The employer on-cost is not a flat percentage — it peaks at £50,270
Employer NI and pension are usually quoted as a rough 15% on top of salary. Derive it properly across ten salary bands and the curve is a hump: it climbs to 16.13% and then falls, because pension stops but NI does not.
- Period
- Tax year 2026 to 2027
- Published
- August 10, 2026
- Built with
- Databoat
16.13%
peak employer on-cost — and it is not at the top of the scale
£50,000
- £15,00011.75%
- £20,00013.31%
- £25,00014.25%
- £30,00014.88%
- £35,00015.32%
- £100,00015.57%
- £40,00015.66%
- £80,00015.71%
- £60,00015.95%
- £50,00016.13%
Hover a point
Each point is a salary band. The load climbs to £50,000 and then falls away, because employer pension stops accruing above the upper qualifying earnings limit of £50,270 while National Insurance carries on.
Salary, then National Insurance, then pension. The total is what leaves the bank.
- £100,000£445
- £80,000£356
- £60,000£268
- £50,000£223
- £40,000£178
- £35,000£155
- £30,000£133
- £25,000£110
- £20,000£87
- £15,000£64
Total employer cost over 260 working days — the number to hold when quoting a day rate.
Every band on one rail, against the flat 15% most people budget with.
Area is what each hire actually costs. A £100,000 salary is not a £100,000 decision.
Method
Employer National Insurance is 15% of earnings above a secondary threshold of £5,000 for 2026/27. Minimum employer pension contribution is 3% of qualifying earnings, which run from £6,240 to £50,270 — and that upper limit is what bends the curve.
Databoat read two columns and derived six, each one building on the last: NI, then pension, then the on-cost, then the total, then the percentage, then the cost per working day at 260 days. The table and formulas are at the foot of the page.
Employment Allowance of £10,500 is not modelled — it offsets an employer's total NI bill rather than any individual salary, so it changes the invoice, not the shape of this curve. Apprenticeship Levy applies only above a £3m pay bill.
HMRC — rates and thresholds for employers 2026 to 2027 · Automatic enrolment qualifying earnings band
Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0.
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