Private doctor on £250,000

Personal Ltd Co. Age 52. 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

£106,832

Pension

£60,000

Effective rate

33.3%

Marginal rate

39.4%

What a private doctor on £250,000 of company profit actually takes home

A private doctor running a personal Ltd Co with £250,000 of profit before director pay (2026/27 rUK rates) can extract that profit as some mix of salary, dividend and employer pension. The joint optimum — the combination that produces the highest net wealth — pays £5,000 as salary, £139,725 as dividend and £60,000 as an employer pension contribution. Total tax + NI through the chain comes to £83,168 — an effective rate of 33.3% on company profit.

The "rule of thumb" baseline — £12,570 salary, no pension, max dividend — leaves £33,394 on the table at this profit level. That gap is the value of solving the four-band salary problem (LEL / PT / ST / £12,570) jointly with the pension decision rather than picking each one independently.

The five tax lines that produce the optimum

Corporation tax: £45,275 on £185,000 of post-pay profit.
Employer NI: £0 on the £5,000 salary (15% above the £5,000 Secondary Threshold).
Employee NI: £0 on the same salary (8% main band, 2% above £50,270).
Income tax: £1,000 on the salary (rUK bands, after personal allowance tapered above the £100,000 threshold).
Dividend tax: £36,893 on the £139,725 dividend (8.75% / 33.75% / 39.35% bands, stacked above salary).

Net cash to the director: £106,832. Pension contribution (locked until age 55, rising to 57 from 6 April 2028 per the Finance Act 2021): £60,000. Net wealth on the all-£1-is-equal view: £166,832.

The numbers, line by line

Optimum salary	£5,000
Optimum dividend	£139,725
Optimum pension	£60,000
Net cash (optimum)	£106,832
Net wealth (cash + pension)	£166,832
Rule-of-thumb net cash	£133,438
Rule-of-thumb net wealth	£133,438
Saving vs rule of thumb	£33,394
Effective rate on profit	33.3%
Marginal rate (next £1 dividend)	39.4%
Years to age-57 pension access	5
Annual pension contribution (this row)	£60,000
Projected pot at 57 (5% real, single-path)	£331,538
Sustainable income @ 4% SWR	£13,262/yr

Why this scenario is different

Compared to the closest peer profile — IT contractor at £250,000 — 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.

Is the State Pension worth deferring?

For State Pensions claimed after 6 April 2016, deferring uplifts the entitlement by 1% for every 9 weeks deferred (about 5.8% per year). The break-even is approximately 17 years — if you expect to live materially longer than 17 years after State Pension Age, deferring marginally wins. Most people claim on time and invest the cash instead.

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.