NHS doctor on £65,000

Sole Trader. Age 55. Plus £30,000 of other personal income stacking below. 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

£42,838

Pension

£0

Effective rate

29.1%

Marginal rate

42%

Worked example: NHS doctor, 55, £65,000 of turnover

Picture a nhs doctor aged 55 for the 2026/27 tax year, trading as a sole trader with £65,000 of turnover and a further £30,000 of other personal income stacking below. The optimisation goal for this profile is maximum net wealth (treating £1 of pension as £1 of cash today).

Running the engine for this exact profile:

Taxable profits after the trading-allowance choice: £61,750
Income tax: £16,241
Class 4 NI: £2,492
Class 2 (voluntary): £179
Net cash: £42,838 (29.1% effective on turnover)
Same turnover as a Ltd Co (no pension): £34,493 — a gap of £8,344 in favour of staying a sole trader

The vignette is hypothetical but the numbers are not — every figure above was produced by the same engine code that powers the live BracketMath calculators, run at build time on inputs drawn from a single CSV row.

The numbers, line by line

Gross income	£65,000
Net cash	£42,838
Pension contribution	£0
Total deductions	£18,912
Effective rate	29.1%
Marginal rate	42%
Years to age-57 pension access	2
Annual pension contribution (this row)	£0
Projected pot at 57 (5% real, single-path)	£0
Sustainable income @ 4% SWR	£0/yr

Why this scenario is different

Compared to the closest peer profile — Builder at £65,000 — this scenario sits £0 higher on gross income. That moves net cash by −£4,109, the pension contribution by +£0, and the effective rate by +6.3%. The shift in effective rate is large enough that the binding tax constraint has changed — probably crossing a band boundary. Taxable profits change from £61,750 to £61,750 (after the trading-allowance / actual-expenses choice).

Questions this scenario raises

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).

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.

How long will my pension pot last?

See the SIPP optimiser at /calculators/sipp-optimiser for a 10,000-path Monte Carlo answer. The widely-cited "4% safe withdrawal rate" comes from US data; the UK historical record produces a lower number (closer to 3.0–3.5%) due to inflation regime differences and slower equity returns. The calculator reports the probability of pot exhaustion explicitly.

Do I need to register for VAT?

Mandatory VAT registration kicks in once taxable turnover crosses £90,000 in any rolling 12-month period (the threshold as of 1 April 2024). Below that it is voluntary. Many sole traders register voluntarily anyway to recover input VAT on equipment — but this calculation does not model VAT cashflow; it sits on the income-tax side of the balance only.

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.

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.