Salary Sacrifice Calculator
See the real cost of sacrificing salary into your pension - take-home pay before and after, Income Tax and National Insurance saved, and the effective cost per pound.
Already sacrificed, as a % of salary
Additional sacrifice
Region
Salary sacrifice
Effective Cost of This Sacrifice
£1,620
Where the saving comes from
For every £1 that enters your pension this way, your take-home only falls by £0.72 - the rest is Income Tax and National Insurance you'd otherwise have paid. This is modelled as salary sacrifice, which also reduces student loan repayments where applicable. Figures use published 2026/27 rates and are estimates for general guidance only.
How this is calculated
This runs your take-home pay twice through the same engine as the Take Home Pay Calculator - once at your current pension contribution, once with the additional sacrifice added on top - and compares the two. Salary sacrifice reduces your pay for both Income Tax and National Insurance purposes, which is what makes it more tax-efficient than a normal net pension contribution.
Why the effective cost is less than the amount sacrificed
If you sacrifice £2,000 of salary, your take-home doesn't fall by the full £2,000 - it falls by whatever's left after the Income Tax and National Insurance you would otherwise have paid on that £2,000. The calculator shows exactly how much of the saving comes from each.