FTE calculator: contract hours over the full-time week
Contract hours divided by the full-time week. The second number is the one that goes wrong, which is why this calculator does not fill it in for you.
Calculator
Two fields, and the second is the one most calculators fill in for you without saying so: how many hours a full-time week is at your organization.
The hours in the contract, not the hours actually worked
The hours in your contract or workplace policy
Enter the contract hours and the full-time week to see the FTE.
What this calculator does not do
- No pay: FTE measures time, and what that time costs is a different question
- No overtime: FTE is about contract hours, not about what was actually worked
- No total for a whole team: add up the contract hours and then divide once
- No default for the full-time week: which working week counts as full time at your organization is for you to look up
| FTE | 36-hour full-time week | 38-hour full-time week | 40-hour full-time week |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1.0 FTE | 36 hours | 38 hours | 40 hours |
| 0.8 FTE | 28.8 hours | 30.4 hours | 32 hours |
| 0.75 FTE | 27 hours | 28.5 hours | 30 hours |
| 0.5 FTE | 18 hours | 19 hours | 20 hours |
The hours are decimals: 28.8 hours is 28:48 on a schedule, and 30.4 hours is 30:24.
What a full-time equivalent is
Full-time equivalent (FTE) says how many full-time jobs a group of people adds up to. Someone working full time is 1.0 FTE, and two people who each work half days are together also 1.0. It is a unit of capacity, not of heads. A business with 30 employees can therefore stand at 24 FTE without anything unusual behind it.
- A measure of capacity, not of the number of people
- Two half-time jobs add up to one FTE
- Handy for comparing teams, departments or years
Why the result depends on your full-time week
The sum is contract hours divided by the full-time week, and the second number is not fixed. Full time might be 36 hours at one employer and 40 at another. The same 32 hours are then 0.89 FTE on 36 hours, 0.84 on 38 hours and 0.80 on 40 hours. That difference of almost a tenth carries through every plan built on it.
- Contract hours ÷ full-time week = FTE
- The full-time week is in your contract or your workplace policy
- Enter the number that applies to you, not the one that seems usual
For a whole team: add first, then divide
To find how many FTE a department adds up to, add all the contract hours and divide the total once by the full-time week. If you work per person and then add the rounded results, you get a different number, because the rounding errors add up. So round only at the end.
- Add all contract hours, then divide once
- Example: 32 + 20 + 40 + 30 hours is 122 hours, divided by 40 is 3.05 FTE
- Rounding per person piles up the error
Contract hours are not the hours worked
FTE works with what is in the contract. Overtime, sickness and leave are not part of it. To know how much capacity was actually available, look at the time records, not at the FTE. Putting the two side by side is useful; mixing them is not.
- FTE describes the contract, not reality
- Overtime and absence sit next to it
- Side by side helps, mixed does not
Where FTE meets the schedule
FTE is the number for budget planning; the schedule is where that budget has to hold. In between sits the question of whether the capacity on paper is also there at the right time: four people at 0.5 FTE fill a Saturday differently from two at 1.0. How long a single shift lasts is worked out by the hours calculator. And if you want to know how many days of absence fall on your team, the absence rate calculator helps.
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