Compare your UK salary with Dubai, Australia, the USA and Ireland. See the salary and take-home pay you'd need overseas to match your UK lifestyle after tax, currency and cost of living.
Enter your current UK gross salary. We'll work out the equivalent salary in each country so your take-home pay buys the same lifestyle.
| Country | Equivalent gross (local) | Equivalent gross (£) | Take-home (local) | Effective tax | vs your UK salary |
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Figures are illustrative estimates for a single person, standard allowances, no pension or student loan. They are not tax or financial advice. Local rules on pensions, health cover, visas and family circumstances will change the real picture.
We first calculate your UK take-home pay for 2026/27 using Income Tax and National Insurance. Then, for each destination, we find the local gross salary that would leave you with the same take-home pay once local taxes are applied — converted at current exchange rates. With the cost-of-living adjustment switched on, we scale that target so the comparison reflects the price of everyday life in each place, not just the tax difference. The result is a like-for-like answer to a simple question: what would you need to earn there to live as you do here?
The UAE charges no personal income tax and no social security for expatriate employees, so your gross salary is your take-home. That usually means you need a noticeably lower salary in Dubai than in the UK to match your net pay — though housing, schooling and health insurance costs matter.
Australia's resident income tax runs from a tax-free threshold up to 45%, plus a 2% Medicare levy. Employer superannuation is paid on top of salary, so it isn't deducted from your take-home. Higher living costs in cities like Sydney push the equivalent salary up.
The US figure covers federal income tax and FICA (Social Security and Medicare). State income tax is excluded and varies enormously — zero in Texas or Florida, higher in California or New York — so treat the US number as a floor and adjust for your state.
Ireland applies Income Tax at 20% then 40%, reduced by personal and employee credits, plus USC and PRSI. Effective rates on middle and higher incomes tend to be a little above the UK, so the equivalent salary is usually higher.
Enter £50,000 above and read the Dubai row. Because there's no income tax, the equivalent gross is close to your UK take-home rather than your UK gross — typically thousands of pounds less than £50,000. Remember to factor in rent and school fees, which can be high in Dubai.
Yes, when the "Adjust for cost of living" box is ticked. It scales the target take-home by an indicative cost-of-living index for each destination. Untick it for a pure tax-and-currency comparison.
It excludes state income tax, which can add several percent in states like California. It's best read as a starting point for a no-income-tax state, then adjusted upward for your state.
The tool fetches current rates when it loads and shows the date. If that fails, it falls back to recent indicative rates and tells you so.