PayPrecise is an independent site I built to make UK salary decisions clearer. It shows what you actually keep, what work really costs, and what a job is worth after the bits most calculators ignore.
Dan
Founder and builder of PayPrecise
I built PayPrecise myself because I kept running into the same problem: salary tools were good at showing a tax number, but not very good at helping with the actual decision. Most people are not trying to admire a calculation. They are trying to work out whether a pay rise is worth it, whether a job offer is really better, or why a salary that looks good on paper still feels underwhelming in real life.
Gross salary only tells part of the story. What usually matters more is what lands in your account, what gets lost to pension contributions or student loans, what a threshold change does to your take-home pay, and how much time and money work quietly eats in the background. I wanted a site that made those trade-offs easier to see without burying everything in jargon.
That is where the True Wage idea came from too. A £42,000 job with a long commute and regular unpaid overtime is not automatically better than a £38,000 job you can do from home. A lot of salary sites stop before that point. I wanted PayPrecise to go further.
PayPrecise is for people trying to make normal, real-life decisions about work and pay. That might mean checking your take-home pay before you accept a job, figuring out whether pension contributions could keep you below an awkward threshold, comparing two roles, or just getting a clearer sense of whether your salary is strong, average or not moving as far as you expected.
It is not built for accountants or payroll specialists. It is built for people who want clear answers, sensible assumptions and enough context to understand what the number actually means.
See salary after Income Tax, National Insurance, pension and student loan deductions.
Work out what your pay is really worth per hour after commute time, work costs and unpaid overtime.
Put your pay in context with UK medians, percentiles and age-based benchmarks.
Check how adjusted net income, Child Benefit rules and the £100k taper can change outcomes.
Compare two jobs on more than headline salary and see where the better real-world deal sits.
Look at city and region comparisons where commuting and working patterns change what pay really feels like.
The calculator logic is based on published HMRC rates and thresholds, plus Scottish Government rates where Scotland-specific tax bands apply. For benchmark and percentile pages, I use ONS earnings data and explain the source on the page where it matters. I try to keep the method straightforward: show the main assumptions, use the official data, and avoid pretending an estimate is more exact than it really is.
When a new tax year starts or the source data changes, I review and update the relevant pages. Some pages are simple, some involve more assumptions, but the goal is the same across all of them: give you a reliable working answer you can actually use.
The main sources behind PayPrecise are HMRC tax and National Insurance tables, student loan repayment thresholds, Scottish income tax rates where relevant, and ONS earnings datasets such as ASHE and PAYE RTI. On some pages that means a straightforward calculation from official thresholds. On others it means combining published data with stated assumptions so the result is still useful in practice.
I would rather be clear about an assumption than hide it behind a neat-looking number. That is why methodology notes are included on pages where interpretation matters.
PayPrecise is designed to be a practical guide, not a substitute for payroll software, HMRC records or personal financial advice. For most standard PAYE cases the estimates should be a strong starting point, but there will always be situations where a real payslip differs because of tax codes, employer payroll settings, benefits in kind, salary sacrifice arrangements or individual circumstances.
So the way I think about it is simple: use PayPrecise to understand the shape of the decision, the likely take-home result and the trade-offs you might otherwise miss. Then use your payslip, employer information or HMRC guidance for the final official position.
I review pages when tax rates, thresholds or source datasets change, and I update key pages for the new tax year as that information is confirmed. If something looks wrong or out of date, I want to know about it. Accuracy matters more to me than pretending every page is perfect forever.
If you spot an error, a stale figure, or a result that looks off in a way that suggests a methodology problem, email hello@payprecision.co.uk. I read everything myself and update pages where something genuinely needs fixing.
You can also use that address for feedback, press queries or requests to reference a PayPrecise page or dataset.
PayPrecise is independently built and maintained by Dan. The calculators, page design, editorial content and the True Wage framework are all his own work.
PayPrecise covers UK take-home pay, True Wage and real hourly pay, salary benchmarks and percentile guides, plus tools for thresholds such as adjusted net income, Child Benefit and the £100k tax trap.
No. They are practical estimates built from published rates and data. They are meant to help with real salary decisions, not replace HMRC guidance, payroll records or personal advice.
The main sources are HMRC tax and National Insurance tables, student loan repayment thresholds, Scottish income tax rates where relevant, and ONS earnings datasets such as ASHE and PAYE RTI. Where assumptions are needed, they are explained on the page.
Email hello@payprecision.co.uk. I read those messages myself and review pages whenever something looks wrong or out of date.
PayPrecise is an independent site. It carries no advertising and is not affiliated with HMRC, GOV.UK, or any financial services provider. Calculator outputs are illustrative estimates only. Last reviewed April 2026.