How do I turn monthly pay into a week?

Multiply the month by 12 and divide by 52. A £2,800 month is £646.15 a week on that route, not £700 from dividing by 4. The £53.85 gap becomes £48.47 on a 90 percent week. Weekly-paid staff often average eight weeks. The result is educational and not personal, legal, or clinical advice. Use payroll's relevant period when it names different weeks. Keep the unit, the count, and the name of the formula in the same sentence as any figure you copy into a report.

What is 90 percent of a £620 week?

It is £558, and six such weeks are £3,348. The £62 you do not receive each week is £372 across that block. Later statutory weeks pay the lower of a flat rate and 90 percent. This article uses an illustrative flat rate of £190, which you should replace with the rate for the tax year. If 90 percent is already below the flat rate, you do not get lifted up to it.

Are eight full-pay weeks and 18 half-pay weeks guaranteed?

They are a common occupational illustration, not a promise from this page. On a £620 average, eight full weeks are £4,960. Half pay of £310 plus an illustrative £190 is £500, and 18 of those weeks are £9,000, because £500 is under full pay. Your handbook may use other counts. Confirm eligibility and week numbers with payroll. The result is educational and not personal, legal, or clinical advice.

How much is a keeping-in-touch day in the example?

If £620 is split across five days, one day is £124 and 10 days are £1,240. A three-hour claim at £16.53 an hour is £49.59, which is not the same as half of £124. The cap is 10 days, and an extra day can affect the leave. Ask how the day is offset against occupational pay before you work it. Treat the £124 as arithmetic, not a local rate card.

Why should unsocial hours be kept out of basic pay?

A £200 unsocial week can lift an eight-week average from £595 to £620. Using £620 for occupational full pay overstates that block if the handbook uses basic pay. Using £595 for statutory 90 percent understates six weeks by £135. Keep a statutory column and an occupational column. The result is educational and not personal, legal, or clinical advice, and payroll's software chooses the live rule.

NHS Maternity Pay in Plain Weekly Numbers

Start from average weekly earnings

Weekly maternity arithmetic needs one earnings figure before any percentage. Suppose eight weekly pays total £4,960. Divided by 8, average weekly earnings are £620. If one of those weeks contained £200 of unsocial-hours pay that will not continue, the total without it is £4,760 and the average falls to £595, a £25 gap. Six weeks at 90 percent of that gap is £135, so the window is not a rounding detail. For weekly-paid staff the relevant period is often eight weeks, but the contract names the weeks. Calculators King editors recommend listing the eight gross figures, not just the average, before you apply a percentage.

A monthly-paid employee cannot get a fair week by dividing one fat month by 4. A £2,800 month divided by 4 is £700, while £2,800 times 12 divided by 52 is £646.15. The two "weeks" differ by £53.85. Using £700 for a 90 percent week overstates that week by £48.47. Prefer the 52-week route when pay is monthly, and say so on the sheet. The result is educational and not personal, legal, or clinical advice. Payroll's own averaging rules override a tidy division if they name a different relevant period.

Ninety percent is a six-week statutory layer

Statutory maternity pay, in the usual structure, pays 90 percent of average weekly earnings for the first six weeks. On £620 that week is £558, and six of them total £3,348. It is not £620, and it is not half of £620. The missing £62 each week is £372 across the six weeks, which is the cost of reading "most of your wage" as "all of it." Later statutory weeks drop to the lower of a flat rate and 90 percent. Use an illustrative flat rate of £190 here, not as a claim about this year's statute. We recommend labelling £190 as the example rate you typed.

Someone whose average is below the flat rate does not get a pay rise from it. If average weekly earnings were £170, 90 percent is £153, and a rule that pays the lower of £190 and 90 percent pays £153, not £190. Inventing a jump to £190 would add £37 a week, or £1,221 over 33 weeks, which the lower-of rule does not give. Check the lower-of comparison every time the flat rate and the earnings swap places. The result is educational and not personal, legal, or clinical advice. Confirm the live flat rate with payroll or the official rate table before you budget.

