Pro-rata salary calculator 2026/27 2026/27
Turn an advertised "£35,000 pro rata" into what the job actually pays, and the take-home after tax. Days, hours or term-time contracts.
A job advertised at "£35,000 pro rata" for three days a week pays £21,000. This turns the advertised full-time figure into the salary you would actually be paid, then into take-home for 2026/27 - and shows the thing most part-time guidance leaves out: you keep a larger share of the take-home than of the salary, because the Personal Allowance does not shrink with your hours.
Worked examples for 2026/27
- £35,000 advertised, 3 days a week£21,000Take-home £18,640 - 60% of the salary, 65% of the full-time take-home
- £35,000 advertised, 4 days a week£28,000Take-home £23,680 - 80% of the salary, 82% of the full-time take-home
- £28,000 advertised, 22.5 hours a week£16,800Take-home £15,616 - 60% of the salary, 66% of the full-time take-home
- £45,000 advertised, 0.6 FTE£27,000Take-home £22,960 - 60% of the salary, 64% of the full-time take-home
- £30,000 advertised, term time (39 weeks), 5 days£22,500Take-home £19,720 - 75% of the salary, 79% of the full-time take-home
- £60,000 advertised, 2 days a week£24,000Take-home £20,800 - 40% of the salary, 46% of the full-time take-home
Statutory holiday by working pattern
5.6 weeks of your own pattern, which is what gov.uk entitles almost every worker to. Independent of what your employer calls full-time.
| Days a week | Statutory holiday |
|---|---|
| 1 | 5.6 days |
| 2 | 11.2 days |
| 3 | 16.8 days |
| 4 | 22.4 days |
| 5 | 28.0 days |
What “pro rata” is actually doing in a job advert
It is Latin for “in proportion”, and on a job advert it means the salary quoted is the full-time one. You will be paid the share of it that matches your hours.
“£35,000 pro rata, three days a week” pays £21,000.
Employers quote the full-time figure for two reasons, and only one of them is about you. It lets a single advert cover several working patterns without rewriting the salary each time. It also makes the number bigger, which is why the phrase is sometimes doing more marketing than arithmetic — and why it is worth converting before you decide whether to apply.
The part nobody tells part-timers: you keep a bigger share
The Personal Allowance does not shrink with your hours.
The first £12,570 you earn is tax-free whether you work five days a week or two, and National Insurance has its own threshold at the same figure. So a smaller salary has a larger proportion of it sheltered from both.
Three days a week on a £35,000 contract is 60% of the salary — and noticeably more than 60% of the full-time take-home. The calculator above shows both percentages side by side, because the gap between them is the single most useful number on this page when you are deciding whether part-time work is affordable.
It runs the other way too. Going from three days to four does not increase your take-home by a third, because the extra pay lands entirely on top of an allowance you had already used.
Holiday: 5.6 weeks of your own pattern
gov.uk: “Almost all people classed as workers are legally entitled to 5.6 weeks’ paid holiday a year”, and “Part-time workers who work regular hours for the whole year are entitled to at least 5.6 weeks’ paid holiday, but this will amount to fewer than 28 days.”
So the entitlement is 5.6 multiplied by the days you work:
| Days a week | Statutory holiday |
|---|---|
| 1 | 5.6 days |
| 2 | 11.2 days |
| 3 | 16.8 days |
| 4 | 22.4 days |
| 5 | 28 days |
The cap only bites above five days a week: 5.6 × 5 is exactly 28, so a five-day week lands on it rather than being cut by it. gov.uk: “Statutory paid holiday entitlement is limited to 28 days.” A six-day week would otherwise earn 33.6 days and is held at 28.
Your entitlement does not depend on what your employer calls full-time. A three-day week earns 16.8 days whether the standard contract there is five days or four. Only the pay is proportional.
Bank holidays are where part-timers quietly lose out
gov.uk: “Bank or public holidays do not have to be given as paid leave. An employer can choose to include bank holidays as part of a worker’s statutory annual leave.”
If your employer counts them inside the 5.6 weeks, the value of that depends on which days you work. Four of the eight bank holidays in England and Wales are always on a Monday, and substitute days usually are too. A Monday-to-Wednesday part-timer spends part of their own entitlement on those closures; a Tuesday-to-Thursday colleague on the same contract keeps more of theirs to take when they choose.
It is a fair question to ask before signing, and the answer is in the contract rather than the law.
Term-time and other part-year contracts
Term-time work is pro-rated twice: once for the hours, once for the weeks of the year you are contracted. Set the weeks field above and the calculator does both.
