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Is My Job Actually Worth It?

UK Work, Pay & Life Calculator

Compare your headline pay with what your job is really worth after deductions, extra time, commuting and work-related costs.

Free UK real hourly wage & take-home pay calculator

Your salary does not tell the whole story. This calculator estimates what your job is actually worth after Income Tax, National Insurance, pension contributions, overtime, unpaid extra time and regular work-related costs.

Real hourly wageCompare headline pay with the value of the hours you physically work, including regular extra unpaid work time.
Take-home payEstimate annual and monthly take-home after tax, NI, pension, student loan and other deductions.
Cost of the jobInclude commuting, parking, childcare, meals, clothing, tools and other costs caused by working.

📋 Before you start — useful documents

You do not need all of these. Use what you have and leave unknown items blank.

⭐ Latest payslip
Actual gross pay, tax, NI, pension and deductions.
📄 Employment contract
Salary and contracted average hours.
📚 3–12 recent payslips
Best for variable overtime, commission and bonuses.
📑 P60
Useful for checking a completed tax year.
📅 Rota / timesheets
Useful for actual hours and repeating shift patterns.
💷 Pension information
Contribution percentage or actual payroll amount.
🚗 Commute costs
Fuel/fares, parking and tolls.
👶 Other work costs
Childcare, meals, clothing, tools and similar costs.
Calculation completeness0%

1. How are you paid?

For salaried workers, enter the salary from your contract or payslip.

2. Working hours & rota

Time at work that is not included in paid hours.
Regular unpaid work time outside your paid hours, excluding lunch/breaks.

3. Overtime

Use calculated overtime if you know the hours and rate. Use actual overtime pay if payroll uses a different underlying rate.

Calculated overtime pay: £0.00
Use “This pay period only” for overtime that happened on one payslip. Choose a repeating option only if you expect roughly the same overtime each period.

Overtime hours are automatically added to annual physical working time.

4. Other additional income

5. Tax, NI & deductions

Choose the code type shown on your payslip. Numbered L, M, N, T and K codes ask for the number separately. Scottish/Welsh treatment follows the tax-region setting.

Automatic deductions are comparison estimates. Actual payroll figures should be used when available.

6. Salary sacrifice & payroll adjustments

🚲 Cycle to Work scheme

Check your payslip. This may appear as “Cycle to Work”, “Cycle Scheme” or “Salary Sacrifice”. Enter the amount sacrificed each deduction.

For example, if £80 is deducted monthly and you have 8 payments remaining, enter £80 and 8. The calculator will count £640 of remaining Cycle to Work salary sacrifice instead of assuming £80 continues all year.

Don't enter this amount again in the other salary-sacrifice / payroll-adjustment box above. A qualifying Cycle to Work salary sacrifice is treated before estimated Income Tax and employee National Insurance in this calculator.

7. Commute & work costs

A. Getting to your normal workplace — enter your normal commute here. Do not include journeys you make elsewhere for work.

💼 B. Travel you do because of your job

Other costs of having the job

Enter only the extra amount you pay because your job requires business use, not your whole insurance premium. For example, if personal insurance would cost £400 a year but adding business use makes it £520, enter £120.

8. Paid time off, sickness & guaranteed days off

This section separates time you are paid not to work from time off that reduces your income.

Bank/public holidays

Choose any year from the current year through the next 10 years. Standard recurring bank holidays and substitute days are calculated automatically. Exceptional one-off bank holidays cannot be predicted and should be checked when officially announced. “Off using holiday allowance” is not added twice to annual leave. If you work a bank holiday, you can also enter the total pay rate for those hours (for example 1.5× means your normal salary covers 1× and the calculator adds the extra 0.5×).

Other guaranteed days off

Sickness

Choose how sickness is paid, then add each sickness period separately.

No sickness entered.

The “first 3 working days SSP, then full pay” option is an employer sick-pay pattern, not the statutory SSP waiting-day rule. From 6 April 2026 statutory SSP itself is payable from the first full qualifying day. SSP remains an estimate for comparison only.

Real-life hourly value
£0.00 / hour
Net income after work costs divided by physical work + other extra unpaid work time. Commute minutes and normal lunch/breaks do not affect this figure.
Contract hourly value£0.00
Take-home per physical work hour£0.00
Real-life/hour£0.00

Confidence

✨ AI Results Assistant

Get a plain-English overview of your completed result, possible problems worth checking, and suggestions to improve accuracy. Then ask follow-up questions about your figures.

