Pro rata pay

If you're applying for a part-time job, it’s likely to be advertised with a pro rata salary. The problem is, that the phrase isn’t exactly widely understood. So we’re betting you have questions like what does pro rata mean and how does it affect your workplace rights? Read on to learn a simple five step pro rata calculator technique to work out pro rata pay and holiday entitlements.

Pro rata meaning

Pro rata means ‘proportionally’ or a ‘proportion of’. But what does pro rate mean in salary terms? It typically comes up in reference to part-time work, when a salary is quoted as being pro rata, it means the pay is proportionate to the number of hours worked vs. a full time position. We’ll explain more in a moment.

What is a pro rata salary?

If you’re paid on a pro rata basis, your salary has to be calculated. Your employer will do this according to what proportion of full time hours your job would make up. For example, if the salary is quoted at £18,000 pro rata (based on a full time week of 40 work hours) and you are working 30 hours per week, you will be paid an annual salary of £13,500.

How does it affect my rights at work?

Employees who are paid a pro rata salary still have all the statutory and contractual terms and conditions that full-time workers have, such as pensions, holidays, maternity pay and parental leave. The catch is that you only get them in the same proportion as you work. To help you get a better idea of what this means, we’ll give you an example; if a full timer works 40 hours per week and you work 20 hours per week you’ll get half the pay, half the hours worth of holiday and so on.

How to work out pro rata pay

To work out your pay, you’ll first need to get the following information:

• Roughly where you’ll be placed on the salary scale so that you have a salary of reference;
• The number of hours the company considers as full time;
• How many hours a week you’ll be working;
• How many weeks a year you’ll be working.

Our five step pro rata calculator

Got the figures above? Great, then just use our five step pro rata salary calculator to calculate your pro rata pay:

1. Divide the annual salary (if you worked full time) by 52. For example, a £24,000 salary split over 52 weeks is £462 per week.
2. Then divide that answer by a full time employees’ number of hours (this will give you the hourly rate). For example, £462 weekly pay divided into a 40 hour working week is £11.55 per hour.
3. After that, multiply the hourly rate by the number of hours you work each week (this will give you a weekly salary). For example, £11.55 per hour over a 30 hour week is equivalent to a £346.50 weekly salary.
4. Multiply this by 52 or the number of weeks worked (this will give you an annual salary). For example, a £346.50 weekly salary paid over 52 weeks is equivalent to a yearly salary of £18,018.
5. Divide this by 12 if you want to know your monthly pro rata wage. For example, a yearly salary of £18,018 is equivalent to £1501.50 per month.

Now you’ve got your pro rata pay worked out, you might be wondering how much tax you’ll pay. Read our guide to PAYE tax to find out, or learn more about income tax in general here.

How to work out holidays

We should mention that even if you work pro-rata, you’ll still get holidays.

Part time workers are entitled to holidays based on a full time worker’s entitlement to 28 days of paid holidays. You can work out your specific holiday entitlement by multiplying the number of days you work each week by 5.6. So, if you work three days a week, your holiday entitlement will be 3 x 5.6, which is 16.8 days. You can learn more about how much holiday you’re entitled to in this article.

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