Police Take-Home Pay by Rank: 2025/26 Breakdown

How the calculation works, step by step

Before working through individual ranks, it's worth setting out the order in which deductions are applied, because it affects the numbers.

PPS 2015 pension contributions come off first, calculated as a single percentage rate applied to your whole pensionable salary, with the rate depending on which contribution tier your salary falls into (see the table below). This is deducted before income tax is calculated, which is what gives you tax relief on your pension contribution at your marginal rate — the taxman only ever sees your income after pension has come out.

Income tax is then calculated on your taxable income, which is your gross salary minus your pension contribution, minus your personal allowance of £12,570. The remaining amount is taxed in bands that rise as income increases — though no rank in this comparison reaches the additional rate on base salary alone.

National Insurance is calculated separately, directly on your gross salary before pension is deducted (this is the standard "net pay arrangement" most occupational pension schemes, including PPS 2015, use — NI doesn't get the same pre-deduction treatment as tax), at rates that also step down once you cross the upper earnings limit.

Take-home pay is then simply gross salary minus pension minus tax minus National Insurance, divided by 12 to give a monthly figure. We'll now work through this in full for the first three ranks.

Constable (top of scale: £50,256)

Starting with a Constable at the top of the post-2013 scale, PP7, on a gross salary of £50,256 a year.

Pension: £50,256 falls within the second contribution tier (£37,035 to £79,587), so the 13.88% rate applies to the whole salary. £50,256 × 13.88% = £6,975.53 a year.

Income tax: taxable income is gross salary minus pension, so £50,256 − £6,975.53 = £43,280.47. Subtracting the personal allowance of £12,570 leaves £30,710.47 of taxable income, all of which falls within the basic rate band (below £37,700), so it's taxed at 20%: £30,710.47 × 20% = £6,142.09.

National Insurance: calculated on the full gross salary of £50,256, which is below the upper earnings limit of £50,270, so the whole amount above the primary threshold is taxed at 8%. £50,256 − £12,570 = £37,686, and £37,686 × 8% = £3,014.88.

Take-home pay: £50,256 − £6,975.53 (pension) − £6,142.09 (tax) − £3,014.88 (NI) = £34,123.50 a year, or £2,843.63 a month.

Sergeant (top of scale: £56,208)

A Sergeant at the top of the single Sergeant pay scale, PP4, earns £56,208 a year. The Sergeant scale now starts at PP2, since the old entry point, PP1, was removed as part of the pay restructuring.

Pension: £56,208 still falls within the 13.88% tier (£37,035 to £79,587). £56,208 × 13.88% = £7,801.67 a year.

Income tax: taxable income is £56,208 − £7,801.67 = £48,406.33. Subtracting the personal allowance leaves £35,836.33, still entirely within the basic rate band, taxed at 20%: £35,836.33 × 20% = £7,167.27.

National Insurance: here the gross salary of £56,208 exceeds the upper earnings limit of £50,270, so the calculation has two parts. Between the primary threshold and the upper earnings limit: (£50,270 − £12,570) × 8% = £37,700 × 8% = £3,016. Above the upper earnings limit: (£56,208 − £50,270) × 2% = £5,938 × 2% = £118.76. Total NI: £3,016 + £118.76 = £3,134.76.

Take-home pay: £56,208 − £7,801.67 − £7,167.27 − £3,134.76 = £38,104.30 a year, or £3,175.36 a month.

Inspector (top of scale: £68,982)

An Inspector at the top of their scale, PP3, earns £68,982 a year — the first rank in this comparison where taxable income moves into the higher rate tax band. The Inspector scale now has a fourth point, PP0, below the previous entry point.

Pension: £68,982 remains within the 13.88% tier. £68,982 × 13.88% = £9,574.70 a year.

Income tax: taxable income is £68,982 − £9,574.70 = £59,407.30. Subtracting the personal allowance leaves £46,837.30 of taxable income. This time, the first £37,700 is taxed at the basic rate of 20% (£7,540), and the remaining £9,137.30 falls into the higher rate band, taxed at 40% (£3,654.92). Total tax: £7,540 + £3,654.92 = £11,194.92.

National Insurance: gross salary of £68,982 exceeds the upper earnings limit. Between the primary threshold and the upper earnings limit: £37,700 × 8% = £3,016. Above the upper earnings limit: (£68,982 − £50,270) × 2% = £18,712 × 2% = £374.24. Total NI: £3,016 + £374.24 = £3,390.24.

Take-home pay: £68,982 − £9,574.70 − £11,194.92 − £3,390.24 = £44,822.14 a year, or £3,735.18 a month. Notice how, compared with the Sergeant example, gross pay rose by roughly 22.7%, but take-home pay rose by only around 17.6% — a small but real effect of more of the additional income being taxed at 40% rather than 20%, and NI now applying at only 2% rather than 8% on the top slice. This effect becomes more pronounced at the more senior ranks below.

Chief Inspector, Superintendent and Chief Superintendent

Applying exactly the same method to the remaining three ranks gives the following results.

A Chief Inspector at the top of their scale, PP3, on £73,149 a year: pension at 13.88% comes to £10,153.08, income tax (with part of the income now in the higher rate band) comes to £12,630.37, and National Insurance comes to £3,473.58. That leaves take-home pay of £46,891.97 a year, or £3,907.66 a month.

A Superintendent at the top of their scale, PP6, on £99,015 a year, is the first rank in this comparison whose salary crosses into the top PPS 2015 pension tier. Pension at 14.22% (since £99,015 exceeds the £79,587 tier threshold) comes to £14,079.93, income tax comes to £21,406.03, and National Insurance comes to £3,990.90. That leaves take-home pay of £59,538.14 a year, or £4,961.51 a month.

