FTE Calculator NZ 2026
This calculator converts a headcount into full time equivalent, the number every budget, board report and funding application asks for and almost nobody keeps to hand. FTE expresses the hours your team actually works as a number of notional full time people, so a team of six that includes part timers might be 4.75 FTE. You enter a group of staff and the hours each of them works in a week, add as many groups as you need, and set the number of hours your organisation treats as full time. The calculator returns total FTE, total headcount, total weekly hours and the average FTE per person. The denominator matters more than people expect. There is no legal definition of full time hours in New Zealand: 40 hours a week is the most common convention, but 37.5 is widespread in the public sector and professional services, and the same team measured against 37.5 hours produces a visibly larger FTE than against 40. Always state the full time week alongside any FTE figure you report, because the number is meaningless without it. It is built for managers writing a staffing budget, charities and community groups completing funding applications where FTE is the required unit, and anyone who needs to explain a part time team in a single number.
| Group | Number of staff | Hours each per week | FTE |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 3.00 | ||
| 2 | 1.00 | ||
| 3 | 0.75 | ||
| 4 | 0.00 | ||
| 5 | 0.00 | ||
| 6 | 0.00 |
Annual hours are total weekly hours times 52 and are contracted hours, not hours actually worked: paid leave and public holidays come out of that figure. State the full time week whenever you quote an FTE number, because the same team gives a different answer against 37.5 hours.
How it works
Each group's weekly hours are the number of staff times the hours each of them works. A group's FTE is those hours divided by the full time week. Total FTE is the sum across every group, which is the same as total weekly hours divided by the full time week. Headcount is simply the number of people, however few hours they work. Average FTE per person divides total FTE by headcount and tells you how part time the team is overall: a figure near 1.0 means most people are close to full time, and a low figure means the headcount is carried by short hours. Annual hours multiply the weekly total by 52 weeks.
Worked example
A team has three people on 40 hours a week, two on 20 hours and one on 30 hours, and the organisation treats 40 hours as full time. The three full timers are 120 hours, the two part timers are 40 hours and the last person is 30 hours, so 190 hours a week in total. Divided by the 40 hour full time week that is 4.75 FTE from a headcount of 6, an average of 0.79 FTE per person, and 9,880 contracted hours across the year. Measured against a 37.5 hour full time week instead, the same team would be 5.07 FTE, which is why the denominator has to be stated.
Related calculators
- Payroll Cost: what that headcount costs to run.
- Labour Cost Percentage: what that team costs as a share of revenue.
- True Cost of an Employee: the loaded cost of one of them.
- Minimum Wage Increase: what 1 April does to this team.
- Pro Rata Salary: part time pay from a full time salary.