What is the take-home difference between £90,000 and £120,000 in the UK?

The annual take-home difference is £15,400 (£1,283/month) after Income Tax and National Insurance. On a gross raise of £30,000, you keep about 51% in your pocket.

How does the £100k tax trap affect £90,000 vs £120,000?

Between £100,000 and £125,140 your Personal Allowance is tapered away at £1 for every £2 of income above £100k, creating an effective marginal rate of 62% (60% Income Tax + 2% National Insurance). Between these two salaries you lose £10,000 of Personal Allowance.

£90,000 vs £120,000 take-home pay (UK, 2024/25)

A gross raise of £30,000 turns into £15,400 extra take-home per year (£1,283/month) — an effective keep-rate of 51%. Here's exactly why.

Verdict: Modest keep-rate — you're paying about 49p in the £ on the raise. Still worth taking, but sacrifice the difference into pension to escape the higher-rate band.

Side-by-side breakdown

	£90,000	£120,000	Difference
Gross salary	£90,000	£120,000	+£30,000
Personal Allowance	£12,570	£2,570	−£10,000
Income Tax	£23,432	£37,432	+£14,000
National Insurance	£3,811	£4,411	+£600
Take-home per year	£62,757	£78,157	+£15,400
Take-home per month	£5,230	£6,513	+£1,283
Effective tax + NI rate	30.3%	34.9%	4.6% pts

What's really happening on the raise

Your gross salary goes up by £30,000, but your take-home only goes up by £15,400. That means:

You keep about 51p in the £ of every extra pound.
You give roughly £14,600 to HMRC on this specific raise.
You lose £10,000 of your Personal Allowance to the £100k taper, which means you pay 40% tax on money that used to be tax-free.
You cross into the £100k pension trap. Every pound above £100k reduces your Personal Allowance by 50p, creating an effective marginal rate of 62% (60% Income Tax + 2% NI).

💡 You're in (or entering) the £100k trap zone

Between £100,000 and £125,140 your marginal rate is 62%, not 40%. You keep just 38p of every extra £1 you earn — unless you sacrifice it into your pension, where you effectively "save" 62p per £1 sacrificed.

🧮 Free calculator (30s) 📥 Free playbook (PDF) → £19 Excel toolkit (your numbers)

Try the free calculator first — enter your salary + pension, see your escape amount and estimated tax saved. The £19 toolkit adds bonus timing, SIPP, Gift Aid and full modelling for £90k vs £120k.

If you sacrifice the raise into pension

A common play when a raise pushes you deep into the higher- or additional-rate band: ask payroll to divert the extra £30,000 into your workplace pension via salary sacrifice.

Choice	Take-home / year	Pension pot / year	Total value
Accept raise as cash (£120,000)	£78,157	£0	£78,157
Sacrifice raise into pension	£62,757	£30,000	£92,757
Stay at £90,000	£62,757	£0	£62,757

Related comparisons

Assumptions

Rest-of-UK Income Tax bands (Scottish rates differ). 2024/25 tax year. Zero pension in the base comparison. No student loan, no child benefit clawback, no company car. Marriage allowance and Gift Aid not included. See methodology for the full calculation.