Shift pattern take-home pay calculator

Enter your hourly rate and the hours you work, including nights, weekends and bank holidays, to see your take-home pay after UK Income Tax, National Insurance, student loan and pension for 2026/27. Free, no sign-up, and nothing you type leaves your device.

Updated 9 October 2026. Facts checked against GOV.UK on 9 October 2026.

How the estimate works

Your weekly hours are turned into one pay period at the frequency you choose, then run through the same UK payroll engine Shyft uses for logged shifts: the 2026/27 PAYE tax tables, Class 1 National Insurance, student loan thresholds and your workplace pension.

Each pay period is worked out on its own, as if every pay day looked the same (the Week 1/Month 1 basis), and the yearly figures are one pay period multiplied up. A real payroll keeps a running total for the tax year, so a period with unusually high or low pay can come out differently.

What it covers

Shift premiums can be a percentage on top of your base rate or a different hourly rate.

Tax codes: 1257L and other numbered codes, BR, 0T, D0, D1, NT, K codes, and Scottish (S) and Welsh (C) codes
National Insurance categories A, B, C and J (J, for deferred National Insurance, is applied to the second job)
Student loan Plans 1, 2, 4 and 5, and Postgraduate loans
Workplace pension through a net pay arrangement, relief at source or salary sacrifice
A second job with its own tax code, with tax, National Insurance and student loan worked out separately for each job, the way each employer would

How do night shift premiums affect take-home pay?

UK law does not set a higher rate for night work. GOV.UK says the National Minimum Wage applies to night workers, but there is not a higher night working rate. Any night premium, whether a percentage on top of your base rate or a separate hourly rate, comes from your contract or a collective agreement, so check yours.

Enter your night hours per week and choose how they are paid. The calculator prices those hours at that rate, adds them to your gross pay and works out the deductions on the total. A premium is taxed like the rest of your pay, so part of every extra pound goes on Income Tax, National Insurance and, on qualifying earnings, your workplace pension.

How is bank holiday pay worked out?

There is no automatic legal right to extra pay for working a bank holiday. Time-and-a-half, double time or your normal rate is down to your contract. GOV.UK also says bank holidays do not have to be given as paid leave, and an employer can count them as part of the 5.6 weeks of statutory annual leave.

Bank holiday hours are entered per year, not per week, because there are only a handful of bank holidays: usually 8 a year in England and Wales, 9 in Scotland and 10 in Northern Ireland (GOV.UK lists 10 for Scotland in 2026, because of a one-off World Cup bank holiday on 15 June). The calculator adds a year’s bank holiday pay to your gross and spreads it evenly across your pay periods. On a real payslip the extra lands in the period you worked it, so that pay day is bigger and has more tax and National Insurance taken.

A worked example: someone on £13.00 an hour works 30 day hours and 8 night hours a week, plus 16 bank holiday hours over the year, paid monthly on tax code 1257L with a 5% workplace pension (net pay arrangement, on qualifying earnings). Nights pay 25% on top (£16.25 an hour) and bank holidays pay double time (£26.00 an hour), so the bank holidays add £416.00 a year, or £34.67 to each monthly payslip.

Gross pay comes to £2,288.00 a month and take-home to £1,870.20. Paid the base rate for every hour, the same pattern would be £2,158.00 gross and £1,781.90 take-home. The premiums add £130.00 a month before deductions, and £88.30 after Income Tax, National Insurance and pension.

Which tax code should you enter?

Use the code on your latest payslip, or in the HMRC app or your personal tax account. If the estimate looks too low, the code is often the reason. These guides explain the codes shift workers see most:

The 1257L tax code: the standard tax-free allowance, and when it is not yours
The BR tax code: all of a job’s pay taxed at 20%, usually on a second job
Tax codes for a second job: how your tax-free allowance is shared between jobs
W1 and M1 emergency tax codes: why each pay day is taxed on its own, and how the code ends

Two jobs

HMRC usually gives your tax-free Personal Allowance to one job. The other job typically gets the BR code, so all of its pay is taxed at 20%. National Insurance is charged on each job’s pay separately, so a small second job can fall under the threshold on its own.

What it does not do

Some things are left out to keep the estimate simple:

4-weekly pay periods (multiply the weekly figures by four for a close estimate)
Tax refunds or catch-up from earlier in the tax year
Overtime that starts after a set number of hours (enter those hours as a shift type with a premium)
Pension contributions from a second job
Benefits in kind, expenses and other deductions such as union fees

Sources

This is an estimate, not financial or tax advice. Your payslip is the final figure.