£20 an hour is how much a year?

What this calculator does

This page converts hourly gross pay into annual, monthly and weekly figures. It does not include Income Tax, National Insurance, overtime, unpaid leave or shift premia. For take-home pay, use the salary calculator instead.

How people use this result

This rate is typical of retail, care, admin and service work, so the search intent is usually about rota patterns, paid weeks and whether overtime is realistic.

The visible mid-market band is useful because the same hourly headline can mean very different things depending on how many paid weeks and paid hours are actually on the contract.

Compare this with part-time or rota-based roles where paid weeks vary and the annual figure can be a lot lower than the hourly headline suggests.

Around this rate, a one-pound change is worth roughly £1,950 a year at 37.5 hours a week, so nearby adverts can look similar while still being materially different on annual income.

Compared with £18 an hour, this is about £3,900 more gross pay a year. Compared with £22 an hour, it is about £3,900 less.

What kind of job is this hourly rate usually for?

Lower hourly rates are usually compared against shift work, apprenticeships and early-career roles where paid hours matter more than the headline number. Mid-teens rates are often judged against rota patterns, overtime and whether the contract includes paid leave. Upper-tier hourly rates are more likely to be compared with salaried roles or contractor equivalents.

The practical question is not only whether the rate looks good, but whether the contract gives you enough paid hours to turn the rate into a usable annual income. That is why this page shows the contract-style annualisation rather than only a monthly conversion.

Common mistakes

People often multiply by 52 without checking paid weeks or unpaid leave. Another mistake is to compare a salaried role with an hourly contract that has fewer guaranteed hours, or to ignore whether the rate includes holiday pay.

The more specific the job description — for example, school term-time work, zero-hours hospitality shifts or a fixed contractor day-rate equivalent — the more likely the annual answer needs a contract check, not just arithmetic.

Why the result can differ

Programmatic pages use fixed example assumptions, so a different salary, rate, term, tariff or property value changes the output.

Fees, eligibility checks, product rules and legal thresholds may not be fully modelled on this example page.

Use the main calculator and official source links if you need a result for a decision.