Salary Sacrifice Pension Calculator
Compare your take-home pay before and after pension salary sacrifice. The calculator uses NetSlip's existing 2026/27 tax, National Insurance and student-loan engine, so salary sacrifice reduces the payroll pay used for Income Tax, employee NI and loan deductions.
What “net take-home cost” means: the amount your annual take-home falls after putting the stated gross amount into your pension. It can be lower than the pension contribution because salary sacrifice can reduce Income Tax, employee NI and, where applicable, payroll student-loan deductions.
2029 change: the Government has announced that from 6 April 2029 only the first £2,000 a year of employee pension contributions made through salary sacrifice will remain exempt from NICs. That reform is not in force in 2026/27, so this calculator applies the current 2026/27 rules.
How salary sacrifice works
You agree with your employer to reduce your contractual cash salary. In exchange, the employer pays an equivalent pension contribution. Because the sacrificed amount is not treated as your normal cash pay, it normally reduces the earnings on which Income Tax and employee National Insurance are calculated. NetSlip also reduces the payroll earnings used for student-loan deductions, matching the way deductions are calculated through PAYE.
Why it matters around £100,000
Salary sacrifice reduces taxable pay and can also reduce adjusted net income. That makes it especially relevant where adjusted net income is above £100,000 and the Personal Allowance is being withdrawn by £1 for every £2 above that threshold. It can therefore interact with the unusually high effective marginal tax rate in the £100,000 to £125,140 range.