What were the two UK Budget events in 2024?

There were two: the Conservative Spring Budget delivered by Jeremy Hunt on 6 March 2024 (the last Budget of the Sunak government) and the Labour Autumn Budget delivered by Rachel Reeves on 30 October 2024 (the first Budget of the new government after the July 2024 general election). Both shaped the 2024/25 tax-year rules in different ways - the Spring Budget set the headline personal-tax cuts that took effect from 6 April 2024, and the Autumn Budget added the employer-side and capital-tax changes that took effect from 30 October 2024 or 6 April 2025.

Did Class 4 self-employed National Insurance change in 2024?

Yes - the Spring Budget 2024 cut the Class 4 main rate from 9% to 6% on profits between the Lower Profits Limit of £12,570 and the Upper Profits Limit of £50,270 from 6 April 2024. The 2% upper rate above the UPL was unchanged. Class 2 NI was also abolished as a mandatory charge above the Small Profits Threshold from the same date, although it remains voluntary for those wanting to top up National Insurance credits.

What did the Autumn Budget 2024 do to employer National Insurance?

It raised the employer Class 1 secondary rate from 13.8% to 15% with effect from 6 April 2025, and cut the Secondary Threshold from £9,100 to £5,000 over the same date. The combination was the single largest revenue-raising measure of the Budget. It did not affect 2024/25 itself (it took effect at the start of 2025/26) but the announcement reshaped employer cost models for the year ahead and was a major driver of the post-October 2024 salary-sacrifice incentive shift.

How did Capital Gains Tax change in October 2024?

The Autumn Budget 2024 aligned non-property CGT rates with the residential-property rates. From 30 October 2024 the basic-rate CGT rose from 10% to 18% and the higher / additional-rate from 20% to 24% on gains for shares and other non-property assets. Residential property CGT was already at 18% / 24% so was unchanged at the headline level. The Annual Exempt Amount stayed at £3,000.

Was the Stamp Duty surcharge changed?

Yes - the Higher Rates for Additional Dwellings (HRAD) surcharge on second homes and buy-to-lets in England and Northern Ireland was raised from 3% to 5% with effect from 31 October 2024 (the day after the Autumn Budget). The change applied immediately, so completions on or before 30 October 2024 still attracted the 3% surcharge. Standard SDLT bands were unchanged at the Autumn Budget.

When was non-domiciled status abolished?

The remittance basis of taxation for UK-resident non-doms was abolished from 6 April 2025, having been announced at the Spring Budget 2024 by the Conservative government and then confirmed (with tightened transitional rules) at the Autumn Budget 2024 by the Labour government. From 6 April 2025 the regime is replaced by a four-year Foreign Income and Gains (FIG) regime for new UK residents - anyone tax-resident in the UK for the immediately preceding ten years is excluded.

Was VAT added to private school fees?

Yes - the Autumn Budget 2024 ended the VAT exemption for private school fees. From 1 January 2025, fees for tuition at private schools became subject to 20% VAT. Business rates relief for private schools in England was also removed from 1 April 2025. The measures were announced in the Labour manifesto and confirmed at the Autumn Budget.

What changed for the High Income Child Benefit Charge in 2024?

The Spring Budget 2024 raised the HICBC lower threshold from £50,000 to £60,000 and the upper threshold (full clawback) from £60,000 to £80,000, with effect from 6 April 2024. It also reduced the rate of clawback to 1% per £200 of adjusted net income above the lower threshold (the step size was widened from £100 to £200), giving a smoother taper over the £20,000 band. The plan to move to a household-income basis from April 2026 was later abandoned by the Labour government.

Did the Personal Allowance change in 2024/25?

No - the Personal Allowance for 2024/25 stayed at £12,570, unchanged since 2021/22. The higher-rate threshold remained at £50,270 and the additional-rate threshold at £125,140. Both the Spring and Autumn Budgets 2024 confirmed the freeze, which is now scheduled to run to April 2028. Fiscal drag in 2024/25 alone is estimated to have pulled around 1.1 million additional taxpayers into the 40% band by the end of the year.

What did Budget 2024 do for ISAs and pensions?

The ISA allowance stayed at £20,000 for 2024/25, the Junior ISA at £9,000 and the Lifetime ISA at £4,000. The pension Annual Allowance stayed at £60,000, the Money Purchase Annual Allowance at £10,000 and the tapered allowance taper still kicked in for adjusted income above £260,000. The Autumn Budget 2024 announced that unused defined-contribution pensions would be brought into Inheritance Tax from April 2027 - a structural change for retirement planning, but with no immediate cash-flow effect.

