£21,000 after tax

At £21,000 you take home £18,641.40 a year, about £1,553.45 a month. This salary is exactly the postgraduate loan threshold, so a postgraduate borrower repays nothing yet, and every undergraduate plan starts at a higher figure. All taxable pay falls in the basic rate band.

How this was worked out

1. Salary: £21,000
2. Personal allowance: £12,570. Payroll applies it as tax code 1257L, which gives £12,579 of tax-free pay.
3. Taxable income: £21,000 − £12,579 = £8,421
4. Basic rate: £8,421 × 20% = £1,684.20
5. Income tax: £1,684.20
6. National Insurance: (£21,000 − £12,570) × 8% = £674.40
7. Take-home pay: £21,000 − £1,684.20 − £674.40 = £18,641.40

The postgraduate line at £21,000

Postgraduate loans take 6% of pay above £21,000. With pay of exactly £21,000, nothing is above that line, and the postgraduate deduction is £0.

Any pay rise changes that. Each pound above the threshold loses 6% to the loan on top of tax and National Insurance, and the figures one thousand pounds up include the first postgraduate repayment.

Plan 5 has the lowest undergraduate threshold at £25,000. Plan 1, Plan 2 and Plan 4 sit higher, so an undergraduate borrower on £21,000 repays nothing.

Income tax and National Insurance

After the standard tax code's annual PAYE free pay of £12,579, £8,421 is taxed at 20%, which comes to £1,684.20. National Insurance at 8% on pay above its threshold of £12,570 is £674.40. Your employer adds £2,400 of employer National Insurance on top of £21,000, and that sum never reaches your payslip.

A raise of a thousand pounds would add £720 for someone with no loan. The take-home pay calculator shows the smaller gain for a postgraduate borrower.

Scotland and a pension

In Scotland the take-home is £18,681.07, after Scottish income tax of £1,644.53. Taxable pay beyond the starter band meets the Scottish basic rate of 20%, the same as the rate elsewhere. The starter rate of 19% on the first slice of taxable pay makes Scottish income tax £39.67 lower than in the rest of the UK.

A five per cent pension paid by salary sacrifice leaves £17,885.40. Net pay and relief at source each leave £17,801.40, so the salary sacrifice route keeps £84 more through its National Insurance saving.

Try other figures in the take-home pay calculator.

Questions

Do I repay a postgraduate loan on £21,000?

Not yet. The threshold is £21,000, the same as this salary, and the loan only takes a share of pay above it, so the repayment is £0.

What is £21,000 a week after tax?

It works out at £358.49 a week in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. A Scottish taxpayer on £21,000 gets £359.25 a week.

How far below the median is £21,000?

The median full-time salary in April 2025 was £39,039, according to the Office for National Statistics. £21,000 is £18,039 less than that, a little over half of it.

Other salaries

• £18,600 after tax
• £19,000 after tax
• £20,000 after tax
• £22,000 after tax
• £23,000 after tax
• £24,000 after tax

These are whole-year estimates for 2026/27, with category A National Insurance and a tax code based on the allowance available at this income. The England, Wales and Northern Ireland baseline has no pension contribution or student loan; Scotland is shown separately. The full statutory Personal Allowance is £12,570. The tax code used for this estimate gives £12,579 of annual PAYE free pay, including any reduction in the allowance due to income. This is the payroll amount used in the calculation. Annual totals and rounded monthly or weekly figures can differ by pennies.