Why is the permanent hire so expensive at low workloads?

Because you pay for the whole year and use part of it: 120 days of work buys 232 working days and leaves 112 idle, 48% of the year. That is not an argument against hiring, only against hiring for 120 days of work.

What happens at a full workload?

Push the workload slider to 232 days and the permanent hire climbs the ranking: about £243 for each day of work done, against roughly £511 for the contractor and £675 for the agency. Whether it also beats the automation depends on the coverage figure.

Where does 232 working days come from?

There are 260 weekdays in a year. Statutory paid holiday is 28 days for a five-day week (gov.uk/holiday-entitlement-rights, checked 26 August 2026), and 260 less 28 is 232. It is the same source as the 46 working weeks used across this site, in days.

Is the £500 day rate real?

Yes: the published median UK contract day rate for an Automation Engineer, from 121 quoted rates in the six months to 26 August 2026 (ITJobsWatch, checked 26 August 2026). The full table is in the day-rate explorer, and the figure stays editable here.

Where does the agency uplift figure come from?

Nowhere, deliberately: there is no honest published figure for what UK agencies add to a contractor rate, so none is claimed. The slider opens at 35%, a round number in the range people report. Replace it with the uplift from a real quote.

Why does the automation option use the permanent hire's day cost?

Because the work the automation does not take is still somebody's day. Pricing that remainder at the permanent option's loaded day rate keeps the four models honest: raise the salary and the automation option gets dearer too, because that person costs more.

Does this always say automate?

No. Enter the worked example's figures, drop coverage to twenty percent and push workload to 230 days: in year one the permanent hire wins, £56,264 against £59,451, by £3,187 (checked 26 August 2026). Every year after, automation wins, as the £15,000 build is paid once.

Staffing model calculator

Permanent hire, contractor, agency, or automate and keep the remainder in house. One workload, four prices, ranked as you type, with the cost of each day of work actually done.

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Days of this work a year120 daysOne person's working year is 232 days: 260 weekdays less the 28 days of statutory holiday (gov.uk, checked 26 August 2026). For more work than that, run this once per person.

Which year

Year one carries the recruitment fee and the build cost. Every year after carries neither.

CHEAPEST IN YEAR ONE

£18,165

automate it, keep the rest in house, £151 for each day of work actually done. That is £38,099 less than hire someone permanent.

01Automate it, keep the rest in house
£18,165
£151 a day of work done. £3,000 a year to run, plus 54 days a person still does, plus £3,000 to build.
Only honest if the coverage figure is honest. Set it low and watch this option lose, which is exactly what should happen.
02Hire someone permanent
£56,264
£469 a day of work done. £52,264 loaded, plus £4,000 to recruit them.
You are buying 232 days and using 120. 48% of the year is capacity you are paying for and not using.
03Bring in a contractor
£62,500
£521 a day of work done. 120 days at £500, plus 5 days finding and briefing.
No National Insurance, no pension, no idle capacity. You also keep none of what they learned once they leave.
04Put it through an agency
£81,000
£675 a day of work done. 120 days at £675, a 35% uplift on the day rate.
The uplift buys cover when someone leaves and someone else to blame. Whether that is worth it is a judgement, not a calculation.

01The permanent hire

Salary

£

Your figure. No salary benchmark is claimed on this page.Overhead, per year

£

Recruitment, one off

£

Loaded cost works out at £225 a day across 232 days, which is also what the in-house remainder below is priced at.

02The contractor and the agency

Contractor day rate

£

Default £500: the published median UK contract day rate for an Automation Engineer (ITJobsWatch, 6 months to 26 August 2026, 121 quoted rates).Days a year finding and briefing them

days

What an agency adds on top35%Set this from your own quotes. There is no honest published figure for UK agency uplift, so none is claimed here.

03Automating it

What the build costs, one off

£

Our one-off fee to build an agent is capped at £3,000, whatever the job turns out to involve. Fixed, and quoted in writing before anything starts.Running cost, per month

£

Model or API usage, hosting, licences, and whatever keeps it connected to your systems.How much of the work it could actually take55%At 55%, a person still does 54 days a year, costing £12,165. Push this down and this option should lose. If it does not, the other numbers need checking.

Deliberately left out: a permanent hire's knowledge of your business in three years, a contractor being busy next time, and an automation nobody maintains. All three are real; none has an honest number, so none is in the arithmetic.

WORKED EXAMPLE, NOT A RECOMMENDATION

120 days of this work a year. A £40,000 salary, £500 a day for a contractor, a 35% agency uplift, and an automation that could take 55% of it for £15,000 to build. Year one, ranked cheapest first:

01Automate it, keep the rest in house£30,165£251 a day
02Hire someone permanent£56,264£469 a day
03Bring in a contractor£62,500£521 a day
04Put it through an agency£81,000£675 a day

Those are the tool’s opening values, and the ranking is not fixed. Raise the workload towards a full year and drop the coverage figure to twenty percent, and in year one the permanent hire takes first place.

What the ranking assumes

Why is the permanent hire so expensive at low workloads?: Because you pay for the whole year and use part of it: 120 days of work buys 232 working days and leaves 112 idle, 48% of the year. That is not an argument against hiring, only against hiring for 120 days of work.
What happens at a full workload?: Push the workload slider to 232 days and the permanent hire climbs the ranking: about £243 for each day of work done, against roughly £511 for the contractor and £675 for the agency. Whether it also beats the automation depends on the coverage figure.
Where does 232 working days come from?: There are 260 weekdays in a year. Statutory paid holiday is 28 days for a five-day week (gov.uk/holiday-entitlement-rights, checked 26 August 2026), and 260 less 28 is 232. It is the same source as the 46 working weeks used across this site, in days.
Is the £500 day rate real?: Yes: the published median UK contract day rate for an Automation Engineer, from 121 quoted rates in the six months to 26 August 2026 (ITJobsWatch, checked 26 August 2026). The full table is in the day-rate explorer, and the figure stays editable here.
Where does the agency uplift figure come from?: Nowhere, deliberately: there is no honest published figure for what UK agencies add to a contractor rate, so none is claimed. The slider opens at 35%, a round number in the range people report. Replace it with the uplift from a real quote.
Why does the automation option use the permanent hire's day cost?: Because the work the automation does not take is still somebody's day. Pricing that remainder at the permanent option's loaded day rate keeps the four models honest: raise the salary and the automation option gets dearer too, because that person costs more.
Does this always say automate?: No. Enter the worked example's figures, drop coverage to twenty percent and push workload to 230 days: in year one the permanent hire wins, £56,264 against £59,451, by £3,187 (checked 26 August 2026). Every year after, automation wins, as the £15,000 build is paid once.

Carry on next door

An agent or another hire

The two-way version of this question, in more depth: coverage, supervision, and the break-even point.

Open it

UK automation day-rate explorer

The sourced table the £500 default comes from, with the roles either side of it and the sample behind each.

Open it

The ranking is the easy half

Whether the work is genuinely 120 days, and whether an automation could really take more than half of it, are the two figures that move everything else. Both are worth twenty minutes with us rather than a slider.

Book twenty minutes

A chat panel asking to shortlist for the coordinator role, the reply that 84 were read against the brief and 6 shortlisted with reasons, candidate panels joined by teal threads, and a run log. — The hiring run behind the staffing model. The figures are an illustration of a run, not a client's results.

Ran your numbers? Send us the figures and we will come back with a fixed price, or book twenty minutes and talk them through.

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