Your payslip is the one document that shows up every single pay period, which makes it the most-seen and least-understood piece of paperwork most employees have. Unlike a P45 or a P60, annual or one-off documents you might see once a year, if that, a payslip is where Income Tax, National Insurance, your tax code, and any pension or student loan deductions all show up together, every time you're paid. This page walks through a real, illustrative payslip, line by line.
Click a line on the payslip below, or open any item in the list, to see what it means.
Payslip
Meridian Design Studio Ltd
Your details
This pay period
Year to date
What it is: Your name, as held on your employer's payroll record.
Why it matters: Confirms this payslip belongs to you. Obvious, but worth checking on a shared or printed payslip.
What to check: Check the spelling matches your other records, especially after a recent name change.
What it is: Confirms which National Insurance record your pay and contributions are linked to.
Why it matters: Every deduction below that funds your NI record is reported against this number, not your name. See National Insurance Explained.
What to check: Make sure it matches the number on your National Insurance card or letter, as a mismatch here can cause real problems with your record.
What it is: The code your employer uses to work out how much of your pay is tax-free before applying Income Tax to the rest. See Understanding Your Tax Code for what the letters and numbers mean.
Why it matters: It's the single biggest driver of how much Income Tax comes out of your pay each period. The wrong code can mean months of over- or under-paying without anything else on the payslip looking obviously wrong.
What to check: See Understanding Your Tax Code to check this looks right for your circumstances, especially after a job change, a new benefit, or a second income.
What it is: A single letter setting which National Insurance rates apply to you. Category A is the standard rate most employees pay, shown throughout the rest of this payslip.
Why it matters: A handful of other categories exist for specific situations (for example, under-21s or apprentices under 25 pay a reduced employer rate, though the employee rate is usually unaffected). This is how payroll software knows which rules to apply to you specifically.
What to check: Worth a second look only if your circumstances match one of the less common categories. For most employees, A is simply correct and needs no checking.
What it is: The calendar dates this payslip covers, alongside the PAYE "tax month" number. Tax months run 6th-to-5th (tax month 1 is 6 April to 5 May), not calendar months, which is why the two don't quite line up.
Why it matters: Everything below, this period's figures and the year-to-date totals, is only meaningful alongside which part of the tax year it covers.
What to check: Make sure it's the period you're expecting, especially if you started, left, or changed pay frequency partway through a month.
What it is: Your pay for this period before any deductions, i.e. your salary, before tax, National Insurance, pension, or anything else comes off it.
Why it matters: Every deduction below is worked out from this figure (or a version of it adjusted for pension method, see the Salary Calculator).
What to check: Compare it against £45,000.00 ÷ 12 if you're paid a steady annual salary. See the Salary Calculator for the full year figure this example is built from.
What it is: Income Tax due on this period's pay, worked out cumulatively across the tax year. See Income Tax Explained.
Why it matters: For steady pay, this is a simple even slice of the annual total. It won't be if your pay varies, or your tax code changes mid-year. A bonus or a pay rise partway through the year can make one month's figure look very different from the rest.
What to check: See Income Tax Explained for a full worked example at this salary, and Understanding Your Tax Code if this figure looks wrong.
What it is: National Insurance due on this period's pay alone. See National Insurance Explained.
Why it matters: Unlike Income Tax, NI is worked out fresh each pay period, not cumulatively. Payroll applies that period's own tax-free threshold to that period's pay alone. That's why 12 months of this figure doesn't come to quite the same annual total the Salary Calculator shows: the two are genuinely different calculations, not one rounded version of the other. See the same salary, different pay pattern worked example for how much that can matter with uneven pay.
What to check: If your pay is steady month to month, this figure should be roughly the same every payslip. A sudden jump or drop with no change in gross pay is worth asking payroll about.
What it is: 5% of gross pay, taken via relief at source. See Your Pension Contributions Explained for how this differs from a net pay arrangement or salary sacrifice, which would show up differently here.
Why it matters: Your pension provider tops this up with basic-rate tax relief claimed back from HMRC. The amount landing in your actual pension pot is more than what's deducted here.
What to check: Check it matches the contribution rate you actually agreed to. See Workplace Pension Auto-Enrolment Explained for the legal minimum if you're not sure what yours should be.