How much more take-home did a £45k worker get in 2024/25 vs 2023/24?

On £45,000 of gross salary the engine returns take-home of £35,920 for 2024/25 versus £35,271 for 2023/24 - a gain of around £649 a year, almost entirely from the employee NI cut from 10% to 8% (around £649 of saved NI on a £45,000 salary). Frozen income-tax thresholds meant Income Tax itself was unchanged in cash terms before pay rises.

Budget 2024 Summary: Spring + Autumn Recap of UK Tax Changes

2024 was unusual in modern UK fiscal history - two full Budgets, delivered by two different Chancellors from two different parties, both bearing on the rules in force for the 2024/25 tax year. This page recaps every change that hit a UK payslip, capital-gain computation, property completion or self-assessment return as a result of the March and October 2024 events. Figures are anchored to the same TaxRuleset that powers our calculators, with gov.uk sources listed in the citations.

Headline: the year of the NIC cut and the Labour reset

The Conservative Spring Budget 2024 on 6 March was the last set-piece announcement of the Sunak government before the 4 July general election. Its centrepiece was a second cut to employee National Insurance in three months, from 10% to 8%, following on from the 12% to 10% cut that took effect on 6 January 2024. It also cut self-employed Class 4 from 9% to 6%, abolished the mandatory Class 2 charge above the Small Profits Threshold, lifted the High Income Child Benefit Charge lower threshold from £50,000 to £60,000, and announced the end of the remittance basis for UK-resident non-domiciles from April 2025.

Labour won the July 2024 election and Rachel Reeves delivered her first Budget on 30 October 2024. It was a markedly different fiscal event in tone and scale. The Autumn Budget 2024 raised employer Class 1 NIC from 13.8% to 15% and cut the Secondary Threshold from £9,100 to £5,000 (both effective 6 April 2025), aligned Capital Gains Tax rates on non-property assets to the property rates (18% and 24% from 30 October), raised the Stamp Duty additional-dwelling surcharge from 3% to 5% with effect the next day, ended the VAT exemption on private school fees from 1 January 2025, confirmed the abolition of the non-dom regime from 6 April 2025, and announced that unused defined-contribution pensions would be brought into Inheritance Tax from April 2027. The Personal Allowance and the income-tax bands stayed frozen at the existing 2021/22 levels through both events.

Personal Allowance and the frozen thresholds

The Personal Allowance for 2024/25 remained £12,570, the same cash figure as 2021/22, 2022/23 and 2023/24. The higher-rate threshold stayed at £50,270 (£12,570 PA plus a £37,700 basic-rate band), and the additional-rate threshold stayed at £125,140 - the same point at which the £100,000 PA taper finishes withdrawing the allowance to zero. Neither Chancellor moved any of the three values.

The PA taper itself was unchanged: the allowance reduces by £1 for every £2 of adjusted net income above £100,000, creating an effective marginal rate of 60% on Income Tax alone (62% with the then-prevailing 8% employee NI) on the £25,140 slice between £100,000 and £125,140. The 60% trap, a side effect of the freeze, pulled a steadily larger share of higher earners into its grip as pay drifted up against a fixed nominal £100,000 anchor.

Fiscal drag in 2024/25 bit at every income level. The OBR's March 2024 Economic and Fiscal Outlook estimated that around 1.1 million additional taxpayers would be pulled into the higher-rate band by the end of the tax year through frozen thresholds alone, and roughly 400,000 into the additional-rate band by the time the freeze ends. The Personal Allowance freeze raised more revenue than every other personal-tax change of the two 2024 Budgets combined.

Income tax rates and bands (England, Wales, Northern Ireland)

The 2024/25 bands were identical to 2023/24. The Spring and Autumn Budgets both left them unchanged. The 20% basic, 40% higher and 45% additional rates continued on the same three-band shape that has applied since the additional-rate threshold was cut from £150,000 to £125,140 in April 2023.

Band	Taxable income	Equivalent gross	Rate
Personal Allowance	-	£0 - £12,570	0%
Basic rate	£0 - £37,700	£12,570 - £50,270	20%
Higher rate	£37,700 - £125,140	£50,270 - £137,710	40%
Additional rate	£125,140 - above	£137,710 - above	45%

The 40% band still covered everything from £50,270 of gross up to £125,140 - a span of £74,870 in which the marginal Income Tax rate did not change. The 45% additional rate continued to bite from £125,140, the same point at which the Personal Allowance fully tapered out, producing the same geometric quirk where the marginal rate falls from 62% (the PA-taper band including NI) to 47% above £125,140.

