Compare two job offers
A higher salary and a better pension can pull in different directions. This page sets two jobs side by side on take-home pay and on what goes into a pension, on 2026/27 rates.
Your figures
It opens on an example: £55,000 with an 8% employer pension against £61,000 with 3%. Change any of them. Your figures stay in this browser. The sums run on this page; nothing you type is sent to us or kept.
On these figures
On these figures, job B pays £270 more take-home pay a month than job A, and puts £2,270 less into a pension a year than job A. Take-home pay and pension together come to £975 a year more for job B, on 2026/27 rates.
| Job A | Job B | Difference | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Salary | £55,000 | £61,000 | +£6,000 |
| Income Tax, National Insurance and student loan | £11,388 | £13,843 | +£2,455 |
| Take-home pay | £40,862 | £44,107 | +£3,245 |
| Take-home pay a month | £3,405 | £3,676 | +£270 |
| Into a pension, from you and the employer | £7,150 | £4,880 | −£2,270 |
| Take-home pay and pension together | £48,012 | £48,987 | +£975 |
On 2026/27 rates.
Figures follow the law as it stands. Announced and draft changes are not included.
How it is worked out
- Each job is worked out by the engine behind the app’s Offer Compare, with Income Tax, National Insurance and student loan repayments on 2026/27 rates as they apply in England and Northern Ireland.
- Into a pension is what goes in a year: your contribution and the employer’s, each a percentage of salary.
- The difference column is job B less job A.
What it leaves out
- Bonuses, shares, healthcare, a car and other benefits, holiday and hours. The app’s Offer Compare counts bonuses, benefits and contracting.
- The basic-rate relief a provider adds to a contribution from take-home pay, and higher-rate relief claimed through Self Assessment.
- Scottish Income Tax.
- Anything that is not money: the work, the people, the journey.
More on the assumptions behind the app’s own projection: how the retirement figures are worked out.
Questions
Can a lower salary come out ahead?
Employer pension contributions are pay too, and are not taxed going in. A smaller salary with a larger employer contribution can come to more once take-home pay and pension are added together.
How does salary sacrifice change take-home pay?
Pay given up for a pension is not taxed and carries no National Insurance, so take-home pay falls by less than the amount going into the pension. From the 2029 to 2030 tax year, only the first £2,000 sacrificed in a tax year is free of National Insurance.
Source: GOV.UK
Which rates does this use?
2026/27 rates for Income Tax, National Insurance and student loans, as they apply in England and Northern Ireland. Welsh rates are currently the same. Scottish Income Tax has different bands and is not shown here.
Source: GOV.UK
Other calculators
Keeping the figures
This page forgets your figures when you leave it. Oxygene Finance runs the same sums on your own pensions, ISAs, savings and property, for one or two people, and keeps them up to date as your figures change. Features and plans shows what is free and what is Premium.
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Oxygene Finance provides information, not financial advice. Figures are estimates based on what you enter and on assumptions you can change. For decisions that matter, a regulated financial adviser or an accountant can look at your whole situation.