Salary to Hourly: How to Work Out Your Real Hourly Rate
Money guide · Updated June 2026
A salary hides what an hour of your time is really worth. £45,000 a year sounds solid — but if you're at your desk 55 hours a week, the hourly figure tells a less flattering story than the headline. Converting salary to hourly is easy; converting it honestly means counting the hours you actually give up, not the ones in your contract. This guide does the simple version first, then the realistic one. To switch between salary and hourly instantly, the salary to hourly calculator runs both directions.
The basic conversion
Divide your annual salary by the number of hours you work in a year. The standard full-time baseline is 2,080 hours — 40 hours a week across 52 weeks.
Example. A £41,600 salary, standard full-time hours.
- £41,600 ÷ 2,080 = £20.00 an hour
A handy shortcut for a rough figure: halve the salary in thousands. £41,600 → about £20/hour; £60,000 → about £30/hour. It's close because 2,080 is near 2,000, and it's good enough for a quick gut-check before you reach for the percentage calculator.
Going the other way
Freelancers and part-timers usually need the reverse: an hourly rate turned into a yearly figure. Multiply the rate by your annual hours. £18 an hour over a full-time 2,080 hours is £37,440; the same rate over a 30-hour week (1,560 hours) is £28,080. If you're quoting a freelance rate, remember you also carry the holiday, sick pay, and pension an employer would normally fund — so a freelance hourly rate usually needs to sit well above the employed equivalent just to break even.
The real rate: count the hours you actually give
Here's where the headline and reality part ways. Your salary is fixed, so every extra hour you work — paid or not — divides the same money across more hours and drags your true rate down.
Example. Two people both earn £52,000.
- Person A works a true 40-hour week: £52,000 ÷ 2,080 = £25.00/hour
- Person B works 50 hours: £52,000 ÷ 2,600 = £20.00/hour
Same salary, but Person B sells their time for a fifth less. Ten unpaid hours a week is the difference between £25 and £20 an hour. Seeing it this way is often what turns a vague feeling of being overworked into a concrete number — and a reason to renegotiate.
Don't forget the commute. If you spend an unpaid hour a day travelling for work, that's roughly 235 extra hours a year tied to the job. Folding them in drops a £20/hour full-time rate to about £18 — a real cost that never shows on the payslip but is just as much time spent earning your salary.
Gross vs. net: which to use
Use your gross salary when comparing two job offers — tax is personal, so the before-tax figure keeps the comparison fair. Use your net (take-home) salary when you want to know what an hour of work really deposits in your account, since that's the money you live on. The arithmetic is the same; only the starting number changes. Pairing this with your latest raise is revealing too — a rise that's eaten by extra hours can leave your real hourly rate flat, which the salary increase calculator helps you check.
Reference: full-time hourly rates
| Annual salary | ≈ Hourly (2,080 hrs) |
|---|---|
| £25,000 | £12.02 |
| £35,000 | £16.83 |
| £45,000 | £21.63 |
| £60,000 | £28.85 |
| £80,000 | £38.46 |
The bottom line
Divide salary by annual hours for the textbook rate, but divide by the hours you genuinely work — overtime and commute included — for the rate that tells the truth. The gap between the two is one of the most useful numbers you can know about your own job. Run your figures through the salary to hourly calculator with your real weekly hours and you'll see exactly what your time is worth.
Frequently asked questions
How do I convert my salary to an hourly rate?
Divide your annual salary by the number of hours you work in a year. For a standard full-time job that's about 2,080 hours (40 hours × 52 weeks), so a £41,600 salary is roughly £20 an hour. Fewer or more hours change the figure proportionally.
Why is 2,080 the standard number of work hours?
It's 40 hours a week multiplied by 52 weeks. It's a clean baseline, but it ignores paid holiday and bank holidays — counting those as worked hours slightly understates your true rate, while unpaid overtime pushes it the other way.
How does unpaid overtime affect my real hourly rate?
It lowers it, often sharply. Your salary is fixed, so every extra unpaid hour divides the same pay across more hours. Someone on £52,000 working a 50-hour week earns about £20 an hour, not the £25 their contracted 40 hours would suggest.
Should I use gross or net pay for the conversion?
Use gross pay to compare job offers on equal terms, since tax varies by person. Use net (take-home) pay when you want to know what an hour of your time actually puts in your pocket. The method is identical — just start from a different salary figure.
How do I turn an hourly rate back into a salary?
Multiply the hourly rate by your annual hours. At £18 an hour over 2,080 hours that's £37,440 a year. Drop to 30 hours a week (1,560 hours) and the same rate is £28,080 — useful for pricing part-time or freelance work.