GLASSROTA | FREE STAFF COST CALCULATOR
What does your team really cost?
A free UK employer cost calculator for hospitality. Start with their pay. See the costs that sit alongside it.
ⓘ Built for UK hospitality. What’s included?
Budget for a bartender’s hourly pay, a salaried head chef or a whole front-of-house team. Alongside employer NI and pension estimates, this calculator brings together the details that matter when staffing a pub, bar, restaurant, hotel or food hall:
- Quiet and peak weeks, part-time hours, agreed overtime and shift premiums.
- Tronc by hour, week, month or year, with customer-funded payments separated from employer-funded top-ups.
- Paid time away and replacement cover, with one-off recruitment, training and sponsorship budgets shown separately.
- Department totals and alternative staffing mixes, with weekly, monthly and annual views.
UK 2026/27 assumptions are explained below. Use this to plan a budget; payroll, holiday entitlement and visa eligibility still depend on the individual circumstances.
Your people
Example figures to get you started. Replace them with your own.
Group people only when their pay, hours and employment settings match.
Where does the budget go?
Set each person or role’s department under More options. Matching names are grouped together, including differences in capitalisation. People without a department appear under Unassigned.
WHAT IF?A pay rise. A few more hours. See the difference.+
Applied to every row, using the current figures above. Salaries stay fixed when only hours change.
ANOTHER WAY TO STAFF ITOne full-time role or two part-time? Compare the cost.+
Copy your team, then change people, pay or hours. Employment settings are copied from each current role. To compare different employment terms, save this setup and adjust the main team.
What does that mean for your wage percentage?
Open the wage calculator with your department costs and service hours ready. Add average weekly revenue for the same budget assumptions to see wage percentage and revenue per labour hour.
Direct transfer sends an average weekly budget, not an actual rota week. Hours exclude entered paid time away and include replacement cover. Ongoing employer costs are already included; do not add NI or pension again. One-off hiring costs and customer-funded tronc are excluded. Only department names and totals are carried in the link, which the receiving page removes from the address bar. Excel copy retains the original team’s paid hours.
What is the true cost of employing hospitality staff?
A UK employer cost calculator, also called an employee cost or staff cost calculator, estimates the cost of employing a person or team by adding employer National Insurance, pension contributions and any separate holiday-pay budget to their gross pay. Use it when planning recruitment, reviewing pay or comparing staffing budgets.
Ongoing employer cost = gross pay + employer NI + employer pension + additional employer-funded costs. Gross pay here includes any entered overtime, premiums, top-ups and separate holiday provision. Replacement cover and ongoing support costs are added separately. Customer-funded tronc is outside employer spending, although its selected NI and pension treatment can affect the total. Add one-off hiring costs to estimate the first year.
The result is different from wage percentage, which compares labour cost with sales. It is also different from a rota hours calculator, which adds up shifts and breaks. This tool focuses on what sits between the hours you schedule and the cost you budget.
It cannot tell you whether a service has the right cover, whether a pay rate is legally sufficient or exactly what payroll will charge. Choose a regular week or a seasonal pattern, then add agreed overtime, shift premiums, tronc, replacement cover and hiring costs where relevant. Weekly and monthly results are annual averages, not a prediction of a particular payslip. Pay-period thresholds, holiday-pay reference periods, salary sacrifice and benefits can change actual payroll costs.
UK hospitality employer costs, explained.
How much does an employee cost beyond their wage?
The amount depends on pay, hours, NI category, pension membership and any extra costs you fund. Enter each role separately to estimate the difference between basic pay and ongoing employer cost. A single percentage added to every wage will not reflect all these differences.
Can I compare full-time and part-time staff costs?
Yes. Copy your team into the staffing comparison and change the number of people, paid hours or pay. NI and pension are estimated per person before totals are combined. Check that each option provides the hours and cover your venue needs.
What assumptions are included?
UK tax year 6 April 2026 to 5 April 2027. Standard employer NI is estimated at 15% above £5,000 per person per year. The selected under-21 or apprentice-under-25 relief uses £50,270 instead. This is annualised, not a substitute for payroll’s pay-period calculations. Other NI reliefs are not modelled.
Pension defaults to a budgeting assumption of 3% of qualifying earnings between £6,240 and £50,270. It does not determine enrolment eligibility. Adjust for the actual scheme and each person’s membership.
Is holiday pay counted twice?
Not by default. Regular hourly pay assumes the stated weekly paid hours continue through paid leave, and annual salaries include paid leave. A separate percentage is available only when your entered pay excludes the holiday-pay budget. This is a budgeting provision, not an entitlement calculation or permission to use rolled-up holiday pay. The 12.07% example relates to eligible irregular-hours and part-year workers; check the applicable rules and contract.
What does cost per paid hour mean?
Ongoing employer cost divided by annual paid hours, including any extra overtime. For seasonal patterns we add quiet, normal and peak weeks. Paid hours can include paid leave; exclude unpaid breaks. If you enter paid time away, the separate service-hour figure subtracts that time and adds replacement cover hours. One-off hiring costs are excluded from both hourly rates.
Does this include Employment Allowance?
No. Employment Allowance is employer-wide and eligibility depends on your circumstances. Deducting it from each role would overstate the saving. This prototype shows costs before that allowance, Apprenticeship Levy, statutory-pay recoveries and other employer-wide adjustments.
Where are my figures saved?
Only in this browser on this device when you press Save. Names, pay and hours do not go to a GlassRota account. Saving again replaces the previous saved setup. Clearing browser data or removing saved figures deletes the local copy.
Where do the assumptions come from?
HMRC employer rates and thresholds · DWP pension earnings bands · Government holiday-pay guidance.
Checked 10 September 2026. Confirm assumptions with your payroll provider before making employment decisions.
Created by GlassRota. Free UK hospitality budgeting tool.