Media & Partnerships
UKCalc publishes independently calculated UK tax, property and personal finance analysis, built on statutory figures that are checked against their official source and dated. Every figure comes with its working, its source and its caveats. This page is for journalists who want numbers they can quote, and for agencies and partners considering editorial work with us.
UKCalc is published by Animateed Limited. It is not a financial adviser, an FCA-regulated firm, an accountant or a tax adviser, and it is not the government source for any figure. Every statutory number below links to the official source it came from. UKCalc keeps final editorial control of everything it publishes — see editorial independence.
1. Analysis journalists can use
Two worked examples of the kind of analysis UKCalc produces, each derived from verified statutory data. They are evergreen illustrations of method rather than a news feed — they show the working, the sourcing and the caveats you would get on any figure we supply. Full tables and sources are on the linked analysis pages.
A 69.5% combined marginal rate between £116,760 and £125,140
Between £116,760 and £125,140 of gross salary in 2026/27, UKCalc calculates that an extra £1 of pay costs 69.5p in Income Tax and employee National Insurance combined. The Personal Allowance is still being withdrawn in that band — adding £1.50 of taxable income per £1 earned — while the 45% additional rate has already begun. That gives 45% × 1.5 = 67.5%, plus 2% employee National Insurance.
| Gross salary | Combined marginal rate |
|---|---|
| £12,570 – £50,269 | 28% |
| £50,270 – £99,999 | 42% |
| £100,000 – £116,759 | 62% |
| £116,760 – £125,139 | 69.5% |
| £125,140 – above | 47% |
Assumptions: employed earner on PAYE paying Class 1 National Insurance; England, Wales and Northern Ireland only (Scotland sets its own bands); all income is employment earnings; no pension contributions or salary sacrifice, which would change adjusted net income. Excludes student loan repayments and the High Income Child Benefit Charge, which stack on top where they apply.
“Most people have heard of the 60% tax trap above £100,000. What is less well known is that there is a narrower band, between £116,760 and £125,140, where the Personal Allowance is still being withdrawn and the 45% rate has already kicked in. On our calculations that combination takes 69.5p out of every extra pound, once employee National Insurance is included. It is not an official tax band — it is what the published rules add up to.”
— UKCalc Editorial Team
Full working and tables: The UK effective marginal tax rate map, 2026/27 · data: marginal-rate-bands-2026-27.json
Sources: HM Revenue & Customs (GOV.UK) — Income Tax rates · HM Revenue & Customs (GOV.UK) — National Insurance rates
A £5,000 first-time buyer stamp duty cliff at £500,000
First-time buyer stamp duty relief in England and Northern Ireland does not taper away above £500,000 — it stops. A qualifying first-time buyer paying £500,000 owes £10,000.00. At £500,001 the relief is withdrawn in full, standard rates apply to the whole price, and the bill is £15,000.05. One pound on the purchase price costs £5,000.05 in tax.
| Price | Standard | First-time buyer | Relief worth |
|---|---|---|---|
| £300,000 | £5,000.00 | £0.00 | £5,000.00 |
| £400,000 | £10,000.00 | £5,000.00 | £5,000.00 |
| £500,000 | £15,000.00 | £10,000.00 | £5,000.00 |
| £500,001 | £15,000.05 | £15,000.05 | £0.00 |
Assumptions: a qualifying first-time buyer purchasing their only residential property; no additional-property or non-resident surcharge; price equal to chargeable consideration.
“Most tax reliefs taper. This one does not. A first-time buyer who agrees £500,000 pays £10,000 in stamp duty; agree one pound more and the relief vanishes completely and the bill is just over £15,000. It is a £5,000 jump in tax for a £1 difference, and it sits exactly where a lot of negotiations land.”
— UKCalc Editorial Team
Full working and tables: The first-time buyer stamp duty cliff at £500,000 · data: ftb-sdlt-relief-2026-27.json
Source: HM Revenue & Customs (GOV.UK) — SDLT residential property rates
2. Data and methodology
UKCalc keeps a statutory registry of every rate, threshold and allowance its calculators use. Each value records the official source it came from, the period it applies to, and the date it was last checked against that source. The public UK rates and thresholds 2026/27 page and its machine-readable JSON are generated from that registry, so the page, the data file and the calculators cannot silently disagree.
