Salary sacrifice is one of the simplest ways to cut your tax and National Insurance bill. Most people know that.

What fewer people check is whether it still suits their situation — because the same arrangement that saves one person hundreds of pounds a year can quietly reduce another person's statutory maternity pay, mortgage affordability, or State Pension entitlement.

Not every benefit works the way it used to either. Since 2017, many salary sacrifice schemes have lost their tax advantage under the Optional Remuneration Arrangement rules — but pensions, cycle-to-work schemes and low-emission cars are still exceptions worth knowing about. And from April 2029, the National Insurance saving on pension salary sacrifice above £2,000 a year will be scaled back, which matters if you're planning larger contributions.

This guide explains how salary sacrifice works in 2026/27, which benefits still deliver a genuine saving, and the practical checks to make before agreeing to — or increasing — an arrangement.

Salary sacrifice can be highly effective, but it changes your employment contract and isn't something to enter into lightly. If you'd like to check whether it makes sense for your circumstances, we're happy to talk it through.