Term-Time-Only Salary Calculator

Term-Time-Only (TTO) Salary Calculator

If you work in a school during term time only – as a teaching assistant, school administrator, midday supervisor, catering or cleaning staff – your payslip rarely matches the headline salary on the job advert. That advert almost always quotes a full-time equivalent (FTE) figure: what someone would earn working full hours, all year round. Because term-time-only staff are not paid for the school holidays, and many also work part-time hours, your actual pay is reduced by two pro-rata steps at once. That double pro-rata is exactly what confuses people, and where employers and even council spreadsheets sometimes get it wrong.

This calculator does the maths for you. Enter the advertised FTE salary, your weekly hours, the full-time hours for the role, the number of weeks you actually work, and your statutory holiday weeks. It returns your real annual and monthly term-time-only salary, plus the two pro-rata factors and the combined factor so you can check the figures against your contract. It is built for UK schools and academies and uses the statutory holiday entitlement of 5.6 weeks set out by gov.uk.

How the term-time-only calculation works

A correct TTO salary applies two reductions to the FTE figure:

• Hours pro-rata – your weekly hours divided by the full-time weekly hours for the role (for example 32.5 / 37).
• Weeks pro-rata – the weeks you are paid for divided by the calendar weeks in a year. You are paid for the weeks you work plus your statutory paid holiday, because term-time staff still accrue annual leave. The formula is (term weeks + holiday weeks) ÷ 52.143.

The 52.143 figure is the number of weeks in a year (365 ÷ 7). The statutory minimum paid holiday in the UK is 5.6 weeks for a full-year worker, which is equivalent to roughly 12.07% of the weeks actually worked. Putting it together:

TTO salary = FTE × (your hours ÷ full-time hours) × ((term weeks + holiday weeks) ÷ 52.143)

Worked example

A teaching assistant is offered an FTE salary of £30,000 for a 37-hour full-time week. She works 32.5 hours a week over a 39-week school year, with 5.6 weeks of statutory paid holiday.

• Hours factor = 32.5 ÷ 37 = 0.8784 (87.84%)
• Paid weeks = 39 + 5.6 = 44.6 weeks
• Weeks factor = 44.6 ÷ 52.143 = 0.8553 (85.53%)
• Combined factor = 0.8784 × 0.8553 = 0.7513 (75.13%)
• TTO salary = £30,000 × 0.751312 = £22,539.37 a year, about £1,878.28 a month.

So a £30,000 advert becomes roughly £22,539 in real pay – a difference of nearly £7,500 that catches many applicants out. (The rounded factors above are for illustration; the calculator multiplies the un-rounded factors, giving £22,539.37.)

Frequently asked questions

Why is my term-time salary so much lower than the advertised figure?

The advert quotes the full-time, full-year equivalent. As a term-time-only worker you are not paid for the school holidays, and if you also work part-time hours your pay is reduced again. Both reductions stack, so the real figure can be 25–35% lower than the headline.

Do term-time-only staff still get paid holiday?

Yes. Under gov.uk holiday entitlement rules every worker is entitled to 5.6 weeks of paid holiday a year. For term-time staff this is normally rolled into the salary by adding the holiday weeks to the term weeks before pro-rating, which is exactly what this calculator does.

How many weeks should I enter for the school year?

A standard English school year is about 39 weeks of pupil and inset days. Check your contract: some roles are 38, 40 or 44.6 paid weeks. Enter the weeks you are actually required to attend, and the calculator adds your holiday weeks separately.

What full-time hours should I use?

Use the full-time hours stated for your role – commonly 37 hours for support staff or 32.5 for teachers. The figure must match the basis the FTE salary was set on, or the hours pro-rata will be wrong.

Source: holiday entitlement and the 5.6 weeks statutory minimum – gov.uk holiday entitlement rights.

Related tools: Salary Calculator, Pro Rata Salary Calculator, Take-Home Pay Calculator, Hourly to Annual Salary Calculator, All UK Calculators.