Take-home pay calculator for therapists
From session fee to what actually lands in your account, after costs, income tax and National Insurance.
Builds in holiday, illness and CPD weeks.
Practice costs: £11,963 a year(2026 defaults, tap to edit)
Set to 0 if you work from home or online.
BACP £196, UKCP £330 (2026 to 2027).
Typically £50 to £100 (2026).
BACP minimum is 1.5.
Tier 1, 2026. £47 by direct debit.
Scottish income tax bands differ; National Insurance is UK-wide.
Your estimated take-home pay
£2,156a month
£25,869 a year, 2026/27 rates (England, Wales and Northern Ireland).
- Booked fees
- £46,200
- No-shows
- − £3,696
- Practice costs
- − £11,963
- Trading profit
- £30,541
- Income tax
- − £3,594
- Class 4 National Insurance
- − £1,078
- Take-home
- £25,869
Put aside roughly 11% of everything you are paid and tax will never be a surprise.
Your bill is over £1,000, so payments on account apply: your first January bill includes 150% of a year’s tax, about £7,009 on these figures. It evens out in later years, but the first one stings if nobody warned you.
An estimate, not tax advice. Not modelled: pension contributions, student loans, the Child Benefit charge, and other income (PAYE earnings use your personal allowance first).
Reading the waterfall
The pipeline on this page is deliberately visible: booked fees, minus no-shows, minus practice costs, gives trading profit; income tax and Class 4 National Insurance come off that; what is left is yours. Most headline “therapist salary” figures quote the top of the waterfall. Your bank account only ever sees the bottom.
The tax model uses 2026/27 rates: a £12,570 personal allowance, then 20%, 40% and 45% bands in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, and the six Scottish bands from 19% to 48% if you toggle Scotland. Class 4 National Insurance runs at 6% on profits between £12,570 and £50,270 and 2% above; Class 2 is no longer charged since April 2024. The taper on the personal allowance above £100,000 is modelled too, though few solo caseloads reach it.
Two things on this page save first-year practitioners real pain. The set-aside line converts your whole tax position into one habit: a fixed percentage of every payment, moved on the day it arrives. And the payments on account warning shows the January figure in advance, because owing 150% of a year’s tax the first time nobody warned you is the classic self-employment shock.
This is an estimate, not tax advice, and a good accountant in year one usually pays for themselves. If you also have PAYE income, an NHS day job for instance, that income uses your personal allowance first and the practice profit stacks on top; the leaving the NHS calculator is built for that mixed picture.
Frequently asked questions
Bloom keeps every session's payment status against your calendar, so the collected figure at the top of this waterfall is a fact you can check, not a guess at year end.