Calculate your result, then tick the consent box to start the optional AI review.

AI can make mistakes. Treat this as a sense-check and explanation, not financial, tax, payroll, legal or employment advice.

💷 Typical pay

Base annual pay£0.00
Annual overtime£0.00
Other additional income£0.00
Bank-holiday premium pay£0.00
Gross annual income after unpaid/reduced time off£0.00
Income Tax-£0.00
Employee NI-£0.00
Employee pension-£0.00
Student loan-£0.00
Other deductions-£0.00
Other salary sacrifice / adjustment-£0.00
Cycle to Work sacrifice remaining-£0.00
Gross pay lost to sickness / reduced leave-£0.00
Estimated annual take-home£0.00
Average monthly equivalent£0.00
Typical 4-week take-home£0.00
This pay period estimated take-home£0.00

Shown when overtime is set to “This pay period only”. It keeps the full one-off overtime payment in this pay period instead of spreading it across the annual average.

⏱ Work & life time

Schedule
Average working days/week0
Average scheduled shifts/year0
Contracted hours/year0 hours
Scheduled normal paid hours/year0 hours
Overtime hours/year0 hours
Paid holiday hours not worked0 hours
Guaranteed paid hours off0 hours
Paid bank-holiday hours off0 hours
Sick hours not worked0 hours
Physical hours actually worked0 hours
Extra hours above contract/year0 hours
Equivalent extra 8-hour days0 days
Commute hours/year0 hours
Unpaid lunch/break hours/year0 hours
Other unpaid time/year0 hours
Total real-life time committed/year0 hours
Typical clock-in → clock-out

🏖 Paid time off & sickness

Paid time-off value£0.00
Income lost to unpaid/reduced time off-£0.00
Sick periods/year0
Sick working days/year0
Take-home per physical work hour£0.00 / hour

💳 Cost of having the job

Normal commute costs/year£0.00
Other work costs/year£0.00
Annual work-related costs£0.00
Net income after those costs£0.00

Potential tax relief is shown separately and is not added to your take-home pay. Employer reimbursements are used to reduce the related business-travel cost, not treated as salary.

Version 35.4 calculation notice

Contracted hours, scheduled paid hours and physical hours actually worked are calculated separately. Annual leave is removed once only. Bank holidays or guaranteed days marked “taken from holiday allowance” are not double-counted. Normal lunch/breaks and commute minutes are shown separately but do not affect real-life hourly value. Other extra unpaid work time is included in real-life time committed. Normal commute costs and qualifying business-travel costs are accounted for separately. Own-vehicle business mileage uses the 2026/27 HMRC approved mileage benchmark and is not also deducted as fuel. Bank-holiday premium pay adds only the enhancement above normal pay. Gross pay lost through unpaid/reduced sickness is removed before estimated tax, NI, pension and student-loan deductions are recalculated.

Estimate disclaimer: This calculator is for comparison and planning only. Results are estimates and may differ from your actual payslip, payroll, tax, pension, statutory pay or employer calculations. Tax, NI, pension, student-loan, SSP, overtime and take-home figures can vary because of payroll methods, tax-code treatment, pay-period timing, rounding and information not entered here. Do not rely on this calculator as financial, tax, legal, employment or payroll advice. Check important figures against your payslip, contract, employer/payroll information and official guidance. Estimated deductions prevent the confidence score from reaching 100%.

About the calculator

What is a real hourly wage?

It is a way of comparing your take-home income with the time you actually spend working. This calculator also lets you account for regular unpaid work time and work-related costs so you can compare jobs more realistically.

Does commuting reduce the real hourly value?

This version shows commute time separately and does not include commute minutes in the real-life hourly calculation. Travel costs can still be entered as a work-related cost.

Can I include overtime and a repeating shift pattern?

Yes. You can enter overtime at different multipliers or use actual overtime pay, and choose either a normal weekly pattern or a repeating shift cycle.

Is this a tax or payroll calculator?

It includes estimated UK Income Tax and employee National Insurance to support comparison, but it is not official tax, payroll, legal or financial advice. Important figures should be checked against your payslip, employer and official guidance.