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What hourly / daily contract rate should I charge?

Published on Jul 29, 2009 |

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One of the most frequently asked questions by people thinking of becoming IT contractors is "what hourly/daily rate can I achieve?"

As you'd expect, the answer to this question depends on a number of factors, such as you skills, experience, location, and the state of the contracting market at the time.

However, whatever hourly rate you end up achieving, it is worth working out how that rate translates into real monthly or annual pre-tax earnings.

How many hours/days will your actually work?

There are many things you should include when attempting to calculate your annual pre-tax income:

1) Public Holidays - permanent staff don't lose money, but contractors do, so deduct 2 weeks, and possibly more if your client shuts up shop for an extended period over the Christmas period.

2) Sickness - there's not a lot you can do about taking time off due to poor health. You may want to allow another 2 weeks for this eventuality.

3) Holidays - although contractors tend to take less breaks than 'permies', you'll expect to take a few weeks off for holidays during contracts - for this example, allow 4 weeks.

Even without an allowance for any enforced time off between contracts, we are already down from 52 to 44 weeks per annum.

Real Life Examples

For an IT contractor on £40 per hour, contracted to a 37.5 hour week (5 days) contract, working 44 weeks in total, this equates to £66,000 gross per year, or £5,500 gross per month.

At £50 per hour, this gives an annual gross income of £82,500 / monthly income of £6,875.

At £30 per hour, this gives an annual gross income of £49,500 / monthly income of £4,125

As you'd expect, your take home pay can vary wildly, depending on whether you are working via an umbrella or limited company, and if you're caught by IR35 or not.

Permanent to Contractor Uplift

Dave Chaplin from Contractor Calculator, told us:

"As a starting point you should expect to end up with at least as much in your pocket each month as you currently do as a permanent employee. Then on top of that you should expect a bit more because contractors can charge a premium, and also because of the tax advantages of being a contractor - assuming you avoid IR35."

"You can use our Permanent to Contracting Calculator to get a baseline starting rate."