National Insurance: the big NIC cut of 2024

The most visible payslip change of 2024/25 was the second employee NI cut in three months. The Autumn Statement 2023 had already cut the Class 1 main rate from 12% to 10% with effect from 6 January 2024. The Spring Budget 2024 then cut it again, from 10% to 8%, with effect from 6 April 2024 - so workers entered 2024/25 on a 8% main rate that was four percentage points lower than at the start of the previous tax year.

Employee Class 1 main rate: 8% on weekly earnings between the Primary Threshold of £12,570 a year and the Upper Earnings Limit of £50,270 a year. Cut from 10% on 6 April 2024.
Employee Class 1 upper rate: 2% on earnings above the Upper Earnings Limit. Unchanged.
Employer Class 1 secondary rate: 13.8% on earnings above the £9,100 Secondary Threshold during 2024/25 - the rate that prevailed until 5 April 2025. The Autumn Budget legislated the rise to 15% with a £5,000 ST from 6 April 2025, taking effect at the start of the next tax year.
Self-employed Class 4 main rate: 6% on profits between the Lower Profits Limit of £12,570 and the Upper Profits Limit of £50,270. Cut from 9% on 6 April 2024.
Self-employed Class 4 upper rate: 2% on profits above the UPL. Unchanged.
Class 2: mandatory charge above the Small Profits Threshold abolished from 6 April 2024 - voluntary contributions retained for those topping up State Pension entitlement. Weekly rate £3.45 for voluntary payers below the SPT.

A worker on £30,000 saved around £350 in annual NI from the Spring 2024 cut alone. The cumulative saving from both the January and April 2024 cuts on the same salary was about £750 compared with the 12% / 9% pre-cycle rates - the largest cash reduction in personal NI in a single tax year since the contribution was introduced in 1948. Self-employed Class 4 savings on £35,000 of profit were similar in magnitude, around £670 vs the 9% rate that had prevailed for the previous decade.

Dividend allowance and rates

The Dividend Allowance was halved at the start of 2024/25, from £1,000 to £500 - the final step in a two-stage cut announced in the Autumn Statement 2022 (£2,000 in 2022/23 to £1,000 in 2023/24 to £500 from 6 April 2024). Neither 2024 Budget moved the allowance further. The dividend tax rates themselves were unchanged:

Ordinary rate (basic-rate band): 8.75%
Upper rate (higher-rate band): 33.75%
Additional rate (additional-rate band): 39.35%

Dividends did not attract National Insurance, which kept the structural reason a limited-company contractor outside IR35 took home more than an equivalently-paid employee. With the dividend allowance now at £500, a small-company director on a typical "low salary, dividend top-up" mix would pay basic-rate dividend tax on almost every pound of distributed profit - a fairly different arithmetic from the £2,000 / 7.5% world of 2022/23 only two years earlier. The contractor calculator models the full mix end-to-end.

Capital Gains Tax: aligned to property rates

The Autumn Budget 2024 made the biggest structural change to CGT in a decade. From 30 October 2024 the basic-rate CGT on non-property assets rose from 10% to 18%, and the higher / additional-rate from 20% to 24%, aligning shares and other non-residential gains with the rates that already applied to residential property. A single 18% / 24% schedule now applies to all gains.

Basic-rate CGT: 18% on gains falling within the basic-rate Income Tax band (was 10% on non-property assets pre-30 October 2024).
Higher / Additional-rate CGT: 24% on gains above the basic-rate band (was 20% on non-property assets pre-30 October 2024).
Annual Exempt Amount (AEA): £3,000 - unchanged from 2023/24, having been cut from £6,000 in 2023/24 and £12,300 in 2022/23.
Business Asset Disposal Relief (BADR): stayed at 10% on the first £1m of lifetime qualifying gains until 5 April 2025, then rose to 14% on 6 April 2025 and is scheduled to rise to 18% from 6 April 2026.
Investors' Relief lifetime limit: cut from £10m to £1m for disposals from 30 October 2024 onwards.

