Labour charge-out rate

How to Use This Calculator

Enter annual pay, your payroll and pension allowances, and other employment costs. Deduct non-productive days from paid working days, then enter realistic productive hours per day. Add the annual business overhead allocated to this role. The profit field is a margin on the selling rate, rather than a mark-up on cost.

Worked Example

For example, £36,000 annual pay, a 15% payroll allowance, 3% pension, £6,000 overhead, 225 productive days, eight hours per day and a 15% target margin give £31.69 per hour. These percentage allowances are illustrative; use your actual payroll costs when available.

Before You Use the Result

Use actual payroll costs and productive time when available. The percentage allowances do not model payroll thresholds, and the final rate still needs to cover the costs and risks of the work being priced.

For a project that needs a wider review, explore QSEC estimating and tender support alongside The Subbie QS support.

Return to the full QS tools library for related calculators. You can also read about our estimating and cost support or use the free QS templates to organise the underlying records.

Use The Working Sheet For This Task

Build the labour, materials, plant and subcontract price. Keep the assumptions and qualifications beside it.

Download the Tender Pricing & Qualification Sheet (Excel)

Each Excel link takes you to the matching sheet preview. Enter your work email to download, replace the example entries and start using the file on your job. Marketing is optional.