The number
How to read a salary offer: band, percentile, and take-home
What a salary band and a percentile actually are, why headline pay is not take-home, and how Jobtiv's Salary Negotiator uses HMRC tables and a script — not a pep talk.
The headline number is not the offer you will live on
An offer arrives as one figure. Three different facts are being smashed together: where that figure sits in the range the employer is willing to pay (the band), where it sits among other listings for similar seats (a percentile), and what actually lands in the bank after income tax and National Insurance (take-home). Treating them as one number is how people accept the bottom of a band because it "sounds like" a listing they saw, then meet a student-loan deduction they had not modeled.
A band is not a vibe. In this product it is the low-to-high range for a role in the market data we can show you, with the listing sitting somewhere between those ends. A percentile is not a grade. It is a position in a distribution of listings: the 50th is the middle of that distribution, not a medal. Neither is a promise that you will be paid that amount.
Take-home is a third object. In England, Wales, and Northern Ireland for 2026/27 the personal allowance is £12,570, the basic rate is 20%, the higher rate is 40%, and employee Class 1 NI is 8% above the primary threshold and 2% above the upper earnings limit. Those rates are from GOV.UK, dated 6 April 2026. They are not a tax return. They are why £30,000 and £65,000 are different lives, not just different adjectives.
Band and percentile where we have listings; take-home from the tax tables; then a script
You enter the role, the location, and the number on the table. Where market listings are available, the negotiator places that number in a band and a percentile. Separately, it runs the same PAYE illustration the calculators use: income tax and NI from the 2026/27 registry, with student loan as an option you switch on if it applies.
The script step is a talking structure for the conversation you still have to have — not a threat, not a bluff, and not a claim that asking changes pay. If we cannot source a listing percentile, we do not invent one. We still show take-home from the tax tables, because those tables are sourced.
Sourced figures on this page
Every number below is from the cited source on the cited date. If we cannot source a market figure, we omit it rather than round it.
- £12,570Personal allowance, 2026/27
- GOV.UK income tax rates · 2026/27 · England, Wales, and Northern Ireland · · Source
- £50,270Higher-rate threshold (personal allowance plus basic-rate band), 2026/27
- GOV.UK income tax rates · 2026/27 · England, Wales, and Northern Ireland · · Source
- £3,486Income tax on a £30,000 salary with no student loan, 2026/27
- GOV.UK income tax rates · 2026/27 · England, Wales, and Northern Ireland · · Source
- £25,120Take-home on a £30,000 salary after income tax and Class 1 NI, no student loan, 2026/27
- GOV.UK income tax rates · 2026/27 · England, Wales, and Northern Ireland · · Source
- £13,432Income tax on a £65,000 salary with no student loan, 2026/27
- GOV.UK income tax rates · 2026/27 · England, Wales, and Northern Ireland · · Source
- £48,257Take-home on a £65,000 salary after income tax and Class 1 NI, no student loan, 2026/27
- GOV.UK income tax rates · 2026/27 · England, Wales, and Northern Ireland · · Source
What Kofi Bexleigh is looking at, without a band name that is not ours
This is a fictional example CV, written to show the template. It is not a real person.
Kofi Bexleigh is a fictional staff nurse in Leeds. A headline salary for a ward seat is not the same as the amount that hits the bank, especially once student loan is on. The negotiator's job is to put the offer next to take-home using the 2026/27 tables, and next to a listing band if we have one — not to speak for any hospital, union, or professional body.
We will not print a hospital pay spine as if Jobtiv set it or as if any professional body endorsed this page. If Kofi's offer is £30,000 with no student loan, income tax and take-home after tax and NI are the figures listed below, sourced to GOV.UK for 2026/27. That is an illustration for this fictional person, not his pay.
When the negotiator will not help
Listing percentiles are not an offer. Tax is an illustration, not advice, and Scotland is not fully band-modeled here. The script will not have the conversation for you. If we lack listings for a seat, we will not fabricate a market. And nothing on this page is a prediction that asking changes the number.
Questions
- What is a salary band here?
- The low-to-high range we can show for a role from listing data, when we have it. It is not a grade a professional body issued, and it is not a promise of pay.
- What is a percentile here?
- Where a number sits in a distribution of listings we can show. The middle of that distribution is not a verdict on you.
- Are the take-home figures advice?
- No. They are PAYE illustrations from the 2026/27 GOV.UK rates in our tax registry, dated 6 April 2026. Your code, loan, and extras will differ. Use a tax advisor for a return.