Occupational weeks sit beside that floor

A common NHS occupational pattern, used here only as an illustration, is eight weeks at full pay and 18 weeks at half pay, with statutory pay interacting so the total week does not exceed full pay. Full pay at £620 for eight weeks is £4,960. Half pay is £310. If half pay plus an illustrative statutory £190 is £500, and £500 is under £620, the occupational week in this example is £500. Eighteen such weeks are £9,000. Eight plus 18 is £13,960 before any later statutory-only weeks. Your trust's handbook may use different week counts. Do not treat 8 and 18 as universal.

Later weeks in a 52-week absence are often statutory pay and then unpaid leave. Thirteen illustrative weeks at £190 are £2,470. Added to £13,960, the paid total in this sketch is £16,430, against 52 times £620, which is £32,240. The illustration covers about 51 percent of a full year of wages, not the whole year. We recommend building a 52-row week table: rate, week count, and cash. The result is educational and not personal, legal, or clinical advice. A maternity booking appointment is the right place to confirm eligibility, not a blog example.

Keeping-in-touch days are a capped extra

Staff can often work up to 10 keeping-in-touch days without ending maternity leave. If a £620 week is treated as five equal days, one day is £124, and 10 days are £1,240. That £1,240 is pay for work, not a bonus on top of an unworked week, and local rules decide whether the day's occupational pay is offset. Working an 11th day can end the leave in some schemes, so the count is the point. The result is educational and not personal, legal, or clinical advice. Ask the manager, before the shift, how day 10 is paid and what day 11 would do.

A half KIT day should not be guessed as £40. Half of £124 is £62. A local rule that pays a minimum of three hours at an hourly rate can land elsewhere: £620 divided by 37.5 hours is £16.53, and three hours are £49.59, which is £12.41 below a half day. Write the unit, hours or half day, on the claim form. We recommend keeping a tally that cannot exceed 10 unless payroll has approved an exception. Confirm the live KIT limit in the current handbook rather than relying on this illustrative £124.

Unsocial hours can inflate the average

The £200 unsocial-hours week is worth lingering on. It lifted the eight-week total from £4,760 to £4,960 and the average from £595 to £620. Occupational full pay might be based on basic pay of £595, while a statutory average uses £620. Using the higher figure for an eight-week full-pay block overstates that block by £200. Using the lower figure for the six statutory 90 percent weeks understates those weeks: 90 percent of £25 is £22.50, times 6 is £135. The two bases are allowed to differ. Label them "statutory average" and "occupational basic" so the rows do not share one silent number.

A promotion mid-window has the same shape. If four weeks at £580 and four weeks at £660 produce the £4,960 total, the £620 average is real, but a return-to-work salary may be the new £660, not £620. Budgeting the return at £620 understates the week by £40, or about £173 a month. We recommend a three-column note: average used for statutory pay, basic used for occupational pay, and salary expected on return. The result is educational and not personal, legal, or clinical advice. Only payroll can say which column its software uses.

Build the year before you spend it

Put the illustrative year in order: eight weeks at £620 (£4,960), 18 weeks at £500 (£9,000), 13 weeks at £190 (£2,470), and the remaining 13 weeks at £0. That is 8 plus 18 plus 13 plus 13, which is 52 weeks, and £16,430 of gross pay. A household bill of £2,000 a month needs £24,000 across a year, so this sketch is £7,570 short of that bill and needs savings or a partner's income to cover the gap. Change the week counts if the handbook differs, and the cash total will move with them. Do not spend £32,240 just because that was the old annual rate.

Recalculate if the flat rate you typed was wrong by £10. Thirteen weeks then move by £130, and any half-pay week that includes the flat rate moves by £10 as well. Eighteen such weeks are another £180, so a £10 rate error is £310 in this sketch. That is why the rate belongs in a labelled cell. Calculators King editors recommend saving the week table with the handbook year printed at the top. The result is educational and not personal, legal, or clinical advice, and it is not a decision about eligibility, tax credits, or when leave should start.

Open the worksheet

The matching page is the NHS Maternity Pay Calculator. It opens with a worked example, names the formula, and keeps the steps next to the result. Use it when you want the arithmetic on your own numbers rather than the argument on this page.