Cost of absence calculator
The direct cost of sickness absence is the days lost multiplied by the daily cost of an employee. At a 3% absence rate, that is 3% of your pay bill. Enter your own figures below to see the cost in pounds per year, per month and per employee.
Result
- Daily cost of one employee
- £119
- Days lost per employee per year
- 7.6
- Absence rate
- 3%
- Total days lost per year
- 1,518
- Annual pay bill (salaries)
- £6,000,000
- Direct cost as a share of payroll
- 3%
Not included. Open "Optional: indirect costs" to add paid cover or management time from your own figures.
How the calculator works
The calculator uses four steps. Each one is shown in the result panel, so you can check it by hand. The example uses the figures filled in above.
- Daily cost of an employee = annual salary / working days per year. At £30,000 and 253 days, that is about £118.58 a day, which the result panel rounds to £119.
- Days lost per employee = absence rate x working days. At 3% and 253 days, that is about 7.6 days a year. If you enter days lost directly, the calculator works out the rate instead.
- Total days lost = days lost per employee x number of employees. For 200 employees, about 1,518 days.
- Direct cost = total days lost x daily cost. That comes to £180,000 a year, or £15,000 a month and £900 per employee.
Because the daily cost comes from the same salary figure, the direct cost as a share of the pay bill always equals the absence rate. A 3% absence rate costs 3% of salaries. This is a useful check on any absence cost figure you are given.
What is and is not counted
Counted
- Direct wage cost: paid time for which no work was done, at the salary you enter. It is not new cash leaving the business. Cash costs appear when you pay someone else to cover the work.
- Paid cover, if you add it: the share of absence days on which you pay overtime, an agency worker or a relief worker, and what that costs compared with the absent employee.
- Manager and HR time, if you add it: minutes per absence spell and an hourly cost. The calculator counts spells as total days lost divided by the average spell length.
Not counted
- Employer National Insurance and pension contributions, unless you add them to the salary figure.
- The difference between full pay and sick pay. The calculator values every lost day at full salary. If you pay only Statutory Sick Pay for some days, the wage cost of those days is lower, but the work is still lost.
- Lost output, lower service levels and overtime fatigue. They are real, but hard to price in general, so they are left out rather than guessed.
- Holiday. Holiday is planned and paid, so it stays inside the working days figure and is not counted as absence. Use the same definition when you work out your absence rate, or the cost and the rate will not match.
The indirect costs are off by default. Many articles add a fixed multiplier for indirect costs, for example "indirect costs are twice the direct cost". The right number depends on whether the work waits, is spread across the team, or is paid as overtime or agency time, so the calculator starts at zero and lets you add your own.
Working days per year
A Monday to Friday employee has 261 weekdays in 2026. GOV.UK lists 8 bank holidays in England and Wales, and 10 each in Scotland and Northern Ireland, for 2026, all on weekdays (GOV.UK bank holidays). That leaves 253 working days in England and Wales and 251 in Scotland and Northern Ireland. For shift workers, use the number of shifts each person is scheduled to work in a year. A lower figure gives a higher daily cost.
Limits of this calculator
- It uses one average salary for everyone. Absence among higher earners costs more per day.
- It assumes every lost day is paid at full salary.
- The indirect costs are only as good as the inputs you give them.
- It gives an annual figure. It does not show which departments or people the cost comes from.
How Appsentia works out cost
Appsentia uses the direct cost method from this calculator, without the optional indirect costs. It multiplies sick leave days by the average daily salary you enter for the company, for all sick leave and for absences flagged in patterns. It works from leave records you upload as a CSV or Excel file from any system. Absences you exclude from scoring, such as pregnancy-related sickness, still count in cost. See what Appsentia does for UK employers and UK pricing.
Frequently asked questions
How do you calculate the cost of sickness absence?
Work out the daily cost of an employee: annual salary divided by working days per year. Multiply it by the days lost to absence in the year. For example, 200 employees on £30,000 a year with a 3% absence rate over 253 working days lose about 1,518 days at about £118.58 a day, which is £180,000 a year in paid time without work.
Does paid sick leave count as a cost of absence?
Yes. The employer pays for the day but gets no work for it. This calculator counts that paid, unworked time as the direct cost, at full salary. Where you pay only Statutory Sick Pay for a day, the wage cost of that day is lower, but the work is still lost.
How many working days are there in a year in the UK?
For a Monday to Friday employee in 2026: 261 weekdays, less the bank holidays that fall on a weekday. GOV.UK lists 8 in England and Wales and 10 each in Scotland and Northern Ireland for 2026, all on weekdays. That leaves 253 working days in England and Wales and 251 in Scotland and Northern Ireland.
Should I add a multiplier for indirect costs?
Only if you have your own numbers. The right figure depends on whether the work waits, is shared across the team, or is paid as overtime or agency time. Use your overtime and agency spend to set the cover inputs, and estimate management time per absence from your own process.
Sources
- GOV.UK, UK bank holidays, 2026 dates for England and Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.
Bank holidays checked on 11 November 2026. The default figures in the calculator are examples, not averages.
Work out absence cost from your own leave data
Upload leave records from any system as a CSV or Excel file. Appsentia shows the cost of sick leave, absence patterns and each employee's Bradford Factor, with your own trigger points. Free for 30 days for up to 10 employees.