By Tim King · Updated 7 October 2026

FTE Calculator

Convert Headcount and Mixed Part-Time Hours Into Total FTE and Part-Time Share

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Full-time hours a week

Number of full-time staff

Part-time group 1 - people

Part-time group 1 - hours a week each

Part-time group 2 - people

Part-time group 2 - hours a week each

Part-time group 3 - people

Part-time group 3 - hours a week each

Working weeks a year (52 if blank)

Result

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How the FTE Calculator works

This FTE calculator converts staff hours into full-time equivalent employees: weekly hours worked divided by a full-time week. Enter what a full-time week is in your organisation, the number of full-time staff and up to three groups of part-timers with their weekly hours. It returns the total FTE, the headcount it represents, total and annual hours, and how much of the workforce is part-time, with a table converting common part-time patterns to FTE.

FTE calculator: turning people into capacity

Headcount tells you how many people are on the payroll. Full-time equivalent tells you how much work they can actually do. A team of 14 might be 14 full-timers, or 10 plus four people on 20 hours, which comes to about 12.1 FTE. That gap decides whether a rota can be filled, a budget line is right, or a staffing ratio is met.

The formula

FTE = total contracted hours a week ÷ full-time hours a week.

Each person contributes their weekly hours divided by the organisation's full-time week, and the calculator adds up every group. The full-time week is the input most people skip, and it changes every answer. Common bases:

35 hours in much of the UK public sector and in France, where 35 is the legal week
37.5 hours for NHS staff on Agenda for Change and many UK office contracts
38 hours in Australia, the maximum ordinary week under the National Employment Standards
40 hours in most US employers, which gives the familiar 2,080 hours a year

Use your own contract's figure, not a national average. A 20-hour worker is 0.57 FTE against a 35-hour week but 0.50 against 40.

Worked examples

The first example uses the default inputs. Ten full-timers on a 37.5-hour week plus four people on 20 hours make 375 + 80 = 455 hours a week. 455 ÷ 37.5 = 12.13 FTE from a headcount of 14. Over 52 weeks that is 23,660 hours. The part-timers supply 2.13 of the 12.13 FTE, so the part-time share shows 18%.

The second example is a care home that needs 6.0 FTE of night cover on a 40-hour basis. It has two full-timers, three staff on 24 hours and two on 16. That is 80 + 72 + 32 = 184 hours, or 4.6 FTE, so it is 1.4 FTE short. That gap is 56 hours a week, or about seven 8-hour shifts to recruit for or cover with agency staff.

How many FTE is a part-time contract?

Read across from the weekly hours to your full-time basis. Where a figure is quoted as a fraction of days, divide the days by five: three days a week is 0.6 FTE if the days are standard length.

FTE for common weekly hours, by full-time basis

Hours a week	FTE at 35 h	FTE at 37.5 h	FTE at 38 h	FTE at 40 h
4	0.11	0.11	0.11	0.10
6	0.17	0.16	0.16	0.15
7.5	0.21	0.20	0.20	0.19
8	0.23	0.21	0.21	0.20
10	0.29	0.27	0.26	0.25
12	0.34	0.32	0.32	0.30
14	0.40	0.37	0.37	0.35
15	0.43	0.40	0.39	0.38
16	0.46	0.43	0.42	0.40
18	0.51	0.48	0.47	0.45
20	0.57	0.53	0.53	0.50
21	0.60	0.56	0.55	0.53
22.5	0.64	0.60	0.59	0.56
24	0.69	0.64	0.63	0.60
25	0.71	0.67	0.66	0.62
27	0.77	0.72	0.71	0.68
28	0.80	0.75	0.74	0.70
30	0.86	0.80	0.79	0.75
32	0.91	0.85	0.84	0.80
35	1.00	0.93	0.92	0.88

How to read the result

Full-time equivalent is the headline figure to put in budgets, ratios and reports, to two decimal places.
Headcount is the number of people behind it.
Total hours a week is contracted hours, so it matches payroll before overtime.
Average FTE per person falls below 1.0 as the part-time mix grows. At 0.87, the average person works about 33 hours of a 37.5-hour week.
Annual hours multiplies by the working weeks you entered. Use 52 for contract hours, or enter fewer weeks for term-time or seasonal staff.
Part-time share of FTE is the proportion of capacity supplied by the part-time groups.

Where FTE is used

Care and early-years regulators set staff-to-child or staff-to-resident ratios in people on shift, but managers plan them in FTE because rotas are built from contracted hours. Public sector and university budgets approve posts in FTE, so splitting a 1.0 post into two 0.5 roles needs no new approval. Research grants cost staff by FTE. In the US, the Affordable Care Act counts full-time employees at 30 or more hours a week. It then adds part-timers' monthly hours divided by 120 to test the 50-employee threshold, so its basis differs from the one used here.

Tips and pitfalls

Contracted, not actual. FTE normally uses contracted hours. Regular overtime does not raise it, and long-term sickness does not lower it. For labour actually used, enter average worked hours and label the result.
Two halves cost more than one whole. Two 0.5 FTE staff give the same hours as one full-timer but usually cost more. The employee cost calculator shows the on-costs per person.
Term-time contracts. A school assistant on 30 hours for 39 weeks is 0.8 FTE in term but about 0.6 annualised (0.8 × 39 ÷ 52). Say which one a report uses.
Holiday is already inside FTE. Do not subtract leave from the full-time week. Work out entitlement separately with the annual leave calculator.

To turn an FTE salary into an hourly rate, or scale a full-time salary to a part-time contract, use the salary to hourly calculator.

Sources: Full-time equivalent.

Checked against: 4 people at 20 h on a 37.5 h week = 2.13 FTE

FAQ

How do you calculate FTE?

Divide each employee's weekly contracted hours by the full-time weekly hours and add the results. Two full-timers and two people on half hours give 2 + 0.5 + 0.5 = 3.0 FTE. On an annual basis divide total annual hours by the full-time annual figure, usually 2,080.

What is the difference between FTE and headcount?

Headcount counts people; FTE counts the labour they provide. Ten part-timers on half hours are a headcount of ten and an FTE of five. Budgets and ratios use FTE because it does not change when a role is split between two people.

Is 0.8 FTE the same as four days a week?

On a five-day full-time pattern, yes: four days out of five is 0.8. In hours it depends on the length of the days; 30 hours where full time is 37.5 is also 0.8 FTE regardless of how those hours are spread across the week.

How many hours is 1 FTE per year?

Full-time weekly hours multiplied by 52, so 2,080 hours for a 40-hour week or 1,950 for a 37.5-hour week. Some organisations subtract holiday to quote productive hours, typically around 1,700 to 1,800, but the standard FTE definition uses the gross figure.

Does FTE include overtime?

Normally not. FTE is based on contracted hours, so an employee working ten hours of overtime a week is still 1.0 FTE. If you want to measure labour actually used rather than established posts, enter average actual hours instead and label the result accordingly.