Because the rate change took effect mid-tax-year, taxpayers with disposals in 2024/25 may need to compute gains either side of 30 October 2024 at the different rates. The CGT calculator uses the post-30 October schedule by default - the prior 10% / 20% schedule is documented in our 2023/24 archive.

Stamp Duty: 5% additional-dwelling surcharge

The Higher Rates for Additional Dwellings surcharge on second homes, buy-to-lets and corporate purchases of residential property in England and Northern Ireland was raised from 3% to 5% with effect from 31 October 2024 (the day after the Autumn Budget). Standard SDLT bands were unchanged at the Autumn Budget but were reset on 1 April 2025 when the temporary nil-rate threshold lift (introduced in September 2022) was unwound.

0% on the slice up to £250,000 during 2024/25 (£125,000 from 1 April 2025).
5% from £250,001 to £925,000 during 2024/25.
10% from £925,001 to £1.5 million.
12% above £1.5 million.
First-time buyers: 0% to £425,000 during 2024/25 (£300,000 from 1 April 2025), 5% from there to £625,000 (£500,000 from 1 April 2025).
Additional-property surcharge: 3% to 30 October 2024, then 5% from 31 October 2024. Applies on top of every band.
Non-UK-resident surcharge: 2% on every band. Unchanged.

On a typical £400,000 buy-to-let purchase the surcharge increase added £8,000 to the SDLT bill overnight (from £12,000 of surcharge on £400,000 at 3% to £20,000 at 5%). Scotland uses its own Land and Buildings Transaction Tax (LBTT) and Wales uses Land Transaction Tax (LTT), neither of which was directly changed by the UK Budget. See the Stamp Duty calculator for full worked numbers, or the LBTT and LTT calculators for the devolved equivalents.

Non-dom abolition and VAT on private school fees

The most politically charged piece of the 2024 Budget cycle was the abolition of the remittance basis of taxation for UK-resident non-domiciled individuals. The Spring Budget 2024 announced the abolition from 6 April 2025, replacing the regime with a four-year Foreign Income and Gains (FIG) regime for new UK residents. The Autumn Budget 2024 tightened the transitional rules and added a replacement scheme for residence-based inheritance tax.

The post-April 2025 regime taxes new UK arrivals on UK-source income and gains in their first four years (the FIG regime), provided they have not been UK-resident in the preceding ten years. After four years they fall fully into UK arising-basis taxation - the same regime as any other UK resident. The protected non-resident trust structures for long-term non-doms were phased out, with a Temporary Repatriation Facility (TRF) introduced to encourage remittance of pre-April 2025 foreign income and gains at preferential rates (12% in 2025/26 and 2026/27, 15% in 2027/28).

VAT on private school fees was the other manifesto promise made flesh at the Autumn Budget. From 1 January 2025, fees for education and vocational training at private schools became subject to 20% VAT. Pre-payment of fees in advance of 1 January 2025 was caught by anti-forestalling rules announced in July 2024. Business rates relief for private schools in England was removed from 1 April 2025. The IFS estimated the combined yield at around £1.7 billion a year by 2029/30, with around 6% of pupils potentially shifting to the state sector.

High Income Child Benefit Charge: threshold raised

HICBC had become one of the most criticised features of the personal-tax system by 2023 - a £50,000 trigger that had been static since 2013 while wages had risen materially, pulling hundreds of thousands of additional families into the charge. The Spring Budget 2024 made two changes from 6 April 2024:

Lower threshold: raised from £50,000 to £60,000 of adjusted net income.
Upper threshold (full clawback): raised from £60,000 to £80,000.
Taper rate: 1% of the Child Benefit award per £200 of adjusted net income above the lower threshold (was £100 per percentage point) - a smoother phase-out.

The plan to move to a household-income basis from April 2026 was announced at the Spring Budget but was abandoned by the Labour government after the election. HICBC therefore remains an individual-income charge, computed against each parent's adjusted net income separately. The Child Benefit tax calculator models the post-2024 thresholds and the new £200 step.

ISA and pension allowances

Tax-advantaged savings vehicles kept their 2023/24 headline numbers through both 2024 Budgets:

ISA allowance: £20,000 (unchanged since 2017/18). The Spring Budget 2024 announced a £5,000 "British ISA" with an extra subscription limit for UK-listed equities, which was scrapped by the Labour government in September 2024 before it took effect.
Junior ISA: £9,000 per child per year.
Lifetime ISA: £4,000 (counts toward the £20,000 total), with 25% government bonus.
Pension Annual Allowance (standard): £60,000, unchanged from 2023/24 when it had been raised from £40,000.
Tapered Annual Allowance: reduces by £1 for every £2 of adjusted income above £260,000, down to a £10,000 floor.
Money Purchase Annual Allowance (MPAA): £10,000.
Lump-sum allowance (LSA): £268,275 lifetime tax-free element.
Lump-sum and death benefit allowance (LSDBA): £1,073,100.

