Once you subtract tax, commute time, work expenses, and the childcare you only pay because of the job, the real per-hour number is often a third lower than the obvious one.
Gross salary and effective tax rate.
Hours of work plus commute, and weeks actually worked.
Cash you only spend because you have this job.
After tax, costs of the job, and commute time.
Nominal £42.55/hr → after tax /hr → real £6.62/hr after job costs and commute time.
Illustrative figures only. The real hourly figure ignores benefits (pension match, healthcare, paid leave) and may understate value when those are significant. For your specific situation, consult a qualified adviser.
Worth carries the real-hourly number into every spending decision. Hire it out, do it yourself, take the night off. The answer changes when the rate is right. Join the waitlist.
Because you would not be doing it otherwise. Commute hours are not paid, but they are not yours either. Counting them gives a truer picture of what each hour of your week is buying you. If the job offers remote work that eliminates the commute, the real hourly rate jumps without any pay change.
Only the portion that comes from your gross salary. If your employer's contribution lands on top of your salary, it is a benefit and should not be deducted. If your contribution is salary-sacrificed (UK) or pre-tax (US), it lowers your taxable income but the money is still yours.
This calculator focuses on the cash hourly rate. Benefits can add real value (employer pension match, employer-paid private healthcare, equity grants vesting over time) and the right way to think about a job is the all-in package. If two jobs have the same headline salary but different benefits, the higher-benefit one has a higher real hourly rate even before all the cost lines.
Yes, with smaller numbers. Set commute hours and commute cost to zero. Work expenses (coffee, lunch out, work-from-home equipment depreciation, slightly higher utilities) may still apply. The remote-work hourly rate is almost always higher than the equivalent commute-and-office rate.