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Tax year 2026/27 · Rest of UK · annual

Overtime Calculator UK

What your extra hours are really worth after tax.

Tax year
Region
Schedule

Your details

Overtime pay (year, gross)

£5,850

£488/month · £22.50/hour

Overtime kept after tax & NI

£4,212

£351/month net

Where the overtime goes

Gross overtime pay£5,850
Extra income tax (28% marginal)−£1,170
Extra National Insurance−£468
You keep£4,212
Effective keep rate72%

Annual picture

Standard pay (no overtime)£29,250
Overtime pay (gross)+£5,850
Total annual pay£35,100
Weekly overtime hours5 hrs

Overtime is taxed through PAYE exactly like normal pay. If the extra hours push your total over £50,270, part of your overtime is taxed at 40%, which is why the "kept" figure can surprise people.

Interactive scenarios

Tax and deductions, your way

Tax year

Region

Pay schedule

Salary £45,000

Net (monthly)

£2,806

Income tax (monthly)

£541

NI (monthly)

£216

Effective rate

20.2%

Modelled on a 5% pension. Showing monthly figures, rest of UK, tax year 2026/27.

The full guide

Everything worth knowing about Overtime

Worked examples with real figures, the rules underneath the number, and the traps that catch people out.

01

Overtime Calculator UK: five hours a week at time and a half keeps 72%

The overtime calculator prices your extra hours at your pay multiplier, then works out what those hours actually leave you after income tax and National Insurance. Five overtime hours a week at time and a half on £15 an hour builds £5,850 of gross overtime pay across a year, and you keep £4,212 of it, because the tax system charges those hours at your marginal rate from the first pound.

The method is a comparison rather than a fresh tax bill. The calculator taxes your pay with the overtime and without it, and charges the overtime only the difference. The sections below run the multipliers, the margin method, the worked example and the band crossing in the order the calculator applies them.

Your average tax rate gives the wrong answer

Overtime stacks on top of pay you already earn, so it pays the rate of the band it lands in from its first pound. A basic rate worker keeps 72% of overtime inside the band, and only 58% of any slice that crosses into the higher band, where 40% tax pairs with 2% National Insurance.

02

The gross build: hours, rate and the multiplier

Overtime pay in this calculator is three numbers multiplied together: overtime hours per week, your hourly rate and the multiplier your contract sets. The standard hours sit alongside them because the calculator needs your base pay before it can price the tax on the extra hours, as the next section explains.

Four multipliers sit in the list. Plain time pays 1.0 times your rate, time plus a quarter pays 1.25, time and a half pays 1.5 and double time pays 2.0. On £15 an hour those settings produce overtime rates of £15, £18.75, £22.50 and £30 an hour respectively.

No law sets the multiplier. As the note on this page states, employers in the UK face no legal requirement to pay an overtime premium at all, and time and a half is simply the common contractual rate. Your contract, not a statute, decides which setting in the list applies to you, and plenty of salaried roles pay plain time or fold expected overtime into the salary itself.

The weeks figure scales the whole answer. The calculator multiplies the weekly overtime pay by the weeks you work in a year, so five hours at time and a half on £15 an hour is £5,850 of gross pay across 52 weeks and £5,175 across 46 weeks once holidays come out. The tax comparison runs on the same annual totals, which keeps the keep rate honest at either setting.

The calculator annualises everything from the weekly pattern, so a single week of holiday cover prices differently from a permanent arrangement. Five extra hours in one week pay the same £112.50 gross, but the annual figure on this page assumes the pattern repeats for every week you enter, which is why the weeks box deserves as much care as the multiplier.

03

The margin method: tax with the overtime minus tax without it

Most people price overtime with their average tax rate, and the average rate flatters them. An average spreads the personal allowance and the cheap early pounds of the basic band across the whole salary, but the overtime uses none of that shelter: the allowance is already spent by the standard pay before the first overtime hour is worked.

The calculator therefore runs the full tax calculation twice. It works out income tax and National Insurance on total pay, then again on standard pay alone, and takes the difference between the two runs as the tax cost of the overtime. That difference is the marginal cost, the price of the top slice of your income, and it is the only honest price an extra hour can carry.