The headline structural change came at the Autumn Budget 2024, which announced that unused defined-contribution pension pots would be brought into the Inheritance Tax estate from April 2027. This did not affect 2024/25 cash-flow but materially changed the long-run case for using pensions as inter-generational wealth transfer vehicles. The pension annual-allowance calculator models the taper and MPAA mechanics together.

Scotland: parallel six-band regime

Scotland sets its own income-tax rates and bands above the UK-wide Personal Allowance through powers devolved by the Scotland Act 2016. The Scottish Budget 2024-25 (delivered by John Swinney in December 2023) added a new 45% Advanced rate band above £75,000 and lifted the 47% (now Top) rate threshold to £125,140 - the same cliff as rUK's additional rate. The six-band structure introduced that year carried over into 2024/25:

Band	Taxable income	Rate
Starter rate	£0 - £2,306	19%
Scottish basic rate	£2,306 - £13,991	20%
Intermediate rate	£13,991 - £31,092	21%
Higher rate	£31,092 - £62,430	42%
Advanced rate	£62,430 - £112,570	45%
Top rate	£112,570 - above	48%

In cash terms, a £45,000 salary in 2024/25 produced take-home of around £35,920 in rUK and about £35,477 in Scotland - a gap of around £442 a year. National Insurance and the Personal Allowance remained UK-wide, so the Spring 2024 NI cut benefited Scottish and rUK taxpayers equally; the divergence sits entirely in Income Tax above PA. See the Scottish income tax guide for the full set of comparisons across income bands.

Worked example: a £45,000 worker, 2023/24 vs 2024/25

To anchor the page in a concrete payslip, consider a worker earning £45,000 gross in England across the cycle. The salary engine returns the following figures, reproducible directly via the on-site calculator with the tax-year selector:

Line	2023/24	2024/25	Change
Gross salary	£45,000	£45,000	-
Personal Allowance	£12,570	£12,570	£0
Income Tax	£6,486	£6,486	£0
Employee Class 1 NI	£3,243	£2,594	-£649
Total deductions	£9,729	£9,080	-£649
Take-home (annual)	£35,271	£35,920	£649
Effective tax + NI rate	21.6%	20.2%	-1.4 pp

Almost all of the £649 take-home gain came from National Insurance: the 8% main rate in 2024/25 versus the 10% rate that applied for most of 2023/24 saved around £649 on a £45,000 salary. Income Tax was unchanged in cash terms because the bands were frozen at the same nominal levels in both years. The effective deduction rate fell from 21.6% to 20.2% - the largest one-year drop in the modern fiscal record, driven entirely by the NIC cut.

Run any other gross through the salary calculator and switch the tax-year selector between 2023/24 and 2024/25 to see the same delta on your own figures. Every number on this page traces to the same TaxRuleset that powers the on-site calculator, which in turn cites the gov.uk sources listed in the citations and on our methodology page.

