Overtime calculator UK: time and a half and double time

Time and a half is your rate times 1.5, double time is your rate times 2, and which hours get which is your employer's rule. Muster does the sum for you.

The arithmetic

There is no overtime rate in law. Gov.uk's Overtime: your rights says employers do not have to pay workers for overtime, only that your average pay for the total hours you work must not fall below the National Minimum Wage. What overtime is, and what it pays, is in your contract or your employer's agreement.

Most agreements work it out in two steps:

1. Which hours are overtime. Usually the hours past a weekly threshold, or past a normal day, or on a Sunday or a bank holiday whatever the week.
2. What each kind of hour is worth. Plain rate times a multiple: 1.5 for time and a half, 2 for double time.

So 4 hours of time and a half at £12 an hour is 4 × 12 × 1.5, which is £72. Seven Sunday hours at double time on the same rate is 7 × 12 × 2, £168.

A worked example, by the rules Muster ships with

Muster's defaults: overtime past 39 hours in a Monday to Sunday week, at time and a half; every Sunday hour at double time, outside the week. On a plain rate of £12 an hour:

The £12 is an example, not a rate anybody is paid. Change the threshold, the multiples or what Sunday is worth and every line moves. That is why a calculator you type the week into is only as good as the rules you typed in.

How Muster does it

Muster keeps the rules and applies them to every hour you record, the same way every week, so there is nothing to type into a calculator at the end of the month.

• The weekly threshold, the time-and-a-half and double-time columns, Sunday, Saturday and bank holidays are settings under Settings › How I’m paid, set once by whoever runs your Muster, with your own contract's differences on top.
• Reports shows the period's hours in each column, worked out on the server, and an expected pay figure when you have given it your rate.
• Each figure names the rule it came from, so a disagreement with a payslip can be shown rather than argued.

Try it in the demo: its invented people have a month of hours and the rules behind each figure. The rules themselves are in Overtime worked out by your employer's rules, and the manual's How your hours are paid has every case, including sickness in the week and a journey through midnight.

Questions people ask

Is overtime time and a half by law?

No. Gov.uk says there is no legal right to overtime pay; the rate is in your contract. Many agreements use time and a half and double time, which is why Muster ships with those columns, but yours may not.

Do I have to work overtime?

Only if your contract says so, and even then not usually past an average of 48 hours a week unless you have agreed to in writing: gov.uk's compulsory overtime page. Muster shows each week against 48; see The 48-hour week.

Does a sick day change the week's overtime?

Under Muster's shipped rules, yes: sickness in a week sends that week's overtime to plain rate, because the enhanced rates need the full 39 worked. Your agreement may say otherwise, and the setting follows it.

Related

• Overtime worked out by your employer's rules
• Bank holiday pay for shift workers
• Reports in the manual

Try the demo - invented data, no account. Request a demo to use it for real. The manual has every screen.