the difference. Because the sacrificed pay is no longer counted as earnings, you stop paying tax and National Insurance on it, which is why your take-home pay falls by less than the amount you sacrifice. The employer figure is the employer National Insurance, currently 15% above the secondary threshold, that is no longer due on the sacrificed pay.
What the numbers mean
- Take-home pay falls by is the real cost to you. For a pension sacrifice, this is what it costs you to put the full sacrifice into your pension.
- Tax and National Insurance you save is the gap between the amount sacrificed and the fall in take-home pay. It is the money that would otherwise have gone to HMRC.
- Employer National Insurance saved is what your employer saves. Many employers add this to a pension to make the scheme go further.
This is an estimate using current rates for England, Wales and Northern Ireland. It does not account for your tax code, student loan, existing pension arrangement, or Scottish income tax. For pension sacrifice above a certain level, remember the change coming in April 2029.
Getting the exact figures
A calculator gets you close, but the exact figures depend on your staff, your scheme and your pension basis, and the sacrifice has to be checked against the minimum wage every run. That is our job. We are a South Wales payroll bureau with more than 60 years of combined experience, CIPP members and Chartered Accountants (ICAEW). If you want the real numbers for your team, talk to us about your payroll or see how our pricing works.