School support staff jobs are nearly always advertised with an FTE salary, and it can come as a shock when the first payslip arrives.
FTE = full-time equivalent
The FTE salary is what the job would pay if you worked:
- full-time hours: 37 a week under the NJC Green Book, and
- all year: every week, with the full-time holiday entitlement.
Every post on the same spine point has the same FTE salary, whatever the hours. That makes it the fair way to compare jobs and to apply pay rises.
From FTE to actual salary
Two adjustments turn FTE into your actual salary:
- Hours: multiply by your hours ÷ 37.
- Weeks: multiply by your paid weeks ÷ 52.143. Paid weeks are the weeks you work plus your paid holiday. For a 39-week contract with Green Book leave and under 5 years’ service, that’s 44.652 weeks, so a factor of 0.8563.
Example: £26,427 FTE (SCP 5), 30 hours, 39 weeks: £26,427 × 30/37 × 0.8563 = £18,348.91 a year, or £1,529.08 a month. That’s 69% of the FTE.
The FTE to actual salary calculator does this for you.
Rough percentages for a 39-week contract
With Green Book holiday and under 5 years’ service, actual salary as a share of FTE is roughly:
| Hours per week | Actual salary as % of FTE |
|---|---|
| 10 | 23% |
| 15 | 35% |
| 20 | 46% |
| 25 | 58% |
| 30 | 69% |
| 32.5 | 75% |
| 37 | 86% |
Even at full-time hours, a term-time contract pays about 86% of the FTE, because you’re paid for 44.65 weeks rather than 52.143.
Words that mean different things
- “Actual salary”: the real annual pay after hours and weeks. This is the one to budget with.
- “Pro rata”: strictly, scaled to your hours. Some adverts use it loosely to mean actual salary.
- “Hourly rate”: FTE ÷ (37 × 52.143). The same for everyone on your spine point.
FTE and pay rises
The national pay award (usually from 1 April) is applied to the FTE salary for each spine point. Your actual salary goes up by the same percentage. For 2026/27 the award was 3.3% on most spine points.