Converts between an annual salary and hourly, daily, weekly and monthly rates, using the hours, days and weeks you actually work rather than a fixed assumption.
The conversion runs through annual hours: hours per week multiplied by weeks per year. Every other figure derives from that, which is why the three working-pattern inputs matter more than they look. A year is not automatically fifty-two paid weeks — someone taking unpaid leave works fewer, and a contractor who does not bill holidays works fewer still. All the figures are gross. Tax, social contributions and pension deductions vary so much by country and circumstance that applying a single assumption would produce a confidently wrong net figure.
Comparing an offer properly
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Contract rates are not equivalent to salaries:
a contractor funds their own holiday, sick leave, pension and downtime between engagements. The usual rule of thumb is a substantial uplift on the equivalent salary.
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Weeks per year is the input people get wrong:
fifty-two assumes every week is paid. Unpaid leave or unbilled holiday reduces it and raises the true hourly rate.
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Everything shown is gross:
deductions depend on your jurisdiction, your allowances and your circumstances, so no net figure is offered.
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Benefits do not appear in a rate:
employer pension contributions, health cover and paid leave can be worth a fifth of salary or more, and none of it shows in an hourly figure.
Everything runs through annual hours first
The [msm_tool slug="salary-hourly-converter"] converts through a single figure — hours per week multiplied by weeks per year — and every other rate it shows is derived from that number, which is why the three working-pattern inputs matter more than they appear to at first glance. A year is not automatically fifty-two paid weeks: someone taking unpaid leave works fewer of them, and a contractor who does not bill for holiday time works fewer still.
Why weeks per year is the input people get wrong
Changing weeks per year changes the divisor directly, so working forty-eight paid weeks instead of the default fifty-two raises the effective hourly rate by roughly eight per cent for exactly the same annual sum. It is the single input most likely to be left at its default when it should not be, and the one most likely to be quietly wrong as a result.
Contract rates are not the same thing as salaries
A contractor funds their own holiday, sick leave, pension contributions and the downtime that sits between engagements, none of which a salaried employee has to price in separately. The usual rule of thumb is a substantial uplift over the equivalent salary figure to actually cover what an employer would otherwise be absorbing.
Every figure shown is gross, deliberately
Income tax, social contributions and pension deductions vary enough by country, allowance and personal circumstance that applying any single assumption across all of them would produce a net figure that looks precise and is wrong for most people who see it. No net figure is offered here for exactly that reason.
Benefits never show up in an hourly rate at all
Employer pension contributions, health cover and paid leave can be worth a fifth of a salary or more, and none of that value appears anywhere in a converted hourly or daily figure — a rate comparison alone can make two genuinely different offers look identical, or the reverse.