Work Hours Calculator 2026

How it's calculated

This calculator turns a working pattern into weekly, monthly and annual pay, splitting your hours into ordinary time and overtime. First it works out your total weekly hours by multiplying hours per day by days per week. Anything above your overtime threshold — the weekly point at which premium pay begins, set by your contract rather than by law — becomes overtime hours; everything up to it is base hours. Base hours are paid at your standard hourly rate. Overtime hours are paid at that rate multiplied by your overtime multiplier, so time-and-a-half means each overtime hour earns 1.5 times the base rate. The two amounts are added to give total weekly pay, which is multiplied by the number of weeks worked per year to reach annual pay; most salaried staff use 52 because paid holiday still counts as a paid week, while term-time-only workers use fewer. Average monthly pay is annual pay divided by 12 — more accurate than assuming four weeks a month, since most months contain a little over four. The calculator also reports your effective hourly rate, which is total annual pay divided by total annual hours and shows what each hour really earns once overtime is blended in. There is no UK law forcing employers to pay enhanced overtime rates; the only hard rule is that average pay must not drop below the National Minimum Wage, and that average weekly hours must not exceed 48 over a 17-week reference period unless you have signed a voluntary opt-out.

Total weekly hours = Hours per day × Days per week
Overtime hours    = max(Total weekly hours − Overtime threshold, 0)
Base hours        = Total weekly hours − Overtime hours

Weekly pay = (Base hours × Rate) + (Overtime hours × Rate × Multiplier)
Annual pay = Weekly pay × Weeks worked per year
Monthly pay = Annual pay ÷ 12
Effective hourly rate = Annual pay ÷ (Total weekly hours × Weeks worked)

Worked example

Take a worker doing 9 hours a day across 5 days, paid £14.00 an hour, with overtime starting above 40 hours a week at time-and-a-half (1.5×), and paid for all 52 weeks of the year:

Although the base rate is £14.00, the five weekly overtime hours lift the effective hourly rate to £14.78 — the premium spread across every hour worked. Note the 45-hour week sits below the 48-hour Working Time Regulations average, so no opt-out is needed in this example.

When your result may differ

Your real pay can differ from this estimate in several ways. The figures here are gross — they ignore Income Tax, National Insurance, pension contributions and student-loan deductions, all taken through PAYE, so your bank credit will be lower. The calculator also assumes every week is identical; if your hours swing week to week, real overtime is settled per pay period and may not match a flat weekly average. Many contracts pay overtime only above a daily or monthly threshold, or apply different multipliers for weekends and bank holidays — here a single weekly threshold and one multiplier are used. If your hours are annualised or you are salaried with no paid overtime, set the multiplier to 1.0. Finally, if you regularly work paid overtime, gov.uk guidance requires that overtime to be reflected in the first 4 weeks of your statutory holiday pay (the remaining 1.6 weeks may be at basic rate), so your holiday weeks can be worth more than this base figure suggests.

Rates and thresholds

Key UK working-time and pay limits — 2026/27, England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland unless noted.

Sources & legal basis

Update log

• 2026-04-09 — Refreshed for the 2026/27 year; overtime threshold and multiplier remain employer-defined under the Working Time Regulations 1998.
• 2026-06-15 — Added how-it-works explanation, worked example, working-time and minimum-wage rates table, and source table with last-checked dates.