How Much Is £X Per Hour Annually? Hourly Rate to Salary Conversion

The simple conversion formula

To convert an hourly rate to an annual salary, multiply the hourly rate by your annual working hours. For a standard full-time employee working 40 hours per week over 52 weeks, that is 2,080 hours per year. An hourly rate of £15/hour therefore gives an annual salary of £15 × 2,080 = £31,200.

Some employers use a 37.5-hour week, particularly in office-based roles. At 37.5 hours per week, the annual equivalent is 37.5 × 52 = 1,950 hours. At £15/hour on 37.5 hours, the annual salary would be £29,250, about £2,000 less than the 40-hour calculation. If you are comparing a job advertised as an annual salary against a role offering an hourly rate, it is worth confirming which weekly hours each uses before the comparison is meaningful.

The daily equivalent of an hourly rate depends on your hours per day. At 8 hours per day, £15/hour is £120/day. At 7.5 hours per day (common in office environments), it is £112.50/day. These conversions matter when comparing contract and permanent roles, where day rates and annual salaries are the two most common units.

• Standard full-time: hourly rate × 2,080 hours = annual salary (40hrs × 52 weeks).
• 37.5-hour week: hourly rate × 1,950 hours = annual salary.
• Daily equivalent: hourly rate × hours per day (typically 7.5 or 8).
• Weekly equivalent: hourly rate × contracted weekly hours.

Worked examples at common UK pay rates

At the National Living Wage of £12.21/hour (2026/27), full-time annual earnings are £12.21 × 2,080 = £25,397. After income tax and National Insurance in England, monthly take-home is approximately £1,751. This is well above the personal allowance, so income tax and NI both apply, though the relatively modest earnings mean the effective combined rate is around 23%.

At £15/hour (£31,200/year), take-home is around £2,124/month in England. This is comfortably in the basic rate band with no threshold complications. The income tax is roughly £3,726/year and NI around £1,491/year, giving a combined effective rate of about 17%. At £20/hour (£41,600/year), monthly take-home rises to approximately £2,660, the increased gross yields around 72p net for each additional pound of hourly rate across this range.

Above £25/hour (£52,000/year), the higher rate income tax threshold at £50,270 starts to affect the calculation. From £52,000, part of the earnings sit in the 40% band, and NI drops to 2% above the same threshold. The effective combined rate becomes closer to 30%, meaning net pay grows more slowly in percentage terms than below the threshold, though in absolute terms, higher hourly rates still clearly increase take-home pay.

• £12.21/hour (NLW): £25,397/year gross, ~£1,751/month take-home.
• £15/hour: £31,200/year gross, ~£2,124/month take-home.
• £20/hour: £41,600/year gross, ~£2,660/month take-home.
• £25/hour: £52,000/year gross, ~£3,197/month take-home (partly higher rate).

Part-time hours: how the conversion changes

Part-time work changes the calculation significantly because the annual equivalent drops, potentially changing which tax band applies. Someone working 20 hours per week at £15/hour earns £15 × 1,040 = £15,600 per year. After the personal allowance of £12,570, taxable income is only £3,030, generating income tax of around £606 and NI of around £242 per year, an effective rate of just 5.4% on total gross earnings.

This is very different from full-time at the same hourly rate. The personal allowance covers a much larger proportion of earnings when hours are lower, which is why hourly-rate comparisons between full-time and part-time roles should always be done on a post-tax monthly basis, not gross hourly basis.

Zero-hours contracts and variable hours add uncertainty to the calculation. If your hours vary week to week, the annual equivalent is only an average estimate. For PAYE purposes, your employer calculates tax based on what you earn in each pay period, there is no annual reconciliation of NI, so unusually high months can over-deduct NI without a year-end correction.

• 20hrs/week at £15/hour: £15,600/year, minimal income tax (~£606/year).
• Personal allowance covers a much larger share of part-time income.
• Variable hours: use monthly averages for budgeting, not the annualised figure.
• Compare part-time vs full-time on after-tax monthly pay, not gross hourly rate.