Headcount and capacity are not the same number
A full-time equivalent is somebody's contracted hours divided by what your organisation counts as a full week. Somebody on 37.5 hours against a 37.5 hour week is 1.0. Somebody on 20 is 0.53. Six people on twenty hours against a forty hour week are three FTE, not six.
That gap is the whole point. If you employ nine people and five of them are part time, your headcount is nine and your capacity might be six and a half. Every figure worked out on headcount rather than FTE is wrong by that difference: cost per head, output per head, the ratios you compare between sites, and the size of the rota you think you can fill.
What counts as full time is your decision
There is no legal definition of a full-time week in the UK. It is whatever your contracts say, and 37.5 and 40 are both common. The same team comes out at a different FTE depending which you use, which is why this asks rather than assuming: a 30 hour contract is 0.80 FTE against 37.5 and 0.75 against 40.
Use contracted hours rather than hours actually worked. Overtime does not increase somebody's FTE, because FTE describes the shape of the contract rather than what happened last week. If you want hours actually worked, that is a timesheet question.
Where FTE is the number you are asked for
- Holiday. Statutory entitlement is 5.6 weeks, and for part-timers that is calculated pro rata from their working pattern. FTE is the same arithmetic in a different form.
- Grant and funding applications. Almost all of them ask for FTE rather than headcount, and getting it wrong is a common reason a form comes back.
- Company size thresholds. Employee count for accounting and reporting purposes is usually an average over the year rather than a headcount on one day.
- Costing a job. Two half-time people cost roughly one full-time salary in wages but two lots of the fixed per-employee costs, so the FTE figure and the cost figure diverge.
The rounding, and why the total is not the sum
Each person is shown to two decimal places for readability, but the team total is calculated from the raw hours rather than by adding those rounded figures up. With twenty people the difference is visible: twenty staff on seven hours each show as 0.19 apiece, which would total 3.80, when the real answer is 3.73. Small teams never notice this and large ones always do.
That list is your actual staff, by name
Names and hours stay on the page and are discarded when you close the tab. There is no account and nothing is uploaded, which matters when the list in front of you is your actual staff.
Common questions
What is full-time equivalent (FTE)?
Somebody's contracted hours divided by what your organisation counts as a full working week. Someone on 37.5 hours against a 37.5 hour week is 1.0 FTE, and someone on 20 hours is 0.53. Six people working twenty hours each against a forty hour week come to three FTE, not six.
Why does headcount give the wrong answer for cost and capacity?
Because headcount counts people, not hours. Employ nine people with five of them part time and your headcount is nine while your actual capacity might be six and a half, so any figure worked out on headcount rather than FTE, such as cost per head or output per head, is wrong by that gap.
What counts as a full-time week for FTE?
There is no legal definition in the UK. It is whatever your organisation's contracts say, and 37.5 and 40 hours are both common. The same 30 hour contract comes out as 0.80 FTE against a 37.5 hour week and 0.75 against a 40 hour week, so it matters which one you use.
Does working overtime increase someone's FTE?
No. FTE is calculated from contracted hours, not hours actually worked, because it describes the shape of the contract rather than what happened in a particular week. Hours actually worked, including overtime, is a timesheet question rather than an FTE one.
Why do I need FTE rather than headcount for grant applications?
Because almost all grant and funding applications ask for FTE specifically, and getting it wrong is a common reason a form is sent back. Company size thresholds for accounting and reporting purposes usually work the same way, using an average over the year rather than a headcount on one day.
Why does the team total not match the sum of the rounded individual figures?
Because each person is shown to two decimal places for readability, but the team total is calculated from the raw hours rather than by adding the rounded figures together. With twenty staff on seven hours each, the rounded figures would sum to 3.80, but the real total is 3.73.