The fastest way to understand a payslip is to read one where every figure can be checked. This is a month of a £30,000 salary on the standard 1257L code, National Insurance category A, no pension and no student loan, in the 2026/27 tax year: gross £2,500.00, Income Tax £290.50, National Insurance £116.20, net £2,093.30. Below, each of those lines is where it came from, followed by the lines a real payslip adds that this one does not need, and the two or three places a payslip usually goes wrong.
The top half of this payslip example: what you earned
Gross pay for the period comes first, £2,500.00 here, a twelfth of £30,000. Beside it a real payslip shows the year-to-date gross, which in month 6 would be £15,000.00. If your pay varies with hours, the hours must be shown too, either as one total or split by rate. Anything added here is pay: overtime, a bonus, commission, a shift allowance, statutory sick or maternity pay. Anything reimbursed, a train fare or a mileage claim at the approved rate, is usually shown separately and is not pay, which is why it carries no deduction and does not raise the tax on the rest.
The deductions, and how each one is worked out
Income Tax: the 1257L code gives £12,570 of tax-free pay a year, £1,047.50 in the month. £2,500.00 less £1,047.50 is £1,452.50 of taxable pay, taxed at 20%, which is £290.50. National Insurance: category A charges nothing up to the monthly primary threshold of £1,048, then 8% to the monthly upper earnings limit of £4,189. £2,500.00 less £1,048 is £1,452.00 at 8%, which is £116.20. Across the year those come to £3,486.00 and £1,394.40, and the yearly net is £25,119.60. Tax is cumulative, so a real payslip recalculates the year to date each period; National Insurance is not, and is assessed on that period alone.
The bottom line, and the identifiers around it
Net pay, £2,093.30, is the figure that reaches your account, and where pay is split between accounts each part-payment must show its amount and method. Around it sit the identifiers that make the slip checkable: your tax code, which explains the allowance used; your National Insurance number; a payroll or employee number; the pay period and the payment date; and often the employer's PAYE reference. None of those changes the arithmetic, and all of them matter the moment something has to be queried or evidenced.
The lines this example does not have
Four common additions. A workplace pension contribution, which reduces taxable pay under a net pay arrangement but never reduces National Insurance, and is deducted after tax under relief at source. A student loan repayment, which is a percentage of pay above that plan's threshold and appears as its own line. A benefit in kind such as a company car, which is normally handled through the tax code rather than as a deduction, so it shows up as a smaller allowance rather than a line of its own. And an attachment of earnings, a court-ordered deduction, which must be itemised like any other.
The payslip explained: where one usually goes wrong
In order of how often it happens: a wrong tax code, particularly a BR or 0T code left over from a new job, which taxes everything at 20% or more with no allowance at all; a week-1 or month-1 marker, which stops the cumulative calculation and can leave you over-taxed until it is lifted; a pension percentage applied to the wrong base, qualifying earnings rather than full pay or the reverse; and an overtime or bonus that pushes a single period over a threshold, which looks like a mistake and is usually just the marginal rate doing its job. Work the period out yourself first. If your figures match the ones above at your own salary, the payslip is right.
Questions people ask about example payslip uk
What does a payslip look like?
Three blocks: what you earned this period and year to date, every deduction itemised with its amount, and the net paid. Around them, the identifiers: tax code, National Insurance number, payroll number, period and payment date.
Why is my tax not exactly a twelfth of the annual figure?
It usually is on a steady salary. It stops being so the moment pay varies, because the cumulative calculation re-reads the whole year each period: one month of overtime is taxed at your marginal rate, and the months after it correct back.
What is the year-to-date column for?
It is the cumulative calculation made visible. Tax is charged on the year, not on the period, so a payslip that shows only the period figures cannot be checked properly. At month 12 the year-to-date line and your P60 should agree exactly.
My net pay changed and my salary did not. Why?
Most often a tax code change, a pension or student loan starting, or a benefit in kind being coded in. Compare two payslips line by line: whichever line moved is the answer, and the identifiers at the top usually say why.