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Take Home Wage Fee & rate guide
Minimum Wage Take-Home Pay Calculator
On the £12.71 minimum wage at 37.5 hours a week for 52 weeks, minimum wage take home pay is £21,364.44 a year, about £1,780 a month, from gross pay of £24,784.50. That is after £2,442.90 Income Tax and £977.16 National Insurance, with no pension and the standard 1257L tax code.
Updated
- Updated September 2026
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Take-home on £12.71 at 20, 30, 37.5 and 40 hours (table)
The table below uses the National Living Wage of £12.71 an hour for workers aged 21 and over, 52 paid weeks, no pension contribution and the standard Personal Allowance of £12,570.
| Hours a week | Gross a year | Income Tax | National Insurance | Take-home a year | Take-home a month |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 20 | £13,218.40 | £129.68 | £51.87 | £13,036.85 | £1,086.40 |
| 30 | £19,827.60 | £1,451.52 | £580.61 | £17,795.47 | £1,482.96 |
| 37.5 | £24,784.50 | £2,442.90 | £977.16 | £21,364.44 | £1,780.37 |
| 40 | £26,436.80 | £2,773.36 | £1,109.34 | £22,554.10 | £1,879.51 |
Two things stand out. At 20 hours a week you keep almost all of it: gross pay is only £648.40 above the Personal Allowance, so the whole year costs £181.55 in tax and National Insurance combined. At 40 hours the deductions come to £3,882.70, roughly 14.7% of gross.
The gap between 37.5 and 40 hours is £1,652.30 gross but only £1,189.66 net, because every extra pound over £12,570 is taxed at 20% and charged 8% National Insurance, a combined 28% marginal rate.
These are annual figures. Your payslip works on each pay period instead, so a week with overtime or a month with five paydays can look different even though the year comes out the same. Weekly take-home works out at £250.71 (20 hours), £342.22 (30 hours), £410.85 (37.5 hours) and £433.73 (40 hours). Student loan repayments, salary sacrifice, an emergency tax code and unpaid weeks are all excluded here, and each will change what actually lands in your account.
How tax and NI are worked out
Income Tax and National Insurance are worked out separately, on different bases, and both start at £12,570 a year.
Income Tax: the Personal Allowance is £12,570, so the first £12,570 of your pay is untaxed. Anything from £12,571 to £50,270 is taxed at 20%, £50,271 to £125,140 at 40%, and above £125,140 at 45%. Above £100,000 the Personal Allowance itself shrinks by £1 for every £2 of income. Nobody on the minimum wage gets near those upper bands: 40 hours a week at £12.71 is £26,436.80, well inside the basic rate.
National Insurance: employees pay 8% on earnings between the £12,570 primary threshold and the £50,270 upper earnings limit, then 2% above that. National Insurance is charged on your gross pay, and a pension contribution does not reduce it under a normal auto-enrolment scheme.
Worked through at 37.5 hours on £12.71:
- Gross pay: £12.71 × 37.5 × 52 = £24,784.50
- Taxable above the allowance: £24,784.50 − £12,570 = £12,214.50
- Income Tax: £12,214.50 × 20% = £2,442.90
- National Insurance: £12,214.50 × 8% = £977.16
- Take-home: £21,364.44, or £1,780.37 a month
The calculator assumes tax code 1257L, which is the code for one job with the full Personal Allowance. If you have two jobs, a company benefit or an underpayment being collected, your code will differ and so will the tax. Check the code on your payslip against your HMRC personal tax account before you rely on any figure here.
Pension auto-enrolment
If you are aged 22 to State Pension age, earn at least £10,000 a year and ordinarily work in the UK, your employer must enrol you into a workplace pension automatically. On the minimum wage that threshold matters: at £12.71 an hour you cross £10,000 at about 15.2 hours a week.
The legal minimum total contribution is 8% of qualifying earnings, of which your employer must put in at least 3% and you put in the rest, normally 5%. Qualifying earnings are the slice of pay between £6,240 and £50,270 a year, not your whole salary, which is why the cost is lower than 5% of gross sounds.
| Hours a week at £12.71 | Gross a year | Qualifying earnings | Your 5% contribution | Take-home a year |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 20 | £13,218.40 | £6,978.40 | £348.92 | £12,757.72 |
| 37.5 | £24,784.50 | £18,544.50 | £927.23 | £20,622.66 |
| 40 | £26,436.80 | £20,196.80 | £1,009.84 | £21,746.23 |
At 37.5 hours the £927.23 contribution only reduces take-home by £741.78, because the contribution comes off before Income Tax and saves £185.45 of tax at 20%. Your employer adds at least 3% of qualifying earnings on top, £556.34 at 37.5 hours, which is money you do not get if you opt out.