Frequently asked questions

What were the two UK Budget events in 2024?: There were two: the Conservative Spring Budget delivered by Jeremy Hunt on 6 March 2024 (the last Budget of the Sunak government) and the Labour Autumn Budget delivered by Rachel Reeves on 30 October 2024 (the first Budget of the new government after the July 2024 general election). Both shaped the 2024/25 tax-year rules in different ways - the Spring Budget set the headline personal-tax cuts that took effect from 6 April 2024, and the Autumn Budget added the employer-side and capital-tax changes that took effect from 30 October 2024 or 6 April 2025.
What happened to employee National Insurance in 2024?: Employee Class 1 NI fell sharply through 2024. The Autumn Statement 2023 had already cut the main rate from 12% to 10% with effect from 6 January 2024. The Spring Budget 2024 then cut it again, from 10% to 8%, with effect from 6 April 2024 - so workers entered the 2024/25 tax year on the 8% main rate. The 2% upper rate above the Upper Earnings Limit of £50,270 was unchanged. The Autumn Budget 2024 did not reverse the cut.
Did Class 4 self-employed National Insurance change in 2024?: Yes - the Spring Budget 2024 cut the Class 4 main rate from 9% to 6% on profits between the Lower Profits Limit of £12,570 and the Upper Profits Limit of £50,270 from 6 April 2024. The 2% upper rate above the UPL was unchanged. Class 2 NI was also abolished as a mandatory charge above the Small Profits Threshold from the same date, although it remains voluntary for those wanting to top up National Insurance credits.
What did the Autumn Budget 2024 do to employer National Insurance?: It raised the employer Class 1 secondary rate from 13.8% to 15% with effect from 6 April 2025, and cut the Secondary Threshold from £9,100 to £5,000 over the same date. The combination was the single largest revenue-raising measure of the Budget. It did not affect 2024/25 itself (it took effect at the start of 2025/26) but the announcement reshaped employer cost models for the year ahead and was a major driver of the post-October 2024 salary-sacrifice incentive shift.
How did Capital Gains Tax change in October 2024?: The Autumn Budget 2024 aligned non-property CGT rates with the residential-property rates. From 30 October 2024 the basic-rate CGT rose from 10% to 18% and the higher / additional-rate from 20% to 24% on gains for shares and other non-property assets. Residential property CGT was already at 18% / 24% so was unchanged at the headline level. The Annual Exempt Amount stayed at £3,000.
Was the Stamp Duty surcharge changed?: Yes - the Higher Rates for Additional Dwellings (HRAD) surcharge on second homes and buy-to-lets in England and Northern Ireland was raised from 3% to 5% with effect from 31 October 2024 (the day after the Autumn Budget). The change applied immediately, so completions on or before 30 October 2024 still attracted the 3% surcharge. Standard SDLT bands were unchanged at the Autumn Budget.
When was non-domiciled status abolished?: The remittance basis of taxation for UK-resident non-doms was abolished from 6 April 2025, having been announced at the Spring Budget 2024 by the Conservative government and then confirmed (with tightened transitional rules) at the Autumn Budget 2024 by the Labour government. From 6 April 2025 the regime is replaced by a four-year Foreign Income and Gains (FIG) regime for new UK residents - anyone tax-resident in the UK for the immediately preceding ten years is excluded.
Was VAT added to private school fees?: Yes - the Autumn Budget 2024 ended the VAT exemption for private school fees. From 1 January 2025, fees for tuition at private schools became subject to 20% VAT. Business rates relief for private schools in England was also removed from 1 April 2025. The measures were announced in the Labour manifesto and confirmed at the Autumn Budget.
What changed for the High Income Child Benefit Charge in 2024?: The Spring Budget 2024 raised the HICBC lower threshold from £50,000 to £60,000 and the upper threshold (full clawback) from £60,000 to £80,000, with effect from 6 April 2024. It also reduced the rate of clawback to 1% per £200 of adjusted net income above the lower threshold (the step size was widened from £100 to £200), giving a smoother taper over the £20,000 band. The plan to move to a household-income basis from April 2026 was later abandoned by the Labour government.
Did the Personal Allowance change in 2024/25?: No - the Personal Allowance for 2024/25 stayed at £12,570, unchanged since 2021/22. The higher-rate threshold remained at £50,270 and the additional-rate threshold at £125,140. Both the Spring and Autumn Budgets 2024 confirmed the freeze, which is now scheduled to run to April 2028. Fiscal drag in 2024/25 alone is estimated to have pulled around 1.1 million additional taxpayers into the 40% band by the end of the year.
What did Budget 2024 do for ISAs and pensions?: The ISA allowance stayed at £20,000 for 2024/25, the Junior ISA at £9,000 and the Lifetime ISA at £4,000. The pension Annual Allowance stayed at £60,000, the Money Purchase Annual Allowance at £10,000 and the tapered allowance taper still kicked in for adjusted income above £260,000. The Autumn Budget 2024 announced that unused defined-contribution pensions would be brought into Inheritance Tax from April 2027 - a structural change for retirement planning, but with no immediate cash-flow effect.
How much more take-home did a £45k worker get in 2024/25 vs 2023/24?: On £45,000 of gross salary the engine returns take-home of £35,920 for 2024/25 versus £35,271 for 2023/24 - a gain of around £649 a year, almost entirely from the employee NI cut from 10% to 8% (around £649 of saved NI on a £45,000 salary). Frozen income-tax thresholds meant Income Tax itself was unchanged in cash terms before pay rises.