About UK Salary Sacrifice Calculator

What this site is for

Use the calculators to get a fast, private estimate of what a salary sacrifice arrangement does to your take-home pay. The suite includes the main salary sacrifice calculator, a dedicated pension salary sacrifice calculator, an electric-car (EV) salary sacrifice calculator, an employer NI saving calculator, a bonus sacrifice calculator and a £100k tax-trap calculator. Each one shows the income tax saving, the employee NI saving, the employer NI saving and the real monthly net cost of the sacrifice. See the full list of calculators.

The guides answer specific questions quickly — for example, "how much do I save by sacrificing £5,000 into my pension?" or "is an electric car through salary sacrifice cheaper than a personal lease?". The site is designed for employees weighing up a scheme their employer offers, and for anyone comparing sacrifice against relief-at-source or a normal pension. For a decision about your own circumstances, check the current figures on GOV.UK or HMRC, speak to your employer's payroll or HR team, or consult a regulated financial adviser.

What we cover

• How salary sacrifice works — how giving up part of your gross salary in exchange for a benefit lowers your income tax and National Insurance, why the saving depends on your marginal rate, and the National Living Wage floor that limits how much you can sacrifice.
• Pension salary sacrifice — the income tax and employee NI saving on each pound sacrificed, how the real net cost of a contribution works out, and how employers often pass back their NI saving as extra pension.
• Electric-car and company-car schemes — how the Benefit-in-Kind (BiK) charge on an EV interacts with the sacrifice, the rising BiK rate (4% in 2026/27), and how a sacrifice car compares with a personal lease.
• Cycle-to-work schemes — how the tax exemption works, scheme caps, the equipment that qualifies, and the ownership-transfer rules at the end of the hire period.
• Employee NI and income tax savings — worked examples for basic-rate, higher-rate and additional-rate earners, including the effective 60% relief in the £100,000–£125,140 personal-allowance taper band.
• Employer NI savings — the 15% employer NI saved on every pound sacrificed above the secondary threshold, and how to structure a scheme across a workforce.
• Effect on other things — how a lower headline salary can affect Statutory Maternity Pay, state pension qualifying earnings, Universal Credit, and mortgage affordability, since lenders may use pre-sacrifice pay.

Editorial approach

Every calculator and guide is written in plain British English and reviewed against current HMRC and GOV.UK guidance for the active tax year. We prioritise factual accuracy, transparent assumptions and pages that genuinely help a reader decide whether a sacrifice is worth it — not pages that restate HMRC definitions without helping anyone act.

We show our workings. Where a calculation is simplified or an assumption is made, it is stated on the page and explained in full on the methodology page. Our editorial standards cover how we write, review and update content, and the official sources we check against.

The site is free to use and funded by advertising. That never affects the figures our calculators produce or the guidance we give. This site provides general information and estimates, not financial, tax or legal advice.

How the site is maintained

• Calculator rates and thresholds are updated when HMRC confirms the new tax-year income tax bands, National Insurance rates and Benefit-in-Kind figures.
• Guides and calculators are reviewed at each fiscal event — Budget and Autumn Statement — and whenever HMRC updates its salary sacrifice guidance.
• Pages are updated when readers report confusing assumptions, unclear wording or outdated figures.
• We do not publish pages without practical value for a UK salary sacrifice audience.

Editorial ownership and contact

James Whitfield is the editorial owner of UK Salary Sacrifice Calculator. He has written about UK employee benefits, National Insurance and pension taxation for over five years, covering pension salary sacrifice, electric-car and cycle-to-work schemes, the annual changes to Benefit-in-Kind rates, and the way sacrifice interacts with the £100,000 personal-allowance taper and earnings-related benefits. James holds a PhD in engineering mathematics and builds these tools to make the numbers genuinely clear and usable, with a strong focus on figures checked against official HMRC and GOV.UK guidance and a clean, honest user experience. He is not a regulated tax adviser, so for decisions about your own situation, consult a qualified professional.

His work focuses on translating HMRC salary sacrifice rules into plain-English guidance that is practically useful for someone deciding whether to join a scheme — a clear starting point before speaking to payroll, HR or a regulated adviser, rather than a substitute for personal financial advice.

Every calculator and guide is reviewed against current HMRC and GOV.UK guidance before publication. Rates and thresholds are updated when HMRC confirms new tax-year figures, and errors identified by readers are corrected promptly.

For corrections, data-quality feedback or editorial queries: contact page or email hello@uksalarysacrificecalculator.co.uk. Last reviewed: July 2026. Tax year: 2026/27.