You can opt out, and within the first month your contributions are refunded. Some schemes instead work on your full pay or use salary sacrifice, which also cuts National Insurance; check your scheme’s rules, because the calculator uses the qualifying earnings method that most auto-enrolment schemes follow.
Scotland note
The calculator uses England, Wales and Northern Ireland Income Tax bands. If you live in Scotland the minimum wage is identical, because it is set UK-wide, but Income Tax is devolved and the bands are different, so the take-home figure on this page will be slightly out for you.
Scottish Income Tax bands run to six bands rather than three: a starter rate of 19% from £12,571 to £16,537, a basic rate of 20% to £29,526, an intermediate rate of 21% to £43,662, a higher rate of 42% to £75,000, an advanced rate of 45% to £125,140 and a top rate of 48% above that. The £12,570 Personal Allowance is the same, and it is still withdrawn above £100,000.
For a minimum wage worker the difference is small and in your favour. At 37.5 hours on £12.71, gross pay of £24,784.50 gives £3,967 taxed at the 19% starter rate (£753.73) and £8,247.50 taxed at 20% (£1,649.50), a total of £2,403.23. The England, Wales and Northern Ireland figure is £2,442.90, so a Scottish taxpayer pays £39.67 less over the year, about £3.31 a month.
National Insurance is not devolved, so the 8% and 2% rates and the £12,570 and £50,270 thresholds apply the same way across the whole UK. The pension and qualifying earnings figures are UK-wide too.
Whether you count as a Scottish taxpayer depends on where your main home is for most of the tax year, not where your employer is based. HMRC decides it and applies an S prefix to your tax code, so check whether your payslip shows something like S1257L. Scottish bands are a planned addition to this calculator; until then, use the tick box to see the warning and treat the tax line as the rest-of-UK figure.
Frequently asked questions
What is minimum wage take home pay per month in 2025?
At £12.21 an hour (the 2025 National Living Wage for workers aged 21 and over) and 37.5 hours a week, gross annual pay is £23,809.50. After Income Tax of £2,271.90 and National Insurance of £905.54, take-home pay is roughly £20,632 a year, or about £1,719 a month. Hours, pension contributions and your tax code all change the figure — use the calculator above with your own numbers.
What is the take home pay for £12.71 an hour?
At £12.71 an hour for 37.5 hours over 52 weeks, gross pay is £24,784.50. The standard 1257L tax code gives a £12,570 personal allowance, so taxable income is £12,214.50, producing £2,442.90 in Income Tax at 20%. National Insurance at 8% on earnings above the £12,570 primary threshold adds £977.16. Take-home is £24,784.50 minus those two deductions: approximately £21,364 a year, or £1,780 a month. No pension or student loan is assumed.
How much National Insurance do I pay on minimum wage?
National Insurance (Class 1, employee rate) is 8% on weekly earnings between the primary threshold (£242 a week in 2024–25) and the upper earnings limit (£967 a week). At 37.5 hours on £12.71, weekly gross is £476.63, so NI applies to £476.63 minus £242 = £234.63 a week. That is about £18.77 a week or £977 a year. The rates and thresholds are confirmed by GOV.UK each April.
Does pension auto-enrolment reduce take-home pay?
Yes. If your employer enrols you automatically (you must be 22 or over and earn above £10,000 a year), you contribute a minimum of 5% of qualifying earnings, which is taken before tax. That reduces your net pay. The calculator on this page shows your take-home without pension by default; tick the pension option to see the difference.
Is minimum wage the same in Scotland?
The National Minimum Wage and National Living Wage rates are the same across England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland — they are set by the UK Government, not the devolved administrations. However, Scottish taxpayers pay income tax at rates set by the Scottish Government, which differ from the rest of the UK from the starter rate band upwards. The Scotland note on this page shows how that affects take-home pay.
Sources
Related
Estimates only, not financial or tax advice. Rates from GOV.UK; check your payslip and HMRC for your own tax code.