Term-Time Only Salary Calculator UK: How It Works

A term time only salary calculator answers a specific mathematical question: if a full-time, full-year salary assumes 52 paid weeks, what should someone working only the weeks schools are open actually be paid? The answer isn’t “39/52 of the salary” — it’s slightly more generous than that, because term-time staff accrue paid holiday on the weeks they work. This article is purely about the mechanics: the formulas, the paid-weeks derivation, hourly-rate back-calculation, and worked examples with tables. (For the general concept of term-time contracts — who they’re for and how they feel month to month — see our companion guide.)

The core idea: paid weeks, not worked weeks

The single most important concept: a term-time salary is based on paid weeks, which is worked weeks plus a pro-rated holiday allowance.

• A full-year employee is paid for 52 weeks and gets 5.6 weeks of statutory leave within that.
• A term-time employee works, say, 39 weeks — but still accrues holiday on those 39 weeks.
• So they’re paid for 39 weeks plus their share of the 5.6 weeks.

That “plus” is what most DIY calculations get wrong, usually underpaying the term-time worker. Get the paid-weeks figure right and everything else follows.

Step 1: derive the hourly rate from the FTE salary

Every term-time calculation starts by converting the full-time equivalent annual salary into an hourly rate:

Hourly rate = FTE annual salary ÷ 52 ÷ full-time weekly hours

(Using 52.14 instead of 52 refines this slightly — see the note below — but 52 is the convention in most school calculations.)

Example: a teaching assistant role with an FTE salary of £24,000 on a 37-hour full-time week:

£24,000 ÷ 52 ÷ 37 = £12.47 per hour

This hourly rate is the same whether the employee works full-year or term-time — it’s the neutral building block. If you ever need to go the other direction (hourly rate → FTE salary), just reverse it: hourly rate × 52 × full-time hours.

To check your own hourly-rate derivation instantly, the free pro rata salary calculator on our homepage converts between annual, monthly, weekly and hourly figures in one step.

Step 2: derive the paid-weeks figure

This is the heart of the calculation. Holiday accrues proportionally on weeks worked:

Holiday weeks = (weeks worked ÷ 52) × 5.6

Paid weeks = weeks worked + holiday weeks

For the standard 39-week term-time pattern:

• Holiday weeks = (39 ÷ 52) × 5.6 = 4.2 weeks
• Paid weeks = 39 + 4.2 = 43.2 weeks

So a 39-week term-time worker is paid for 43.2 weeks — not 39. That’s 83.1% of a full-year salary before adjusting for hours, not the 75% that 39/52 would give. The difference (8.1 percentage points) is the holiday accrual, and it’s a meaningful sum: on a £24,000 FTE salary it’s nearly £2,000 a year.

Here are paid-weeks figures for common term-time patterns:

Note: some employers use 5.6 weeks, others use their contractual leave (e.g. 6+ weeks for long-serving staff, or the 27 days + bank holidays of support-staff schemes). The method is identical — just substitute the correct leave figure. Always check which leave entitlement your employer uses in the calculation.

Step 3: multiply out to the term-time salary

Term-time salary = hourly rate × contracted hours per week × paid weeks

Worked example: teaching assistant, FTE £24,000, full-time week 37 hours, contracted 32.5 hours a week over 39 term weeks.

• Hourly rate: £24,000 ÷ 52 ÷ 37 = £12.47
• Paid weeks: 43.2 (from the table above)
• Term-time salary: £12.47 × 32.5 × 43.2 = £17,510 a year

Monthly gross: £17,510 ÷ 12 = £1,459.

Sanity check via the percentage route: 43.2 paid weeks ÷ 52 = 83.08% of full-year; hours fraction 32.5 ÷ 37 = 87.84%; £24,000 × 0.8308 × 0.8784 = £17,510. Both routes agree — as they must, since they’re the same calculation rearranged.

Worked example 2: back-calculating from an hourly rate

Sometimes you’re given the hourly rate rather than the FTE salary — common in job adverts. The process runs in reverse.

Example: a learning mentor post advertised at £13.50 an hour, 30 hours a week, 40 term weeks.

Step 1 — paid weeks. Holiday weeks = (40 ÷ 52) × 5.6 = 4.31; paid weeks = 44.31.

Step 2 — annual salary. £13.50 × 30 × 44.31 = £17,946 a year.

Step 3 (optional) — implied FTE salary. £13.50 × 52 × 37 = £25,974 — useful for comparing against full-year roles.

Monthly gross: £17,946 ÷ 12 = £1,496.

