Converting hourly pay to an annual salary

To turn an hourly rate into an annual salary, multiply it by your weekly hours and then by 52.143, the number of weeks in a year. At the National Living Wage of £12.71 an hour, a 37.5-hour week gives £12.71 × 37.5 × 52.143 = £24,853 a year. To go the other way, divide the annual salary by the weekly hours and by 52.143.

The formula

Annual salary = hourly rate × hours per week × 52.143

Hourly rate = annual salary ÷ hours per week ÷ 52.143

The 52.143 figure is 365 divided by 7. It is the number most public sector employers use. The NJC spine for council and school support staff is converted at 52.143 weeks and 37 hours, and the NHS converts its bands on a 37.5-hour week.

The hours figure is the full-time week for your employer:

• NHS Agenda for Change: 37.5 hours.
• Councils and most school support staff (NJC): 37 hours.
• Other employers: check the contract, because the standard week varies a lot outside the public sector.

The same hourly rate gives a different annual salary depending on that figure. At £12.71 an hour, 37 hours a week comes to £24,521 a year and 40 hours to £26,510.

Worked examples

These use 2026/27 rates. Annual figures are rounded to the nearest pound.

Hourly rate	Hours a week	Annual salary	Notes
£12.71	37.5	£24,853	National Living Wage, NHS week
£12.71	37	£24,521	National Living Wage, NJC week
£14.10	37.5	£27,571	Real Living Wage (UK)
£15.45	37.5	£30,210	Real Living Wage (London)
£10.85	37.5	£21,216	Minimum wage, age 18 to 20

The first row is not a coincidence. When the National Living Wage rose to £12.71 on 1 April 2026, NHS Employers raised band 1 and band 2 to £24,853 (£12.71 an hour) as a temporary measure until the 3.3 per cent pay award took them to £25,272.

Going from annual to hourly

Job adverts in the public sector usually give an annual figure, so it is often the hourly rate you want to check. Say you see an NHS band 2 job at £25,272:

£25,272 ÷ 37.5 ÷ 52.143 = £12.92 an hour.

For a council job at SCP 3 on the NJC spine, £25,614 a year:

£25,614 ÷ 37 ÷ 52.143 = £13.28 an hour.

So the lowest NJC point pays more per hour than NHS band 2, even though the annual figures are close, because the NJC week is half an hour shorter. This kind of comparison is useful when you are choosing between jobs with different hours, or checking whether pay meets the National Living Wage.

Part-time hours

For part-time work, use your contracted hours in place of the full-time week. At £13.28 an hour for 20 hours a week:

£13.28 × 20 × 52.143 = £13,849 a year.

This gives the same answer as taking the full-time salary and reducing it pro rata. The pro rata salary guide explains that method, which is the one most employers show in offer letters.

Term-time only staff are different. They are paid for fewer weeks plus a share of paid holiday, so multiplying the hourly rate by 52.143 overstates their pay. See term-time only pay for how schools work it out.

Overtime, enhancements and bank shifts

The formula gives basic annual pay only. Unsocial hours payments, overtime and on-call pay are added on top, and they vary month to month. For NHS bank or casual work paid only for hours worked, there is no annual salary as such: multiplying the hourly rate by 52.143 gives what you would earn if you worked the same hours every week of the year with holiday included.

From gross to take-home

All of these figures are gross. To see what you keep after income tax, National Insurance and pension, put the annual figure into the take-home pay calculator. For pay at or near the legal minimum, the guide to take-home pay on the National Living Wage works through an example.