Second job tax calculator 2026/27
See what a second job really pays after tax, why a BR or D0 code lands on it, and why National Insurance is charged on each job separately.
Where each job’s money goes
Common questions
Why is my second job taxed at BR?
A tax code can only give your Personal Allowance to one job at a time. The main job keeps it — 1257L on the £30,000 main job in this example — so the second job is taxed from the first pound, at the basic rate on BR, or at the higher rate of 40% on D0 where the main job already fills the bands below. You can ask HMRC to split the allowance between the two instead.
Do I pay National Insurance twice?
No. National Insurance is charged on each job's pay in each pay period, and the two are not added together at the end of the year. On a second job of £8,000 a year it pays £0.00 a month, because £666.67 a month is below the £1,048 a month at which contributions start. The exception is two jobs with the same employer, or with employers carrying on business in association, where payroll adds the earnings together.
Is two jobs worse than one salary of the same size?
On a main job of £30,000 on 1257L and a second job of £8,000 on BR, the two leave £2,627.11 a month against £2,573.58 from a single £38,000 job: a difference of £53.53. The income tax is the same either way; the gap is National Insurance, because each job gets its own threshold each pay period. This answer is worked on those two jobs and those two codes; the calculator above answers for the ones you type.