What it is: Repayment for a Plan 2 undergraduate student loan, worked out on the same gross pay figure as National Insurance. See Student Loan Repayments Explained for how each plan's threshold and rate work.
Why it matters: Like National Insurance, this is a genuine per-period calculation, not a twelfth of an annual figure. Payroll works out each month's repayment separately and rounds it down to the nearest whole pound.
What to check: If you don't have a student loan but this line shows a deduction, or you're not sure which plan you're on, see Student Loan Repayments Explained and flag it with payroll promptly.
What it is: What's actually paid into your bank account this period, i.e. gross pay, minus every deduction above.
Why it matters: This is the number that actually matters day to day, but it's the least useful figure for spotting a payroll error, since it's one combined total rather than a breakdown.
What to check: If this figure changes unexpectedly and none of the lines above explain why, that's the clearest sign something needs checking with payroll.
What it is: Your cumulative gross pay for the tax year so far, from 6 April up to the end of this pay period.
Why it matters: This is the figure your cumulative Income Tax (row 13) is actually calculated against, not this period's pay in isolation. It's also the same kind of figure a P45 or P60 shows, just partway through the year rather than at its end.
What to check: As this is month 6, roughly 6× gross pay for steady earners. A figure that's noticeably off can mean a missed payslip or an error further back in the year. See Your P60 Explained for what the equivalent full-year figure looks like.
What it is: Cumulative Income Tax paid for the tax year so far.
Why it matters: Cumulative PAYE means this figure, not any single period's tax, is what HMRC actually reconciles your year against. See the P800 explainer for what happens when the two don't match by the end of the year.
What to check: See Your P800 Explained for how HMRC squares this up if you've been over- or under-taxed by the end of the tax year.
What it is: Cumulative National Insurance for the tax year so far. Unlike Income Tax, this is simply each period's own figure added up, not a genuinely cumulative recalculation.
Why it matters: Because NI isn't cumulative, this figure can't be used the way taxable pay to date can. HMRC doesn't reconcile it against a single annual NI bill the way it does with Income Tax.
What to check: Mainly useful as a running record. There's no single "correct" annual figure to check it against the way there is with Income Tax.
What it is: How your net pay actually reaches you. Almost always a direct bank transfer for salaried employees today.
Why it matters: Purely informational. It doesn't affect how much you're paid, only how it arrives.
What to check: Worth checking your bank details are current with payroll if you've recently switched banks.
What it is: The date your net pay actually reaches your account, which employers set by their own payroll schedule, not always the same as the last day of the pay period itself.
Why it matters: This is the date HMRC treats your pay as having been received for tax purposes, which can matter right at the boundary between two tax years.
What to check: Nothing to check for accuracy. Useful for budgeting around when your pay actually lands.
What it is: Your employer's name and their unique PAYE reference, which HMRC uses to identify the payroll scheme your pay and tax are reported through.
Why it matters: You'll need this reference if you ever query your pay or tax directly with HMRC. The same reference will also appear on a P45 or P60 from this job.
What to check: Nothing to check for accuracy, just useful to have to hand.
Every employee and worker has a legal right to a payslip from their first payday (this covers zero-hours and agency workers too, though not the self-employed), but what a payslip actually has to show is narrower than most real payslips end up containing. By law, it must show your gross pay, net pay, the amount of any variable deduction (like tax or National Insurance) and a total for fixed deductions, and the number of hours you're being paid for, if your pay varies by hours worked. Your tax code, National Insurance number, NI category, and pay date aren't legally required by that law at all; they appear on virtually every real payslip because payroll software includes them as standard, not because the law demands it.
Not every payslip looks like this one, either. If you're off sick or on leave, your normal salary line is replaced by Statutory Pay instead. If you're leaving your job with a redundancy payment, that's a separate, one-off calculation of its own. See Redundancy Pay Explained. And if you're claiming back business travel, see Mileage Allowance Explained.
This page explains what a payslip typically shows and is not personalised advice; see the disclaimer. The example below uses a single, deliberately simple scenario (a steady monthly salary, one job, no overtime or bonuses) to keep the figures easy to follow, real payslips vary in layout between employers, and your own figures will depend on your actual pay, tax code, and deductions.