Pro-Rata Salary and Part-Time Pay in Ireland

The hours ratio compares your weekly hours with full-time weekly hours. The paid-weeks ratio is needed only when your salary covers fewer paid weeks than the full-time benchmark.

Reduced-hours example: a €45,000 full-time salary covers 39 paid hours a week and 52 paid weeks. At 31.2 hours with the same paid year, the calculation is €45,000 × (31.2 ÷ 39) × (52 ÷ 52) = €36,000 gross a year. That is 80% of the benchmark and an average €3,000 gross per calendar month before tax. You can reproduce it in the Pro-Rata Salary Calculator.

FTE commonly describes weekly hours as a share of full-time hours. If both roles cover the same paid year, that hours percentage also drives salary. A shorter paid working year requires a separate weeks ratio, so the overall salary percentage can be lower than the weekly-hours FTE.

Use weekly hours, not days alone. Three normal full-time-length days may differ from three shorter days. A four-day arrangement may be 80% hours, another percentage, or compressed full-time hours with no salary reduction.

A job-share salary depends on each person’s contracted share, not automatically one half. Enter the full-time salary and the hours and paid weeks attached to your own share. Employer or public-service rules may add role-specific rounding or allowances.

When paid weeks are unchanged, the main adjustment is the weekly-hours ratio. Keep allowances, premiums and benefits separate until the employer confirms whether they reduce proportionally or remain fixed.

Where part of the year is genuinely unpaid, the paid-weeks ratio reduces the salary in addition to the weekly-hours ratio. Do not use this adjustment for ordinary paid annual leave.

When both hours and paid weeks change: using the same €45,000 benchmark, 31.2 hours and 46 paid weeks gives €45,000 × (31.2 ÷ 39) × (46 ÷ 52) = €31,846.15 gross a year. Weekly-hours FTE stays at 80%, but the overall salary share is approximately 70.77%. This assumes six weeks are genuinely unpaid and the employer applies both ratios; it is not a universal term-time contract formula.

Before entering fewer paid weeks, check whether your quoted annual salary already includes the reduction and whether pay is spread over 12 months. Applying a second reduction to an already adjusted salary understates pay. Ordinary paid annual leave is not an unpaid gap; the WRC part-time workers guidance confirms that part-time employees also accrue annual leave.

The pro-rata calculator is best for a salary quoted from a full-time benchmark. If you are paid for each hour and weekly hours vary, use the Hourly to Annual Calculator and run low, typical and high scenarios instead.

Part-time status does not remove annual-leave rights. Entitlement and leave pay depend on the applicable hours-based rules and employment pattern. Paid leave should remain represented in paid weeks; check WRC or Citizens Information guidance for the entitlement method.