Salary Calculator

About the Salary Calculator

Converting a salary between annual, monthly, weekly and hourly is arithmetic anyone can do. What makes the answer wrong is the divisor, and there are two ways to get it wrong that pull in opposite directions.

The 2,080-hour convention ignores holiday. Forty hours times fifty-two weeks counts the weeks you do not work. Take five weeks of leave and you are paid the same salary for fewer hours, so your real rate per hour present is higher than the convention says.

Unpaid overtime goes the other way, and usually further. Contracted for thirty-seven and a half hours and routinely working forty-five? Every extra hour is unpaid, and the rate per hour actually worked falls sharply.

This salary calculator reports the conventional rate, the rate per hour you actually work, and — because the real question is often "is this job worth it" — the rate including the commute.

How to Use the Salary Calculator

Enter what you are paid and whether that figure is annual, monthly, weekly or hourly. Everything converts through an annual figure.

Contracted hours and weeks of leave (including public holidays) set the divisors.

Unpaid overtime and commuting are optional, and they are where the interesting numbers come from.

Step-by-Step Example

£52,000 a year, 37.5 contracted hours, 5 weeks of leave.

  Monthly:            4,333.33
  Weekly:             1,000.00
  A working day:        221.28

  Conventional hourly:   26.67    (52,000 ÷ 37.5 × 52)
  Per hour present:      29.50    (52,000 ÷ 37.5 × 47)

The conventional figure divides by 1,950 hours. You actually work 1,762.5. So the rate per hour you are genuinely at work is £29.50, not £26.67 — about 11% higher than the standard calculation suggests.

Note the daily rate too: £221.28, not £200. Dividing by 260 days assumes you work every weekday of the year. With five weeks of leave it is 235 days, and the difference matters if you are pricing freelance work against an employed salary.

What Unpaid Overtime Costs

Now add 7.5 hours a week of unpaid overtime:

  Hours actually worked:   45 × 47  =  2,115 a year
  Rate per hour worked:                 24.59

From £26.67 conventional, to £29.50 for leave, back down to £24.59 once the overtime is counted.

Those unpaid hours are worth £9,400 a year at the contractual rate. That is what is being given away, every year, and it appears on no payslip and in no salary comparison.

Notice also that the two effects partly cancel. Five weeks of leave and 7.5 hours of weekly overtime nearly offset — which is exactly why modelling only one of them produces a misleading answer in whichever direction you happened to pick.

Counting the Commute

Add five hours a week of travel:

  Hours committed to the job:   2,350 a year
  Rate per committed hour:       22.13

This is not a payroll figure and does not pretend to be. It is the figure that makes two offers comparable when one of them is an hour further away.

£52,000 with a long commute and £48,000 nearby are not obviously ranked by salary. Per hour actually committed to the job, the second can easily win — and that comparison is completely invisible on the headline figures.

Whether to count commuting as work is a judgement. The point is that it is time the job costs you, and pretending it is free makes one kind of offer look better than it is.

The Conversions, Honestly

The monthly and weekly figures are uncontroversial. Everything below them depends on a choice about what counts as a working period, and the choice is worth making consciously rather than inheriting from a spreadsheet.

Understanding Your Result

Annual salary is the common basis everything converts through.

By period gives monthly, weekly and daily.

Conventional hourly rate is the standard calculation, labelled with what it ignores.

Per hour actually worked is the honest figure.

Worth knowing flags heavy unpaid overtime, the commute comparison, or that these are gross figures.

When Should You Use This Calculator?

Comparing two job offers. Especially when hours or commutes differ.

Before accepting a salaried role after hourly work. The conversion is rarely what people expect once overtime is included.

When pricing freelance work. A day rate against a salary needs the right divisor, or you undercharge.

To see what unpaid overtime is worth. Usually a larger number than expected.

Common Mistakes

Dividing by 2,080 without thinking. It counts leave weeks as worked.

Ignoring unpaid overtime. Usually the largest single distortion, and always in the direction that flatters the employer.

Using 260 days for a daily rate. With leave it is nearer 235, and the gap matters when quoting.

Comparing offers on salary alone. Hours, leave and commute all change the real rate.

Treating these as take-home. They are gross. What arrives is after tax and pension — and a pension contribution costs less than its percentage because it comes out before tax, which the paycheck calculator works through.

Forgetting non-salary compensation. Pension contributions, bonuses, health cover and leave allowance are all real and none of them appear in an hourly rate.

Every figure here is gross and an estimate for planning, not financial advice.