Media & Partnerships

1. What UKCalc is

UKCalc is an independent publisher of UK personal-finance calculators, reference data and calculation-led analysis, published by Animateed Limited. We cover tax, pay and personal money, property and mortgages, business and self-employment, benefits, work and earnings and motoring costs, alongside a library of explanatory guides.

The work is calculation-first. Where most coverage of a financial change describes it, UKCalc computes it: what the mechanism actually does, to whom, and by how much, with the arithmetic shown rather than asserted.

Three distinctions matter when you are deciding how to use us:

• We are not a financial adviser. Nothing UKCalc publishes is a personal recommendation, and we do not know any individual reader’s circumstances.
• We are not FCA-regulated. We do not arrange, advise on or sell financial products, and we do not hold ourselves out as doing so.
• We are not the government source for any figure. Statutory rates and thresholds are set by government and published by HMRC and others. We compile, verify and calculate with them; we do not set them.

2. Why journalists and partners can trust the platform

The short answer is that our figures are governed rather than typed.

UKCalc keeps a statutory registry of every rate, threshold and allowance its calculators use. Each value records three things: the official source it came from, the period it applies to, and the date it was last checked against that source. A value that has not been verified is visible as such to us, which is the point of recording the check rather than the number alone.

The public UK rates and thresholds page and the machine-readable data published alongside it are generated from that registry. The calculators carry their own copies of the figures they use, and our audits check those copies against the registry before anything is published: a page whose figure disagrees with the registry, or a registry change whose dependent pages have not been reviewed, fails our checks rather than going live.

The rest is published where you can read it rather than described here: how each calculation is produced is set out in our methodology; our sourcing rules, correction process and independence position are set out in our editorial policy.

Two things worth keeping separate when you cite us:

• Statutory inputs. The rates, thresholds and allowances themselves. These are set by government and published by HMRC and other official bodies. UKCalc compiles and verifies them; it does not set them. Cite HMRC or GOV.UK as the source, not UKCalc.
• UKCalc-derived analysis. The calculations we build on top of those inputs — combined effects, marginal outcomes, comparisons and modelled scenarios. These are our work, and UKCalc is the right attribution for them.

3. Original financial analysis and data

UKCalc publishes original, calculation-led analysis of how UK financial rules actually behave. Each piece is built the same way:

• The working is shown. Not just the result, but how it was arrived at.
• The assumptions are written down. What was held constant, what was excluded, and where the analysis stops.
• The statutory sourcing is visible. Every input traces back to the official publication it came from.
• Machine-readable data is provided where it exists, so a figure can be checked, charted or rebuilt rather than retyped from prose.

This is an ongoing output rather than a fixed set of pieces, and it is written to be quotable: the point of showing the working is that an editor can verify a number before running it.

The work is produced by the UKCalc News Desk, which monitors UK personal-finance developments, checks them against primary sources and establishes what they mean numerically. Browse the current analysis: UKCalc analysis.

4. Search, GEO & AI discovery

Financial information is increasingly found through more than a list of links.

Financial information is increasingly discovered through traditional search, AI-generated answers, summaries and recommendation systems. Those systems are reading the same pages your readers are, and they interpret a page more reliably when its answer is stated plainly, its numbers are extractable and its sources are visible.

UKCalc combines answer-first editorial, primary-source attribution, explicit calculation methodology and structured publishing signals so our analysis can be understood accurately by readers, search engines and AI-led discovery systems. That last part is the area the industry has started calling GEO — generative engine optimisation — though what sits behind it here is publishing discipline rather than a technique: state the answer, show the arithmetic, name the source.

In practice four things travel with every piece:

• Primary-source attribution. Every factual input traces back to the official publication it came from, named on the page rather than implied.
• Reproducible calculations. The assumptions, the inputs and the method are written down, so a figure can be checked or rebuilt rather than taken on trust.
• Structured for machine understanding. The page is built so its answer, its numbers and its sourcing are legible to a machine as well as to a reader.
• Independent third-party analysis. The conclusion is UKCalc’s. That is what makes it worth anything as evidence to anybody else.

For partners, that creates an opportunity to support genuinely useful third-party financial content designed for the way information is increasingly discovered — while UKCalc retains full editorial control of the analysis and the conclusions.