Inside the basic rate band the arithmetic is clean. The worked example's £5,850 of overtime attracts £1,170 of extra income tax, exactly 20% of itself, and £468 of extra National Insurance, exactly 8%. The calculator shows the combined marginal rate as 28% and the keep rate as 72%, and those two figures describe every overtime pound that stays inside the band.

The multiplier never touches the keep rate while the band holds. Drop the example to plain time and the keep is £2,808 of £3,900; raise it to double time and the keep is £5,616 of £7,800. Both keep exactly 72%, because the band charges the same fraction of each overtime pound whatever the multiplier paid for it. Only the band can move the percentage, and the section after the example shows it moving.

04

Worked example: five hours a week at time and a half on £15 an hour

Take the starting figures on the page, in the order the calculator builds them: £15 an hour, 37.5 standard hours a week, five overtime hours at time and a half, across 52 weeks. Standard pay comes to £29,250 a year before any overtime enters the picture.

The overtime builds weekly first. Five hours at £22.50 an hour, the standard rate lifted by the 1.5 multiplier, pays £112.50 a week. Across 52 weeks the gross overtime pay is £5,850, or £487.50 a month, and total pay rises to £35,100.

Now the margin method prices the tax. Tax on the £29,250 base is £3,336 and National Insurance on it is £1,334.40. Tax on the £35,100 total is £4,506 and National Insurance is £1,802.40. The overtime therefore carries £1,170 of extra tax and £468 of extra National Insurance between the two runs.

Subtract those two differences and the answer lands. You keep £4,212 of the £5,850, which is £351 a month and a keep rate of 72%. Every pound of the overtime fell inside the basic rate band, so it paid 20% tax and 8% National Insurance and nothing more exotic.

05

Crossing £50,270: the same hours at £25 an hour

Raise the hourly rate to £25 and keep everything else fixed, and the picture changes in an instructive way. Standard pay is now £48,750 a year, which sits just £1,520 below the £50,270 line where the higher rate begins. The overtime itself is £187.50 a week, £9,750 across the year, and total pay lands at £58,500.

The first £1,520 of that overtime fills the remaining basic band and pays the familiar 28% combined. The other £8,230 crosses into the higher band, where income tax takes 40% but National Insurance falls to 2%, a combined 42%. The crossing reprices only the slice above the line and nothing below it, which is why crossing a threshold never cuts your overall pay.

Run the margin method on the totals and the blended answer appears. Extra income tax is £3,596 and extra National Insurance is just £286.20, the small NI figure showing how hard the rate drop at the line works in your favour. You keep £5,867.80 of the £9,750, a keep rate of 60%, which is £488.98 a month.

Compare the two examples and the lesson prices itself. The £15 an hour worker keeps 72% of a smaller overtime pot, while the £25 an hour worker keeps 60% of a larger one and still takes home £1,655.80 more across the year. A lower keep rate is a worse percentage on better money, and the calculator shows both sides of that trade on one screen.

06

What this calculator leaves out

Pension contributions do not appear. The calculator deducts income tax and National Insurance from the overtime and nothing else, while a real payslip under auto enrolment also takes a pension percentage from qualifying earnings before you see the money. Your actual keep on the same hours runs a little lower than the figure here, and the pension calculator on this site prices that deduction properly.

Student loan repayments stay outside the frame as well. A borrower repaying through payroll hands over a further slice of earnings above their plan threshold, and overtime hours attract that deduction the same way standard hours do. Treat the keep figure as the answer before any loan deduction rather than after it.

The calculation runs on full year totals, while payroll works month by month. Income tax through PAYE spreads across the year and settles to the same total, but a single heavy overtime month can wear a deduction pattern that looks nothing like the annual keep rate, and National Insurance is settled per pay period and never rebalanced later. Judge overtime by the year, as the calculator does, and a lumpy month stops looking like an error.

One input deserves a second look before you trust any of it: the hourly rate itself. Salaried workers who divide by contracted hours often find their real hourly rate is lower than the figure in their head once unpaid extra hours enter the count, and every output on this page scales with that rate. Price the hours from the contract, not from memory.

