Hourly to Salary Calculator

Convert a rate to a salary, a salary to a rate, or work out the contract rate that leaves you the income you actually want.

Your pay
37.5 is the common full-time week once an unpaid lunch is taken out of 40.
A calendar year is 52.1775 weeks. 52 is the payroll convention because it divides into 26 fortnights.
Weeks you take and are not paid for. They come straight off the annual figure.
After tax and after business costs — the money that reaches you.
Not hours worked. Selling, invoicing, admin and learning are all unbillable and all compulsory.
Eight allows for the 5.6 weeks an employee gets by law, plus illness and gaps between contracts.
Accountant, insurance, equipment, software — and your own pension, because nobody is auto-enrolling you.
Income tax and Class 4 National Insurance, or corporation tax and dividends if you work through a limited company.

How this is worked out

The conversion itself is one line:

annual = hourly × hours per week × paid weeks

£15 an hour at 37.5 hours for 52 weeks is £29,250. The hours matter more than people expect: the same rate at 40 hours is £31,200, because a 37.5-hour week is a 40-hour week with an unpaid half-hour lunch taken out of each day. Comparing two jobs without checking which week each quotes compares two different numbers.

A year is 52.1775 weeks rather than 52, so 40 hours a week is 2,087 hours and not the 2,080 the convention uses. In the UK the more important adjustment is different: an employed hourly rate is paid for 52 weeks including your 5.6 weeks of statutory holiday, so the holiday is already inside it. A day rate with no paid leave is not comparable until you add the accrual:

5.6 ÷ (52 − 5.6) = 12.07%

That is the statutory accrual rate for irregular-hours and casual workers, and it is the right uplift for turning a day rate into something you can compare with a salary.

The freelance mode works backwards from the income you want:

invoice = (income ÷ (1 − tax rate)) + overhead

rate = invoice ÷ billable hours

A worked example

Hourly rate
£15.00
Hours a week × paid weeks
37.5 × 52 = 1,950 hours
Annual salary
£29,250.00
Each month
£2,437.50
Each week
£562.50
The same rate at 40 hours
£31,200.00
— contract mode, same page —
Income you want to keep
£50,000.00
Tax and NICs at 30%
£21,428.57
Business costs
£6,000.00
You must invoice
£77,428.57
Billable hours (25 × 44 weeks)
1,100
Rate to charge
£70.39 an hour — £563.12 a day
The employed equivalent
£24.04 an hour (£50,000 ÷ 2,080)
Charging £24.04 instead leaves
£12,509.62 — a 75% pay cut

5.6 weeks of holiday is already inside an employed rate

Almost every worker in the UK is entitled to 5.6 weeks of paid holiday a year — 28 days for someone working five days a week, and an employer may count the eight bank holidays inside that. It is a legal minimum, not a benefit, and it applies to part-time and agency workers pro rata.

The consequence for this calculator is that an employed hourly rate quietly includes paid time off. You are paid for 52 weeks and you work about 46.4 of them. A self-employed day rate includes none, which is why the two cannot be compared directly: 5.6 weeks spread over the 46.4 weeks actually worked is 12.07%, the statutory accrual figure, and a day rate needs at least that much on top before the comparison is honest.

Rolled-up holiday pay — adding 12.07% to each payment instead of paying holiday when it is taken — is lawful again for irregular-hours and part-year workers for leave years beginning on or after 1 April 2024, provided it is itemised separately on the payslip. If your payslip shows it, your headline rate is not what you think it is.

Day rate, IR35, and the number that changes after the determination

Contract work in the UK is usually quoted as a day rate rather than an hourly one, and the day rate on this page is simply eight billable hours. That works for consultancy; for a client-site engagement the more important question is IR35, and it is not an arithmetic question.

If the engagement would look like employment were it not for the intermediary company, it is inside IR35 and taxed broadly as employment. For medium and large private-sector clients and all public-sector ones, the determination is the client's responsibility and the fee-payer deducts tax and National Insurance at source. A rate agreed before a determination can be worth substantially less after it.

Small companies are exempt from making the determination, in which case the responsibility stays with the contractor's own company. Either way, an inside-IR35 rate and an outside-IR35 rate are not the same money, and neither is comparable to an employed salary without working the tax through. Use the tax field here to model it rather than assuming.

The National Living Wage, and the figure a salary must clear

From 1 April 2026 the National Living Wage is £12.71 an hour for workers aged 21 and over. The rate for 18 to 20-year-olds is £10.85, and £8.00 applies to workers under 18 and to apprentices in the first year of an apprenticeship.

