Calculator for lawyers Is this move worth making?
A pay rise on paper can be a pay cut once the commute, the hours and the bonus are counted. Put in both packages and see.
The sums run in your browser. Nothing you type is saved, and nothing is sent to us unless you choose to add it to a booking. You do not need to give a name or an email to use it.
Add more detail (office days, commute, bonus, pension, holiday)
Where you are now
Fuel, fares and parking.
Only what you could reasonably count on.
A percentage of your salary, paid by the employer.
The offer
Fuel, fares and parking.
Only what you could reasonably count on.
A percentage of your salary, paid by the employer.
What the money does not show
A wrong role costs more than pay. Tick anything that is true for you now. This is a private check, not a score or a diagnosis, and nothing you tick leaves your browser. Each line shows how common it is, so you can see where you sit.
None ticked. If that is true, good. If it changes, come back to this.
LawCare gives free, confidential support to anyone working in law in the UK: helpline 0800 279 6888, Monday to Friday, 9am to 5pm. The legal-worker figures come from a self-selected survey of 1,541 people, so they describe the sector, not what a wrong role will do to you. The average burnout score in that survey was 37.8, above the 34.8 LawCare treats as high risk.
How we worked this out
Everything comes from the numbers you enter. There are no forecasts and no pay benchmarks in it, so it does not guess what your pay would have done.
The headline number takes tax and National Insurance off both packages, then scales the offer to the hours you work now. A raise that comes with more contracted hours a week is worth less than it looks, and pay above £50,270 is taxed at 40%, so a raise across that line leaves less than the same raise below it. That is the number that matters when you compare two jobs.
Full package is your salary, plus your bonus, plus the employer’s pension contribution as a percentage of your salary. Tax and National Insurance are worked out on your salary and bonus using the 2026/27 rates for England, Wales and Northern Ireland: income tax at 20% above a £12,570 allowance, 40% above £50,270, with the allowance withdrawn between £100,000 and £125,140, and employee National Insurance at 8%, then 2% above £50,270. The thresholds are frozen until April 2031. Scotland has different income tax bands, and student loan repayments and your own pension contributions are not included. In your pocket is what you keep, plus the employer’s pension, less what you spend commuting in a year: your monthly cost, scaled to the days you are in the office.
Hours the job takes are your contracted hours across the weeks you actually work (52 weeks, less your holiday and 8 bank holidays), plus the commute: two journeys a day, on each day in the office. Pay for each hour is the in-your-pocket figure, after tax, divided by those hours.
It assumes pay stays where it is. Use it to compare two jobs, not to budget.