It will not give you a holiday figure for a part-year contract, deliberately. For leave years beginning on or after 1 April 2024, irregular-hours and part-year workers accrue leave from the hours they have already worked rather than receiving a fixed allocation at the start of the year. Pro-rating 5.6 weeks across a term-time contract would state a number the law does not produce, so this page states none.
A four-day week is not the four-day week
Two different arrangements share the name.
- “Four days, pro rata” on a job advert means 80% of the hours for 80% of the salary. It is a pay cut, and this calculator prices it.
- The four-day-week arrangements in the trials that get written about aim to keep full pay for fewer hours.
If an advert says pro rata, it is the first one.
What this does not cover
- Overtime. Working six days on a five-day contract is not pro-rating, and the fraction here is capped at full time rather than going above it.
- Compressed hours. Full-time hours worked across four longer days is full pay, not pro-rata pay, because the hours have not changed.
- Auto-enrolment falling away. The £10,000 trigger is assessed on what you actually earn, not the full-time equivalent, so a part-time salary can drop below it. You do not lose the pension: if you earn above £6,240 you can ask to opt in and your employer must then contribute. Both figures are from the 2026/27 review of the auto-enrolment thresholds.
Related calculators
Other UK tax calculators that pair with the Pro-rata.
Frequently asked questions
What does "pro rata" actually mean on a job advert?
It means the figure quoted is the FULL-TIME salary, and you will be paid the share of it that matches your hours. A job advertised at £35,000 pro rata for three days a week pays £21,000, not £35,000. The phrase is Latin for "in proportion" and it is doing real work in the advert: employers quote the full-time figure because it is bigger and because it lets one advert cover several patterns, but it is not the salary the part-time post pays.
Do I keep a smaller share of my pay when I work part-time?
No - you keep a LARGER share, because the Personal Allowance does not shrink with your hours. The first £12,570 you earn is tax-free whether you work five days a week or two, so a smaller salary has a bigger proportion of it sheltered. Three days a week on a £35,000 contract is 60% of the salary but distinctly more than 60% of the full-time take-home. National Insurance works the same way, with its own threshold at £12,570.
How much holiday do I get if I work part-time?
5.6 weeks of your own working pattern. gov.uk: "Almost all people classed as workers are legally entitled to 5.6 weeks' paid holiday a year", and "Part-time workers who work regular hours for the whole year are entitled to at least 5.6 weeks' paid holiday, but this will amount to fewer than 28 days". So a three-day week earns 16.8 days a year - gov.uk's own example - and a four-day week earns 22.4. The cap only bites above five days a week - 5.6 x 5 is exactly 28, so a five-day week lands on the cap rather than being cut by it.
Do bank holidays come out of my entitlement?
That is your employer's choice, and it matters more for part-timers than for anyone else. gov.uk: "Bank or public holidays do not have to be given as paid leave. An employer can choose to include bank holidays as part of a worker's statutory annual leave." If your employer counts them within the 5.6 weeks, the days you work matter: most bank holidays in England and Wales fall on a Monday, so a Monday worker has to spend part of their entitlement on bank-holiday closures, while a Tuesday-to-Thursday colleague keeps more of theirs to take when they choose. Ask which way the contract treats them before signing.
How does a term-time-only contract work?
Your pay is pro-rated twice: once for the hours and once for the weeks of the year you are contracted. This calculator does both. It deliberately does NOT give you a holiday figure for a part-year contract, because for leave years beginning on or after 1 April 2024 irregular-hours and part-year workers accrue leave from the hours they have already worked rather than receiving a fixed allocation up front - stating a pro-rated 5.6 weeks would be quoting a number the law does not produce.
Is a four-day week a 20% pay cut?
On a pro-rata contract, yes in gross terms - four days of a five-day pattern is 80% of the salary. In take-home terms it is less than 20%, because of the allowance effect above. What it is NOT is the compressed or reduced-hours arrangement written about in four-day-week trials, where the stated aim is keeping full pay for fewer hours. Those are different arrangements sharing a name, and an advert saying "four days, pro rata" means the pay cut.
Does my pension change if I go part-time?
The contribution percentage usually stays the same and applies to the smaller salary, so the cash amount falls with your pay. Auto-enrolment has its own trap: the £10,000 earnings trigger is assessed on what you actually earn, not the full-time equivalent, so dropping below it means your employer no longer has to enrol you automatically. You do not lose the pension. Earn above £6,240 - the lower end of the qualifying earnings band for 2026/27 - and you are a "non-eligible jobholder", which means you can ask to opt in and your employer must then contribute. Below £6,240 you can still join, but the employer contribution is no longer mandatory. The Department for Work and Pensions review for 2026/27 kept both thresholds at their 2025/26 values.