True hourly wage calculator
Your contract divides your pay by the hours you are paid for. This divides it by the hours your job actually costs you.
Your result
against — on paper
| Time | Per week | Per year |
|---|---|---|
| Paid hours | — | — |
| Commuting | — | — |
| Unpaid breaks | — | — |
| Getting ready | — | — |
| Total given to the job | — | — |
Now price something in that rate with the cost in work hours calculator — your actual rate carries across automatically. Or find the annual cash cost of the journey with the commute cost calculator.
How the calculation works
The arithmetic is deliberately simple, so you can check it. First your gross weekly pay is established: an hourly rate multiplied by your paid hours, or an annual salary divided by the paid hours you work across the year.
Then the unpaid time is added up. Your daily commute, unpaid break and preparation time are summed, multiplied by the number of days you actually travel in, and converted to hours. That figure is added to your paid hours to give the true weekly cost of the job.
Finally the same weekly pay is divided by those larger hours. Nothing about your pay has changed — only the honesty of the denominator.
Why the gap is usually bigger than people expect
Two things compound. The commute is round trip, so a journey that feels like "half an hour to work" is an hour a day gone, and five hours a week. On top of that, an unpaid half-hour lunch is not a break from the arithmetic: you are at your workplace, unable to be anywhere else, and not being paid for it.
Put a 30-minute each-way commute together with an unpaid half-hour lunch on a 37.5-hour week and you have added 7.5 unpaid hours — a full extra working day every week, for nothing. That is why the real rate commonly lands 15 to 25 per cent below the stated one.
The figure is at its most useful when you are choosing between jobs, deciding whether a return to the office is worth it, or working out what a shorter commute is actually worth in money. Two or three days a week at home changes this number substantially; try it with your travel days set to two and see.
Frequently asked questions
What is a true hourly wage?
Your gross pay divided by all the hours your job takes out of your week, not just the hours you are paid for. The extra hours normally come from commuting, unpaid lunch breaks and time spent getting ready specifically for work. Because the pay stays the same while the hours go up, the resulting rate is always lower than the rate on your contract.
Should commuting time count as work?
Legally it usually does not. In both the UK and the US, ordinary travel between home and a fixed workplace is not counted as working time and is not paid. That does not make it free time, though — it is time committed to the job and unavailable for anything else, which is why including it gives a more honest picture of what you are trading for your pay.
What counts as getting ready for work?
Only the time you would not spend otherwise. Putting on a uniform or professional clothes, packing a work lunch, a commute-driven nursery drop-off, or shaving because the job requires it all count. A shower you would have taken anyway does not. Counting your entire morning routine will overstate the result.
How do I use this when comparing two job offers?
Run each offer separately with its own commute, then compare the actual rates rather than the advertised salaries. A role paying more but sitting an hour further away frequently produces a lower true hourly wage than a closer job on less money, because the extra unpaid travel is subtracted from your life every working day.
Does this calculator account for tax?
No. Everything here is gross pay, so the figures stay directly comparable with the rate in a job advert or on a contract. Tax, National Insurance and pension contributions are deducted afterwards and depend on personal circumstances this calculator does not ask for.