What this is not. No publisher controls what a search engine or a model does with a page, so nothing here is a promise about rankings, citations or inclusion in any particular AI-generated answer — see what we cannot do. What we can do is publish work that is accurate, well sourced and clearly structured, and be a credible independent source when one is being looked for. UKCalc supplies the publisher content and the calculations; campaign and visibility strategy sits with you or your agency. See editorial independence.

5. Journalist research, support and commentary

We are happy to help with the calculation side of a story, whether or not UKCalc is mentioned in it. In practice that means:

• Checking a calculation before publication. If you have a number and want it verified, send it with your workings or your assumptions and we will tell you whether it holds.
• Explaining how a calculation works. Plain-language explanation of a mechanism, on the record or as background, including where it commonly gets reported wrongly.
• Explaining the mechanical effect of a change. What a rule change does arithmetically — who it reaches, where it bites hardest, and where its effect is smaller than the headline suggests.
• Supplying or reshaping supporting figures. The underlying numbers for a chart or table, in a format your graphics desk can actually use.
• Saying when something is outside what we can support. If the data does not carry the claim, we will say so rather than produce a number that looks authoritative and is not.

Deadlines. Please tell us yours when you get in touch. We are a small team and cannot promise a turnaround time in advance, but we would much rather tell you quickly that we cannot make your deadline than miss it silently.

Citing UKCalc.uk

You are welcome to quote our analysis in your reporting. Please attribute it to UKCalc.uk and link to the 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.uk” — with a link to the relevant analysis page.

Or, in a chart source line: “Source: UKCalc.uk analysis of HMRC rates.”

Our datasets are free to reuse under CC BY 4.0, with downloads in JSON and CSV, at UKCalc.uk Data, including the Budget 2026 take-home pay reference. If you need the underlying figures in a different format for a graphic, ask and we will send them.

6. Bespoke analysis and datasets

We take on commissioned modelling built around a specific editorial or commercial question — the kind of work where the answer depends on running the calculation properly rather than on finding an existing figure to quote.

• Assumptions are documented. Every scenario states what it assumes and what it leaves out, so the result can be defended when someone challenges it.
• Calculations are reproducible. The method is written down and the inputs are sourced, so the same figures can be regenerated later or checked by a third party.
• Figures are delivered in usable formats. Structured data rather than numbers embedded in a document, so a graphics or interactive team can work from them directly.
• Datasets can be shaped to the requirement. Modelled across the ranges, cohorts or breakdowns a particular piece needs, rather than the ones our own pages happen to use.

What we would not claim: we are not a data vendor with a proprietary archive. The value here is the modelling and the governance around it, applied to sources that are public.

7. Embeddable calculators and data partnerships

Two capabilities, depending on how much of the surface you want to own:

• A UKCalc calculator embedded on your page. The tool runs as it does on our own site, styled to sit in your layout, so your reader answers their own question without leaving your article.
• Governed data and calculation logic behind your own front end. You build the interface; the rates, thresholds and calculation rules come from our governed registry rather than being hard-coded into your template and left to age.

Either way the same governance applies. The figures behind an embedded tool or a supplied dataset are the governed ones described in section 2 — recorded against their official source, dated, and checked against that single source rather than maintained separately for the partnership.

What exists today. Embedded calculators and supplied datasets are things we do now. We publish machine-readable data files alongside our public rates page; we do not currently operate a public API, and we would rather say so than imply an integration route that is not there yet. If an API is what a partnership needs, it is a conversation about building one, not about switching one on.

8. Editorial and native partnership opportunities

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:

• Native and editorial collaborations. Calculation-led pieces built around a real question, where the modelling is the reason the piece is worth reading.
• Search- and AI-discovery-aware structuring. 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.
• Calculation-led supporting material. The tables, scenarios and supporting figures that turn an assertion in a piece into something a reader can check.

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.

9. Commercial and sponsorship opportunities

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.

10. Editorial independence and governed data

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.

The governed registry described in section 2 is part of why that holds rather than merely being asserted: what a calculator uses is checked against what the registry records, sourced and dated, and 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.

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 the editorial policy. This applies to work produced with a partner exactly as it applies to our own pages.