The personal allowance taper sits beyond the worked examples on this page. A worker whose overtime carries total pay past £100,000 loses allowance as the extra pounds land, and the margin method prices that loss into the difference automatically, which is one more reason the keep rate can fall faster than the band rates alone suggest.

07

Where the Overtime Calculator UK gets its figures

Rates, bands and thresholds follow published HMRC and gov.uk figures for the 2026/27 tax year, held in one table that every tool reads. April arrives, the table changes, and the results move together.

Earlier years stay available through the year selector, so a late self assessment runs on the numbers that applied at the time rather than today's.

Some cases still need an accountant. K codes carrying negative allowances, bespoke sacrifice arrangements, the annual allowance taper for very high earners, and anything involving two employments at once.

Example gallery

Real inputs, real outputs

Graduate starter

First job, default workplace pension.

rUK

Gross / yr

£28,000

Pension

5%

Income tax

£3,086

NI

£1,234

Take home / month£1,857

Mid career

Standard tax code, modest pension uplift.

rUK

Gross / yr

£45,000

Pension

6%

Income tax

£6,486

NI

£2,594

Take home / month£2,768

Higher rate

Crossing the higher rate band.

rUK

Gross / yr

£72,000

Pension

8%

Income tax

£16,232

NI

£3,451

Take home / month£3,880

Scotland mid

Scottish bands applied.

Scotland

Gross / yr

£45,000

Pension

5%

Income tax

£6,882

NI

£2,594

Take home / month£2,773

About this calculator

The Overtime Calculator works out exactly what your extra hours are worth. Enter your hourly rate, overtime hours and pay multiplier to see your gross overtime pay and what you actually keep after tax and National Insurance.

Quick reference

Allowance 0%
0%
Basic 20%
20%
Higher 40%
40%
Additional 45%
45%

Frequently asked questions

How is overtime pay calculated in the UK?+
Multiply your overtime hours by your hourly rate and then by your contract's multiplier. At the standard 1.5x rate, five hours at £15 an hour pays £112.50 before tax. There is no legal minimum multiplier in the UK, so your contract decides whether you get plain time, time and a half, or double time for weekends and bank holidays.
Do I have to be paid extra for overtime?+
Not by law. Employers only have to pay the National Minimum Wage averaged across your pay period, and many salaried contracts include a reasonable amount of unpaid overtime. If your contract promises a premium, that promise is binding. Check whether your overtime is voluntary, guaranteed or non-guaranteed, because the label affects your rights on holiday pay and redundancy calculations.
Is overtime taxed more than normal pay?+
No, overtime is taxed at exactly the same rates through PAYE, but it can push your total income into a higher band. If your normal pay sits just under £50,270, your overtime is taxed at 40 percent instead of 20 percent, which is why the extra hours can feel less rewarding than expected. The calculator shows this marginal effect so you see the true net gain.
What is time and a half?+
Time and a half means 1.5 times your normal hourly rate, so £12 an hour becomes £18 for overtime hours. It is the most common UK overtime premium, typically applying to weekday overtime beyond contracted hours. Weekend work often pays double time (2x) and bank holidays can pay more, but it all comes down to what your contract or collective agreement says.
Does overtime count towards holiday pay?+
Regular voluntary overtime should be included in holiday pay calculations following UK case law, because holiday pay must reflect normal remuneration. If you work overtime most weeks, your employer should average it into the 5.6 weeks of statutory leave. Genuinely occasional overtime can be excluded, which is another reason to keep your own record of hours worked.
How do I convert my salary to an hourly rate?+
Divide your annual salary by 52 and then by your weekly contracted hours. On £30,000 working 37.5 hours a week, that is £30,000 ÷ 52 ÷ 37.5 = £15.38 an hour. Use that figure to sanity-check any overtime offer: if the overtime rate is below your true hourly rate, you are effectively taking a pay cut for the extra hours.
Can my employer force me to work overtime?+
Only if your contract says so. Many contracts include a clause requiring reasonable overtime, while others make it purely voluntary. Even with a contractual clause, the Working Time Regulations cap average working time at 48 hours a week unless you have signed an opt-out. You can also refuse overtime on health and safety grounds if exhaustion would make the work unsafe.