About Us
Who maintains this calculator, why it exists, and our commitment to accuracy.
Who maintains this site
This calculator was built and is maintained by Sarah Chen, a former classroom teacher who taught English in state schools in England for 15 years, across three different local authorities.
During her teaching career, she became frustrated with the lack of accurate, transparent pay calculators that understood how the Teachers' Pension Scheme actually worked — particularly the tiered contribution rates based on actual salary, and the student loan stacking issue affecting career changers.
After leaving classroom teaching, Sarah moved into education finance and payroll, gaining direct experience with how schools process payroll deductions. She now maintains this site full-time. Every calculation formula has been manually verified against official sources — pay scale figures are cross-checked against NEU-published tables each year; we do not rely on automated data feeds.
Why this site exists
Most teacher pay calculators fall into two camps. Generic salary calculators with a teacher skin apply flat pension rates or ask you to enter your own percentage, and can't handle multiple student loan plans at once. TES-style Excel spreadsheets are powerful but require downloading files — inaccessible on many school computers with restricted software installation.
We wanted something different: a calculator that works entirely in your browser, handles the real complexity of teacher pay (TPS tiers, multiple student loans, part-time hours entered as days not percentages), and stores no personal data. Try the calculator to see this in practice.
The Reddit threads where teachers compared paychecks and asked "why is my take-home different from my colleague's?" directly inspired the "why results differ" section on our homepage. The part-time calculator's ability to accept days per week came from a single Reddit comment: "I don't know what 0.6 FTE means — I just know I work 3 days."
Our commitment to accuracy
| Update cycle | When | What changes |
|---|---|---|
| Pay scales | August (within 24hrs of STRB announcement) | England, Wales & Scotland scales |
| Tax & pensions | April (by 6 April each year) | HMRC rates, TPS bands, statutory caps |
Between scheduled updates, we monitor official sources for unexpected changes. If you find a discrepancy between our results and your payslip, please contact us — we investigate every accuracy report. Several improvements, including our Plan 5 student loan handling and the April 2026 TPS band uplift, came directly from user reports.
What we do not do
- We do not store any data you enter into our calculators — every calculation runs in your browser.
- We do not run ads. The site is completely free.
- We do not sell or share your data. We use Plausible Analytics, which is cookieless and collects no personal data.
- We do not provide financial advice. Our results are estimates — for individual advice, consult an FCA-registered financial adviser.
Our methodology
To see exactly how our calculators work — every formula, every data source, and our full update schedule — read our Methodology page.
Contact us
General enquiries: hello@teacherpaycalculator.uk
Accuracy reports: accuracy@teacherpaycalculator.uk
Privacy questions: privacy@teacherpaycalculator.uk