Net pay is the amount that actually reaches your bank account: gross pay less every deduction made from it. Gross is the headline, the figure in the job advert and the contract. Net is the figure you can spend. On a £30,000 salary in 2026/27 the gap is £4,880.40 a year, £3,486.00 of Income Tax and £1,394.40 of National Insurance, leaving £25,119.60 net, or £2,093.30 a month. So the answer to whether net is before or after tax is: after. Always after, and after everything else as well.
Gross, taxable, net: three different numbers
Gross pay is everything you earned in the period. TAXABLE pay is gross less anything deducted before tax, principally a pension under a net pay arrangement, and it is the figure Income Tax is charged on. Net pay is gross less every deduction, whether it was taken before or after tax. The three are rarely equal and a payslip shows all of them, which is why reading one in the right order matters: tax is charged on the middle figure, National Insurance on the first, and only the last one is money.
What comes out between the two
Income Tax, worked out through your tax code against the Personal Allowance and the bands. Class 1 National Insurance, charged on gross pay above the primary threshold. Then the ones that apply to some people: a workplace pension, a student loan repayment, an attachment of earnings, a season ticket loan, a charitable gift under payroll giving. Each has to appear as its own itemised line, so if the gap between your gross and your net is bigger than tax and NI alone, the payslip will say what is making it up.
The gap is not a fixed percentage
It grows with pay, because the Personal Allowance is a fixed amount rather than a rate. On £25,000 the deductions are 13.92% of gross; on £30,000, 16.27%; on £40,000, 19.20%; on £50,000, 20.96%. Above £50,270 the higher rate bites and the effective figure climbs faster, and between £100,000 and £125,140 the allowance is withdrawn at £1 for every £2, which produces a marginal rate of 62% on that slice. A single percentage taken off a salary will be wrong at almost every level, which is why this site computes each figure rather than scaling one.
Net pay on an offer, and how to compare two
Comparing two offers on gross is comparing the wrong number, particularly where one carries a pension contribution the other does not, or where one is in Scotland. Convert both to net for the same year, then adjust for the things that are pay in disguise: an employer pension contribution is money you receive, a salary sacrifice reduces the net figure but buys something, and a bonus is taxed at your marginal rate rather than your average one. A £5,000 rise on a £45,000 salary is worth £3,600 in the pocket at the basic-rate marginal 28%, not £5,000 and not £4,040.
Where the words differ
Net pay, take-home pay, after-tax salary and take-home wage all name the same figure in the UK. HMRC and payroll software tend to say net pay; job adverts say take-home; American sources say net income or take-home pay and mean the same arithmetic over different taxes. One phrase that means something else: NET PAY ARRANGEMENT, which is the name of one of the two ways a pension contribution gets its tax relief, and has nothing to do with the net pay on the bottom of your payslip.
Questions people ask about what is net pay
Is net before or after taxes?
After. Net pay is what is left once Income Tax, National Insurance and any other deduction have been taken. Gross pay is the figure before any of it.
What is net pay on £30,000?
£25,119.60 a year in 2026/27 on a standard tax code with no pension or student loan: £2,093.30 a month, after £3,486.00 of Income Tax and £1,394.40 of National Insurance.
Why is my net pay different each month?
Usually because gross pay varied, and tax is cumulative: overtime or a bonus is taxed at your marginal rate in the period it is paid and the following months correct back toward the annual position.
Is take-home pay, or an after tax salary, the same as net pay?
Yes, in the UK they name the same figure. So do after-tax salary and take-home wage. Net pay is the term payroll uses.