A Chief Superintendent at the top of their scale, PP5, on £115,785 a year: pension at the 14.22% top tier comes to £16,464.63, income tax comes to £27,160.15, and National Insurance comes to £4,326.30. That leaves take-home pay of £67,833.92 a year, or £5,652.83 a month.

Comparing all six ranks

Bringing all six ranks together, at the top of each pay scale and under the same standard assumptions used throughout this article, gives the following comparison of gross salary against estimated monthly take-home pay.

• •Constable (PP7, £50,256 gross): approximately £2,843.63 a month take-home.
• •Sergeant (PP4, £56,208 gross): approximately £3,175.36 a month take-home.
• •Inspector (PP3, £68,982 gross): approximately £3,735.18 a month take-home.
• •Chief Inspector (PP3, £73,149 gross): approximately £3,907.66 a month take-home.
• •Superintendent (PP6, £99,015 gross): approximately £4,961.51 a month take-home.
• •Chief Superintendent (PP5, £115,785 gross): approximately £5,652.83 a month take-home.

What proportion of gross pay goes on deductions

Looking at these six ranks together, one thing stands out clearly: the proportion of gross salary taken up by pension, tax and National Insurance combined rises steadily as gross pay increases, even though the underlying rates and thresholds are exactly the same for everyone.

For the Constable example, total deductions of £16,132.50 against gross pay of £50,256 work out at just over 32% of gross salary. For the Sergeant example, total deductions of £18,103.70 against £56,208 come to just over 32%. For the Inspector, £24,159.86 against £68,982 comes to just over 35%. By the time you reach Chief Superintendent, total deductions of £47,951.08 against £115,785 come to just over 41% of gross salary. None of these are dramatic jumps individually, but they add up: roughly nine percentage points separate the proportion of gross pay a Constable keeps after deductions from the proportion a Chief Superintendent keeps, purely as a result of how the tax and NI systems are structured around thresholds and bands, combined with the higher PPS 2015 pension tier applying once pensionable pay passes £79,587.

This is worth understanding if you're thinking about promotion primarily in terms of what it does to your take-home pay. A promotion that increases your gross salary by, say, 15% will very rarely increase your take-home pay by the full 15%, because some of that increase will be taxed at a higher marginal rate, and possibly NI'd at a lower marginal rate (which helps) but also pensioned at a higher tier rate if it pushes you over £79,587 (which doesn't). The Promotion Pay Comparison Calculator on this site is built specifically to work through this kind of comparison for a specific move, rather than relying on general percentages.

Starting pay vs top-of-scale pay within each rank

The figures used throughout this article are all for the top pay point of each rank's scale, which represents an officer who has spent a number of years at that rank rather than someone newly promoted or newly appointed into it. It's worth being aware of the gap between the bottom and top of each scale, since it can be substantial, and it means your actual take-home pay at a given rank can vary a good deal depending on how long you've held it.

A newly promoted Sergeant, for instance, starts at PP2 of the Sergeant scale, £53,568 (the old PP1 entry point no longer exists), considerably below the £56,208 top-of-scale figure used in the Sergeant example above — a difference of £2,640 in gross salary alone, which after pension, tax and NI translates to a noticeably smaller monthly take-home figure than the PP4 example worked through earlier. Similarly, a newly promoted Inspector starts at PP0, £63,768 (a new bottom point added below the previous entry point), well below the £68,982 top-of-scale PP3 figure used above — a difference of £5,214. The same pattern holds at every rank: Constable spans from £31,164 at PP1 to £50,256 at PP7, Chief Inspector spans from £70,344 at PP1 to £73,149 at PP3, Superintendent spans from £84,177 at PP1 to £99,015 at PP6, and Chief Superintendent spans from £103,797 at PP1 to £115,785 at PP5.

The Pay Scales section and the Promotion Pay Comparison Calculator on this site both let you check the exact pay point figures for every rank, so you can get an accurate take-home estimate for wherever you actually sit on the scale, not just the top.

Why your own figures might look different

The figures above are deliberately built on a clean, standard set of assumptions so the comparison between ranks is genuinely apples-to-apples. In practice, a lot of officers will have at least one factor that changes their own numbers.

Scottish officers are subject to Scottish Income Tax rates and bands, which differ from the England, Wales and Northern Ireland rates used throughout this article, and can produce a noticeably different net figure at the same gross salary, particularly at higher incomes where Scottish rates diverge more from the rest of the UK. Anyone with a student loan will have an additional deduction on top of tax and National Insurance, calculated as a percentage of income above the relevant repayment threshold for their loan plan, which reduces take-home pay further than shown here. And officers receiving location allowances — most significantly Metropolitan Police officers receiving the £9,738 combined London Weighting and London Allowance, or South East officers receiving a smaller local allowance — will have higher gross pay than the base figures used in this article, with the pensionable portion (London Weighting) affecting pension contributions and accrual, and the non-pensionable portion (London Allowance) simply adding straight to take-home pay. Detective allowances and other specialist role payments would have a similar effect, adding to gross pay and, where pensionable, to pension contributions too.

If any of these apply to you, or if you simply want to check your own numbers rather than relying on the standardised examples above, the main Police Pay Calculator on this site lets you enter your actual rank, pay point, force (to apply the correct location allowance), student loan plan and any other relevant details, to give you a precise, personalised take-home pay figure rather than the general comparison set out here.