Trade Reality Check
Can you afford to take someone on?
A £15/hour employee doesn't cost you £15/hour. See the true cost once employer National Insurance, an estimated minimum pension and your other yearly costs are included — and how many hours they need to be chargeable to cover it.
This checks pay against the current legal minimum for their age band.
Apprentices can have different minimum wage rules. If this is for an apprentice, check the current rate on gov.uk.
Travel, loading, admin and quoting all eat into this.
Tools, PPE, training, phone, extra van cost etc.
Your affordability sense-check
£28.39/hr
is what this employee costs your business per billable hour using the employment costs and other yearly costs shown below — not just the £15.00/hr you pay them.
Some businesses may qualify for Employment Allowance, which can reduce employer National Insurance by up to £10,500/year. We haven't deducted it automatically because eligibility varies — check gov.uk if you think you may qualify.
Using UK employment rates for 2026/27: employer NI 15% above £5,000/year; an estimated standard minimum employer pension of 3% of qualifying earnings (£6,240–£50,270); 5.6 weeks statutory holiday; and National Living Wage/National Minimum Wage rates from 1 April 2026. Actual workplace pension duties depend on the employee's age, earnings and pension status, so the pension figure is a simple planning assumption rather than a payroll calculation.
A free tool from SmartTradie
How the calculator works
We take the wage you enter and calculate their annual pay, then add employer National Insurance and an estimated standard minimum employer pension contribution automatically, using current UK rates. Holiday isn't added as an extra cost — it's already covered by paying a full year's wage — but it does reduce the weeks available to generate chargeable work, which is why we use 46.4 working weeks a year rather than 52. Your realistic billable hours and charge-out rate then give the total annual cost, the cost per billable hour and the approximate break-even point.
Why it is worth knowing
The number of billable hours needed to cover an employee is a far more useful planning figure than the wage alone. It tells you how full the diary has to stay before taking someone on actually pays for itself.
Sources & assumptions
Statutory assumptions are based on current UK government guidance for National Minimum Wage, employer National Insurance, workplace pensions and paid holiday. We check these figures regularly, but individual employment circumstances can vary.
This is a simple business sense-check using your own figures and current UK statutory rates, not accounting, payroll, pension, employment or legal advice. It doesn't cover every possible employment cost or relief, including sick pay, bonuses, overtime or redundancy costs. You may also need to allow for Employers’ Liability insurance, which is legally required for most employers.