Compare up to three job offers on net pay and total package.
Your details
Add up to three offers. Edit any field to update the comparison live.
Best net annual
£37,597
| Metric | Offer 1 | Offer 2 |
|---|---|---|
| Gross (salary + bonus) | £48,000 | £52,000 |
| Net annual | £35,680 | £37,597 |
| Net monthly | £2,973.30 | £3,133.12 |
| Benefits value | £800 | £1,500 |
| Total package | £36,480 | £39,097 |
Interactive scenarios
Tax and deductions, your way
Tax year
Region
Pay schedule
Salary £45,000
Net (monthly)
£2,806
Income tax (monthly)
£541
NI (monthly)
£216
Effective rate
20.2%
The full guide
Worked examples with real figures, the order payroll applies them in, and the traps that catch people out.
A £3,000 rise that crosses a threshold can be worth less in the hand than a £2,000 rise that does not. Gross salary is a poor way to rank two offers.
Employer pension, sacrifice arrangements and region all move the answer, sometimes by more than the salary difference itself.
Deductions are not a flat set that each take a bite of the same cake. They run in sequence, and the sequence decides the cost of every one after the first.
Pension goes first under salary sacrifice, leaving gross pay before tax and National Insurance ever see it. Under relief at source it leaves net pay instead and HMRC tops the pot up. Same percentage on paper, different payslip.
Income tax then applies band by band against the tax code. National Insurance follows, worked out per pay period rather than across the year. Student loan sits on top of all of it and never reduces taxable pay.
Change the order and the answer changes. That is why a payslip with the same gross as a colleague's can pay a different net.
Pay flow
Gross, pension, tax, National Insurance, net
£50,000 with a four percent employer pension puts £2,000 a year into the pot. £48,000 with six percent puts £2,880 in, so the lower salary is already £880 ahead on total reward.
Add salary sacrifice on the second offer and the National Insurance saving closes most of the take home gap as well.
Then price the parts that never appear as cash. An hour a day off a commute is about two hundred and fifty hours a year, and no calculator will value that for you.
Worked payslip
Gross to net, line by line
Sample payslip
Month 06 · 2025/26Gross pay
£2,916.67
Pension (5%)
£145.83
Taxable pay
£2,770.84
Income tax
£373.83
National Insurance
£149.52
Net pay
£2,247.66
Sixty payslips turn small monthly differences into serious money. A £40 monthly gap is £2,400 across five years before anything grows.
Pension shows it hardest. Two extra percent on £45,000, matched by an employer and topped by relief, adds close to £2,000 a year to the pot. Compound that for thirty years at a modest rate and it clears six figures.
Multiply the monthly gap by sixty for the cash answer, then apply growth to the yearly pension gap for the long one.
Leave window
The same decision, five years apart
Cash is the floor of a decision, not the decision. An hour a day handed back by a shorter commute is roughly two hundred and fifty hours a year, and nothing prices that against a manager worth working for.
Some benefits convert cleanly. Health cover has a taxable value, a learning budget has a receipt, extra leave has a daily rate. Share options that vest over four years and enhanced parental leave do not, so weigh those separately rather than treating them as salary.
Rates, bands and thresholds follow published HMRC and gov.uk figures for the 2025/26 tax year, held in one table that every tool reads. April arrives, the table changes, and the results move together.
Earlier years stay available through the year selector, so a late self assessment runs on the numbers that applied at the time rather than today's.
Some cases still need an accountant. K codes carrying negative allowances, bespoke sacrifice arrangements, the annual allowance taper for very high earners, and anything involving two employments at once.
Job Offer Comparison Calculator answers one question. The salary calculator turns gross into net, the income tax calculator splits the bill by band, the National Insurance calculator shows the step at the upper limit, and the pension calculator prices a percentage change three ways at once.
Every tool reads the same rate table, so two pages never disagree. Run this one, note the figure, then open the next and watch which line moves.
Example gallery
Real inputs, real outputs
Graduate starter
First job, default workplace pension.
Gross / yr
£28,000
Pension
5%
Income tax
£3,086
NI
£1,234
Mid career
Standard tax code, modest pension uplift.
Gross / yr
£45,000
Pension
6%
Income tax
£6,486
NI
£2,594
Higher rate
Crossing the higher rate band.
Gross / yr
£72,000
Pension
8%
Income tax
£16,232
NI
£3,451
Scotland mid
Scottish bands applied.
Gross / yr
£45,000
Pension
5%
Income tax
£6,928
NI
£2,594
About this calculator
Compare up to three UK job offers side-by-side. We convert each offer to net annual and net monthly pay using 2025/26 thresholds, then add benefits to give you a total package figure.
Quick reference
Questions are added here as readers send them in.