Postgraduate loan: deduction rate

The share of an employee's pay above the postgraduate threshold that an employer deducts each pay period as postgraduate loan repayment, on top of any undergraduate deduction.

Corroborated Statutory Instrument Great Britain in force since 2017-09-05

Checked against its sources: statute verified 2026-09-21·guidance verified 2026-09-21

Scope: 6% of earnings ABOVE the postgraduate threshold (Postgraduate loan: repayment threshold), not of all earnings. It is ADDITIONAL to and concurrent with any deduction under regulation 44(1)(a) (reg 44(2A)): a borrower with a plan 2 loan and a plan 3 loan has 9% and 6% deducted at the same time, each on the excess over its own threshold. The words "plan 3 loan" date from 6 April 2023 (SI 2022/1335 reg 41(1)(b), which substituted them for "postgraduate degree loan"); SI 2017/831 had put "a postgraduate master's degree loan" there in 2017, and the archived host carries no note on this limb for the rewording in between, so the record witnesses the two ends of that wording and not the step. Plan 3 now also covers postgraduate doctoral loans (reg 3C tables 3 and 4). The 6% has not moved.

Current sources

Source A · Legislationhttps://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2017/831/made (SI 2017/831 reg 26(2): "For paragraph (1), substitute-" a new regulation 44(1) reading "The repayment deducted must be- (a) in relation to a student loan, 9%, and (b) in relation to a postgraduate master's degree loan, 6%, of any earnings paid to, or provided to or for the benefit of, the borrower in respect of the employment, which exceed the threshold specified in paragraph (2)"; in force 5 September 2017, reg 1(1))

retrieved 2026-09-15

Source B · Official guidancehttps://www.gov.uk/guidance/rates-and-thresholds-for-employers-2026-to-2027 (under "Student loan and postgraduate loan recovery": "Postgraduate loan deductions 6%")

retrieved 2026-07-29

History

Value	From	To	Status	Sources
6%	2017-09-05	—	Corroborated	Legislation: https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2017/831/made (SI 2017/831 reg 26(2): "For paragraph (1), substitute-" a new regulation 44(1) reading "The repayment deducted must be- (a) in relation to a student loan, 9%, and (b) in relation to a postgraduate master's degree loan, 6%, of any earnings paid to, or provided to or for the benefit of, the borrower in respect of the employment, which exceed the threshold specified in paragraph (2)"; in force 5 September 2017, reg 1(1)) retrieved 2026-09-15 Official guidance: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/rates-and-thresholds-for-employers-2026-to-2027 (under "Student loan and postgraduate loan recovery": "Postgraduate loan deductions 6%") retrieved 2026-07-29

Receipt

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Figure ID: employment.student_loan.postgraduate.rate
Name in the API: Postgraduate loan deductions: employer rate (plan 3)
Record fields (source type · unit · jurisdiction · status): si·percent·GB·corroborated
Record hash (canonical JSON, SHA-256): sha256:fcb4924887aa98bdbe4d47f64abb177d83693ffd1ece3577fb168792971551a3
Source snapshots (SHA-256): Legislation: sha256:1d3b05a544c43749f5aed26341364fcac68a03f69fda7626f2a3a08daf2fdf28; Official guidance: sha256:2b130359261b54fc8f27f3e53cade20f559a6035397c2e3845de72e21ea4eede
Listed in the signed manifest: release 3.0.0 manifest · record_hashes["employment.student_loan.postgraduate.rate"]
Machine-readable record: /v1/figures/employment.student_loan.postgraduate.rate · current only: /v1/figures/employment.student_loan.postgraduate.rate/current

Compiler's notes

An SI carry (ADR-0014) under D20's pin: SI 2009/470 states 6% in five provisions — regulations 21A(4), 21B(1), 29(3)(b), 44(1)(b) and 75(4)(b) — so locate refuses the host unpinned and the author names regulation 44(1)(b), the employer's deduction. The same block substitution as the 9% limb: SI 2017/831 reg 26(2) put both limbs into regulation 44(1) at once, whole, and the finder confirms STATED-NOT-DERIVABLE on its as-made text. SI 2022/1335 reg 41(1)(b) is the newer note on this limb and substituted only "plan 3 loan" for "postgraduate degree loan", printing no rate, so D20(b) passes it over and says so in the verdict. Nothing preceded this value in regulation 44: the instrument's own explanatory note records that it consolidated the repayment provisions for postgraduate master's degree loans — until then in Part 2 of the Education (Postgraduate Master's Degree Loans) Regulations 2016, which it revoked — into the 2009 Regulations, and reg 26(2) is where the employer's 6% arrived.