Management consultant on £150,000

Personal Ltd Co. Outside IR35. Age 38. Pension preference: aggressive.

Every figure on this page is computed at build time by the same engines that power the live salary–dividend split, take-home and SIPP optimiser calculators. Inputs come from a single CSV row; outputs come from the engines. No static lookup tables, no hand-coded numbers.

Net cash

£61,674

Pension

£60,000

Effective rate

18.9%

Marginal rate

33.8%

How HMRC defines the band this income falls into

A management consultant at £150,000 of gross for 2026/27 — plus any other personal income that stacks below — falls into the additional-rate band. HMRC's published rules for this band are unchanged from the figures announced in the Autumn Budget 2024 (which froze all the major thresholds at their April 2021 levels until at least April 2028).

For reference, the 2026/27 boundary numbers as published by HMRC:

Personal Allowance: £12,570 (full PA — tapered above £100,000 adjusted net income).
Basic-rate band: £12,570 to £50,270 (20% income tax, 8.75% dividend tax).
Higher-rate band: £50,270 to £125,140 (40% / 33.75%).
Additional-rate band: above £125,140 (45% / 39.35%).
PA taper: £1 of PA lost per £2 over £100,000 adjusted net income, fully eroded at £125,140.
Employer NI: 15% above the £5,000 Secondary Threshold (Finance Act 2024).
Employee NI: 8% main band (£12,570–£50,270), 2% above.
Class 4 NI (sole traders): 6% main band, 2% above. Class 2 voluntary: £3.45/week (£179.40/yr).
Corporation Tax: 19% small profits rate (≤ £50,000), 25% main rate (≥ £250,000), 26.5% effective marginal in between.
Dividend Allowance: £500 at 0%.
Pension Annual Allowance: £60,000 (tapered to £10,000 above £260,000 adjusted income).

For this specific row, the binding constraints are: the corporation-tax marginal-relief band (26.5% effective marginal CT) on the company side, and the £100k Personal Allowance taper on the personal side.

The engine's computed bottom line for this row, given those binding constraints: net cash £61,674, pension £60,000, effective rate 18.9%, marginal rate 33.8%.

The numbers, line by line

Optimum salary	£12,570
Optimum dividend	£59,826
Optimum pension	£60,000
Net cash (optimum)	£61,674
Net wealth (cash + pension)	£121,674
Rule-of-thumb net cash	£89,240
Rule-of-thumb net wealth	£89,240
Saving vs rule of thumb	£32,433
Effective rate on profit	18.9%
Marginal rate (next £1 dividend)	33.8%

Why this scenario is different

Compared to the closest peer profile — IT contractor at £150,000 — this scenario sits £0 higher on gross income. That moves net cash by +£0, the pension contribution by +£0, and the effective rate by +0%. The effective rate moves only modestly — both scenarios sit inside the same binding tax band. The optimiser shifts £0 of the extraction out of the dividend slice, and £0 out of pension contributions.

Questions this scenario raises

Does it include Scottish income tax?

No. Scotland has its own income-tax band schedule (Starter 19% / Basic 20% / Intermediate 21% / Higher 42% / Advanced 45% / Top 48% for 2026/27). National Insurance and corporation tax are still set at UK-wide rates. A Scotland-specific batch of programmatic pages is planned but is not in this batch.

Why do some columns of the table use cash and others use net wealth?

Net cash is the £ that arrive in your bank account. Net wealth includes pension contributions valued at face (£1 of pension = £1 of wealth, since it will eventually be spent — possibly at a lower marginal rate than today). The optimiser uses a `pensionWeight` parameter so the user can adjust the weight; this page sets it according to the row's `pensionPref` (0 / 0.5 / 1.0 for none / modest / aggressive).

Why is the effective rate lower than the headline tax brackets?

Because the headline 20% / 40% / 45% rates apply only to the income slice in each band — not the whole income. The Personal Allowance shelters the first £12,570 at 0%; the basic-rate band only charges 20% on the next £37,700; and so on. The effective rate on the entire income is the weighted average of every slice — typically much lower than the headline number people quote.

Why does the optimiser disagree with my accountant?

Often because the accountant is optimising salary first, pension second, dividend as residual — three sequential one-variable problems. The BracketMath optimiser does the joint problem: every (salary, pension) cell evaluated through the full tax stack, accounting for the four-band salary problem, the £100k taper, the CT marginal-relief band, and the Annual Allowance taper simultaneously. The improvement is typically £2k–£35k/yr at typical income levels.

What if I have rental income alongside this self-employment?

Add it to the `otherIncome` field of the calculator. Property income is taxed at non-savings, non-dividend rates (so stacks alongside salary in the band schedule). The first £1,000 of rental income can also be sheltered by the separate Property Allowance under FA 2017 s.16.

Methodology

Income tax, National Insurance and Corporation Tax bands taken from HMRC's 2026/27 rates and allowances tables (gov.uk/.../income-tax; corporation-tax). Pension Annual Allowance and taper rules from Finance Act 2004 / 2023. Trading allowance per ITTOIA 2005 s.783A. Voluntary Class 2 figure (£179.40/yr = £3.45/wk × 52) from HMRC voluntary NI guidance.

Style: 2026/27 tax year throughout; figures rounded to whole pounds in the user-facing prose; effective rates computed as (deductions / gross). The voice is methodological — no first person, no claimed credentials, no marketing fluff.

This page is not personalised advice; for advice regulated by the FCA, consult an adviser registered with the Financial Conduct Authority. See the full disclaimer.