This reverse calculation is also how to check a salary you’ve been offered: derive the hourly rate from the offer (salary ÷ paid weeks ÷ hours) and compare it with the employer’s stated rate. If they don’t match, ask which leave figure and which week divisor the employer used.

The 52 vs 52.14 question

A year isn’t exactly 52 weeks — it’s 365 ÷ 7 = 52.14 weeks (52.29 in a leap year). Where does this matter?

• Hourly rate derivation: £24,000 ÷ 52 ÷ 37 = £12.47 vs £24,000 ÷ 52.14 ÷ 37 = £12.44. A 3p-an-hour difference — negligible for most purposes, but payroll systems that annualise precisely tend to use 52.14 (or 52.18).
• Paid-weeks derivation: using 52.14 in the holiday formula gives (39 ÷ 52.14) × 5.6 = 4.19 weeks instead of 4.20 — again, pennies.
• Where it genuinely matters: converting between hourly-paid and salaried roles, and checking that an employer’s “hourly rate” and “annual salary” figures are mutually consistent. If they aren’t, the divisor is usually why.

For term-time calculations, consistency matters more than the choice: use the same divisor throughout a single calculation and you’ll be right.

Why two people on the same hourly rate get different annual pay

A common source of confusion: two teaching assistants both on £12.47 an hour, but one earns £17,510 and the other £18,740. The difference is always in the other two variables:

1. Hours per week — 32.5 vs 35 hours changes everything proportionally.
2. Weeks worked — 39 vs 41 term weeks changes the paid-weeks figure (43.2 vs 45.4).

Hourly rate × hours × paid weeks — change any one and the annual figure moves. When comparing term-time offers, always line up all three.

Retainer vs actual-hours pay: a mechanical note

Some employers pay term-time staff in 12 equal monthly instalments based on the calculated annual salary (the “retainer” model) — the maths above is exactly what sits behind it. Others pay actual hours each month, which means big September–July payslips and little or nothing in August. The annual total should be identical under both methods; only the cash flow differs. If your monthly pay looks “wrong” in August, check which model your employer uses before querying the figure.

Worked example 3: comparing two term-time offers

Put the method to work on a realistic choice. Two teaching assistant offers:

Offer A: £12.47 an hour, 32.5 hours a week, 39 term weeks.
Paid weeks = 43.2. Annual = £12.47 × 32.5 × 43.2 = £17,510.

Offer B: £12.00 an hour, 30 hours a week, 40 term weeks.
Paid weeks = 44.31. Annual = £12.00 × 30 × 44.31 = £15,952.

Offer A pays £1,558 a year more despite the lower headline weeks — because the higher hourly rate and longer weekly hours outweigh the extra week. This is exactly the kind of comparison the three-variable method (rate × hours × paid weeks) makes trivial, and exactly the kind the “39/52 shortcut” gets wrong. Whenever two term-time offers compete, line up all three variables before deciding.

Other school and term-time pay: teachers · teaching assistants · term-time pro rata calculator · term-time only pay · term-time vs full-year salary · term-time holiday pay · school salaries · teachers' pension · lecturers · HLTAs · nursery nurses · lunchtime supervisors · exam invigilators · school caretakers

FAQs

How do you calculate term-time only pay?

Derive the hourly rate (FTE salary ÷ 52 ÷ full-time hours), derive paid weeks (weeks worked + (weeks worked ÷ 52 × 5.6)), then multiply: hourly rate × your weekly hours × paid weeks. That gives the annual term-time salary.

What are “paid weeks” in a term-time calculation?

Paid weeks = the weeks actually worked plus the pro-rated holiday entitlement accrued on those weeks. For 39 term weeks with 5.6 weeks’ statutory leave, that’s 39 + 4.2 = 43.2 paid weeks.

Is term-time pay just 39/52 of the full salary?

No — that common shortcut underpays. The correct figure uses 43.2/52 (83.1%) for 39 weeks, because holiday accrues on the weeks worked. Always include the holiday element.

How do I convert a term-time salary back to an hourly rate?

Divide the annual term-time salary by paid weeks, then by contracted weekly hours: salary ÷ 43.2 ÷ hours (for a 39-week pattern). Compare the result with the employer’s stated hourly rate as a consistency check.

Run the numbers yourself

Three inputs — FTE salary (or hourly rate), your weekly hours, and weeks worked — and the whole calculation falls out. Our free pro rata salary calculator handles the hourly/annual conversions instantly; combine it with the paid-weeks table above and you can reproduce — or verify — any term-time salary figure in under a minute.