UK contractor calculators · 2026/27
Honest contractor maths.
Take-home pay, IR35, umbrella vs limited, dividends, mortgages — all 2026/27 rates, all working shown band-by-band, no signup wall.
21 calculators live · 2026/27 rates verified · last reviewed 27 April 2026
Pillar reference · 12 min read
UK contractor tax 2026/27: every rate, threshold, and change in one place
What changed at Autumn Budget 2025 (dividend rates +2pp), what stayed frozen (the freeze extended to April 2031), walkthroughs for £500/day Ltd and £400/day umbrella, plus what may change next. Read this first if you're new to the 2026/27 numbers.
Live preview · 2026/27
At your day rate, what does each route net?
Umbrella
£65,519
£5,460/mo
Limited Co.
£69,129
£5,761/mo
Ltd wins by £3,610 a year at this rate — before counting IR35 risk and admin time.
See the full breakdown →What brought you here?
Three common scenarios. Pick the one closest to yours and jump straight to the right calculator.
Thinking of going contracting?
Find the day rate that matches your current perm salary, with the benefits-uplift adjustment most calculators forget.
Convert salary → day rate→
Choosing umbrella vs Ltd?
Side-by-side at the same day rate. Verdict box plus the full breakdown for both routes, and where the gap closes.
Compare both routes→
Already a Ltd director?
Find the director salary that maximises take-home at your revenue. £12,570 isn't always best, the optimiser surfaces the edge cases.
Optimise your salary→
Take-home & tax
Net pay after tax, NI, student loans, for whichever route you actually work through.
Compare & decide
When you're not sure which contracting route fits your situation.
Optimise your structure
Once you're a Ltd director: how to set salary, what dividends actually cost.
Salary vs dividend split
Sweep-based optimiser. £12,570 isn't always best, surfaces the real edge cases.
Dividend tax
£500 allowance + 10.75/35.75/39.35% bands, with PA stacking from your salary.
VAT Flat Rate Scheme
Runs the LCT test honestly. Most service contractors lose on FRS, sensitivity table shows when.
Contractor pension (via Ltd)
Multiplier on employer pension contributions vs taking as dividend. Annual allowance + taper.
Salary sacrifice pension
PAYE vs umbrella side-by-side. Umbrella's 15.5% ER NI flow-back surfaced explicitly.
Convert rates
Translate between day rate, hourly rate, and equivalent perm salary.
Student loans
All five UK plans + the multi-plan combo. HMRC's multi-plan rule (one 9% deduction at the lowest undergrad threshold) handled correctly.
Plan 2 (Sept 2012 – Jul 2023)
The most common plan for working-age UK graduates. £29,385 threshold, 9% rate.
Plan 1 (pre-2012 + all NI)
Pre-2012 English/Welsh and ALL Northern Ireland students. £26,900 threshold.
Plan 4 (Scotland)
Scottish students from 1998. £33,795, the highest undergrad threshold.
Plan 5 (post-Aug-2023)
English students from August 2023. £25,000 frozen, 40-year write-off.
Postgrad
Master's / PhD loans. £21,000 at 6%, always stacks separately on top.
Plan 2 + Postgrad
Dedicated calc + worked example for the most common multi-plan combo. 15% combined max rate.
Multi-plan combo (all)
Hub for any plan combination. Plan 1+Plan 2, Plan 4+Postgrad, Plan 5+Postgrad, etc.
Borrow & plan
How self-employed income looks to a lender. Useful before you talk to a broker.
Why these calculators are different
Realistic working days
Defaults to 220 days a year, not 250. Most online converters silently assume you bill every working day and overstate contractor income by ~14%.
The £100k taper modelled
The 60% marginal-rate trap between £100k and £125,140 (62% with NI) is captured exactly. Most calculators silently ignore the personal-allowance taper.
All working shown
Every result expands into a band-by-band breakdown. No signup wall, no email capture, no hidden assumptions — see how we calculate.