Please keep two things separate when citing us:
- Official statutory rates — for example the £12,570 Personal Allowance or the £500,000 first-time buyer relief ceiling. These are set by government and published by HMRC. UKCalc compiles and verifies them; it does not set them. Cite HMRC or GOV.UK as the source, not UKCalc.
- UKCalc-derived analysis — for example the 69.5% combined marginal rate, or the £5,000.05 stamp duty step. These are UKCalc's calculations on top of the official figures. If you use these, UKCalc is the right attribution.
How each calculator works: Methodology.
3. Citing UKCalc
You are welcome to quote these findings in your reporting. Please attribute them to UKCalc and link to the analysis page the figure came from.
The underlying statutory rates are Crown copyright and published by HMRC and others under the Open Government Licence — we compile and verify them, we do not own them. What we ask you to attribute is the calculation, not the tax rate itself.
Suggested attribution wording:
“…according to analysis by UKCalc” — with a link to the relevant analysis page.
Or, in a chart source line: “Source: UKCalc analysis of HMRC rates.”
If you need the underlying figures in a different format for a graphic, ask and we will send them.
4. Agencies & editorial partners
We work with agencies and editorial partners on financial content where UKCalc’s calculations add something a writer cannot easily produce alone. That usually means one of four things:
- Original calculations and scenarios. Modelled figures for a specific question — what a threshold change does to a household at different incomes, or where a cliff edge actually bites — with the working and the assumptions written down.
- Calculator and data integration. Embedding or referencing a UKCalc calculator, or supplying the underlying figures in a usable format, where it genuinely helps the reader answer their own question.
- Search- and AI-discovery-aware editorial work. Content structured so the answer is stated plainly, the numbers are extractable, and the sourcing is visible. That is how we build our own pages, and it is what we bring to a collaboration.
- Improving existing content. Often the most useful work is not a new page but making an existing one accurate, current and properly sourced.
What we cannot do is as important:
- UKCalc retains final editorial control over anything published here. A partner can brief, review and disagree; they cannot sign off our conclusions.
- Rankings, recommendations and comparison outcomes are not for sale, in any format.
- Every claim and calculation has to be evidence-led. If the numbers do not support the story, we will say so before the work starts rather than after.
- We do not guarantee search rankings, AI citations, traffic or leads, because nobody honestly can.
5. Commercial partnerships
We consider relevant commercial partnerships where there is a real editorial reason for them and the reader gets something useful. In practice that tends to be longer-term work rather than one-off placement:
- Ongoing editorial or data collaborations in a subject area we already cover.
- Brand or product context where it genuinely helps a reader act on a calculation — and where the alternative would leave them with a number and no next step.
- Calculator or data projects, including tools built around a specific question.
Where a commercial relationship exists, it is disclosed on the page it affects, in plain words. Disclosure is not a formality we add at the end; it is a condition of doing the work.
We are a small independent publisher, and we would rather decline a partnership than publish something we would not stand behind. If a proposal does not fit, we will say so quickly.
6. Editorial independence
Commercial relationships do not determine UKCalc’s calculations, conclusions or editorial recommendations. This is the part of the page we would ask a partner to read first.
Our figures come from a governed statutory registry: every rate, threshold and allowance records the official source it came from, the period it applies to and the date it was last checked against that source. The public rates and thresholds page, its machine-readable data file and the calculators are generated from that registry, so they cannot silently disagree with each other. A commercial conversation does not change what is in the registry.
In practice that means:
- No paid placement is presented as independent analysis.
- No partner sees a favourable conclusion guaranteed in advance.
- Corrections are made openly, whoever they embarrass.
- Where we cannot support a claim, we do not publish it.
The full position is set out in our editorial policy, and how the numbers are produced is set out in the methodology.
7. Media & partnership enquiries
Media enquiries. Email hello@ukcalc.uk, or use the contact form. Please include your deadline — we would rather tell you we cannot make it than miss it.
Agency and partnership enquiries. Same address. Tell us what you are trying to achieve and for whom, and we will tell you plainly whether it is something we can do.
We are happy to check a figure, explain a method, or say plainly when something is outside what we can support.
8. Corrections
If you believe a UKCalc figure is wrong, please tell us — corrections are made openly and we would rather be corrected than cited incorrectly. Our sourcing rules and correction process are set out in our editorial policy. How the numbers are produced is set out in the methodology.
Commercial disclosure and independence are covered in section 6.