FTE vs actual salary in education jobs — plain English
What FTE, actual, pro-rata, term-time, hourly and daily pay mean in UK school and nursery job adverts, and how to work out what a part-time or term-time role really pays.
The five ways education pay is advertised
- Annual, full-time equivalent
- The annual salary a full-time post-holder would receive. Part-time or term-time post-holders normally receive less than this figure.
- Annual, actual
- The annual salary this post-holder actually receives, after the contracted hours and working weeks are taken into account.
- Hourly rate
- A rate stated per hour worked.
- Daily rate
- A rate stated per day worked.
- Scale, grade or wording only
- The advert states pay in a form SchoolJobs does not classify (for example a pay scale alone, or wording without a stated basis). The advert's own wording is shown instead.
Common questions
What does FTE mean in a school job advert?
FTE stands for full-time equivalent. It is the salary the role would pay if it were full time, all year. A part-time or term-time-only post pays less than its FTE figure.
What is an actual salary?
The actual salary is what you would really be paid for the hours and weeks of that specific post. It is the figure that matters for your budget.
What does pro-rata mean?
Pro-rata means the advertised figure will be reduced in proportion to your hours or weeks. It is a signal that the figure shown is full-time equivalent, not actual pay.
Why does term-time-only pay less than the advertised salary?
Term-time-only contracts are paid for fewer weeks of the year than a full-year contract, so the actual salary is lower than the full-time equivalent even when the weekly hours are the same.
How do you work out actual pay from an FTE salary?
You need the hours per week, the school's full-time hours, and the paid weeks per year. Without all of those, actual pay cannot be worked out honestly — so we do not guess it.
What is a pay award?
A pay award is a national or local increase to pay scales. Some adverts state a figure that predates an award. Where an advert mentions this, we show its wording rather than adjusting the figure.
What School Jobs UK will never do
- Turn an hourly rate into a yearly salary, or a yearly salary into an hourly rate.
- Assume how many weeks a year a term-time post is paid for.
- Compare full-time-equivalent pay with actual pay as if they were the same thing.
- Show a single average for a salary that was advertised as a range.
- Estimate take-home pay after tax.
See live pay evidence in our market insights or browse salaries by role.