Take-Home Pay Calculator for Parents

Working out your take-home pay after children is more complicated than most standard salary calculators account for. Childcare costs, Child Benefit, funded hours and tax thresholds all interact in ways that are easy to miss, so this calculator is built specifically for parents.

Use it to model your take-home pay for the 2026/27 tax year, including Child Benefit and the impact of the High Income Child Benefit Charge if either parent's adjusted net income exceeds £60,000. My Child Benefit charge calculator models the charge in more detail. If there are two earners in your household, you can load a second calculator to model your combined take-home and find the income split that works best for your family.

In the UK, most taxes are calculated individually, but childcare entitlement is a notable exception. Funded hours and Tax-Free Childcare eligibility depend on both parents' incomes, which means household income matters more than many people realise. Two part-time earners will often take home more than one full-time earner on the same household income, since each benefits from their own personal allowance and lower tax bands up to £50,270. But if either parent crosses £100,000, the household loses childcare entitlement entirely, and I find the cash impact genuinely shocks people when they first see it (see more here). Depending on your childcare costs, you can end up significantly worse off on a higher salary until you're earning considerably more. My break-even calculator can show you exactly where that point is for your family.

Written by Catherine, founder of Milk & Money, who swapped PhD research for childcare analytics.