At 37.5 hours a week for 52 weeks, £12.71 an hour is £24,784.50 a year. At 40 hours it is £26,436.80. A salaried job below those figures for those hours is not compliant, and the test is applied to average pay across the hours actually worked in each pay reference period — so unpaid overtime can pull a compliant salary under the line.

The other traps are deductions and unpaid time. Uniform costs, tools, and time spent on required training, security checks or travel between assignments all count toward the calculation. This page flags a converted rate that falls below the minimum, but the underlying calculation HMRC performs is on actual hours, not contracted ones.

37.5 hours, 40 hours, and the working time limit

There is no single British full-time week. 37.5 hours is the most common in offices, the NHS and much of the public sector; 40 is normal in industry and retail. The difference is 6.7% of your annual pay at the same hourly rate, and it is the single most common reason two salary conversions disagree.

Part-time pay is genuinely proportional: half the hours is half the salary and the same hourly rate, and the Part-time Workers Regulations require pro rata treatment for holiday and most benefits. That is what the chart on this page shows — the same rate at different weekly hours, so a four-day week can be priced before it is negotiated.

The Working Time Regulations cap the average working week at 48 hours over a 17-week reference period unless you have signed an individual opt-out. There is no statutory overtime premium in the UK at all: any higher rate for extra hours comes from your contract, not from the law, and an employer can lawfully pay a flat rate for every hour.

Assumptions and sources

National Living Wage
£12.71 an hour for those aged 21 and over from 1 April 2026, £10.85 for 18–20, £8.00 for under-18s and apprentices. GOV.UK. https://www.gov.uk/national-minimum-wage-rates checked 2026-08
Statutory holiday
5.6 weeks a year, which may include bank holidays. GOV.UK holiday entitlement. https://www.gov.uk/holiday-entitlement-rights
12.07% accrual
5.6 ÷ (52 − 5.6) = 12.07%. The statutory accrual rate for irregular-hours and part-year workers, and the correct uplift on a day rate with no paid leave.
Working time
48-hour average weekly limit over 17 weeks unless opted out; no statutory overtime premium exists. GOV.UK. https://www.gov.uk/maximum-weekly-working-hours
Arithmetic
hourlyToSalary, salaryToHourly and freelanceRate in assets/js/tools/work.js, verified in tools/test/work.mjs.
Not included
Income tax, National Insurance, student loan repayments, pension contributions and IR35 status. The tax rate in the contract mode is an estimate you supply.
Rates current as of 2026/27 — verify before relying on this. The National Living Wage figure is the rate in force from 1 April 2026. IR35 status is a determination about a specific engagement, not a property of a rate — this page cannot make it for you.
Questions

What people ask about hourly rates and salaries

How do I convert an hourly rate to a salary?

Multiply the rate by hours a week and by paid weeks. £15 an hour at 37.5 hours for 52 weeks is £29,250; the same rate at 40 hours is £31,200. Always check which working week the other number assumes.

Is holiday pay included in an hourly rate?

For an employee, effectively yes — you are paid for all 52 weeks including your 5.6 weeks of statutory holiday. For irregular-hours and part-year workers, holiday can be rolled up at 12.07% and itemised separately on the payslip, in which case the headline rate contains it explicitly.

What day rate matches my salary?

Take the salary you want to keep, gross it up for tax and National Insurance, add your business costs, and divide by the days you can actually bill. On this page's defaults a £50,000 target becomes £563.12 a day — not the £24.04 an hour the same salary implies for an employee, because a contractor bills about 1,100 hours a year rather than 2,080.

What is the National Living Wage in 2026?

£12.71 an hour from 1 April 2026 for workers aged 21 and over. That is £24,784.50 a year at 37.5 hours a week, or £26,436.80 at 40 hours.

Does IR35 change what I should charge?

Yes, substantially. Inside IR35 the fee-payer deducts income tax and National Insurance at source, so the same headline rate delivers much less. Agree the determination before agreeing the rate, and model the outcome in the tax field on this page rather than assuming the outside-IR35 figure.

Do I get paid extra for overtime in the UK?

Only if your contract says so. There is no statutory overtime premium — the law requires only that average pay across all hours does not fall below the minimum wage, and that your average week does not exceed 48 hours unless you have opted out.

Related

Next steps

Take-Home Pay Calculator Gross to net, with the deductions your country actually applies. Timesheet Calculator Weekly hours with the overtime rules of your country. Invoice Generator With the right tax fields for your market. Retirement Calculator 401(k), ISA, RRSP, Super or EPF — the right wrapper for your country.